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Document Details :

Title: We Have Never Been Animals
Subtitle: Heidegger's Posthumanism
Author(s): CROWELL, Steven
Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies
Volume: 1    Date: 2017   
Pages: 217-240
DOI: 10.2143/EPH.1.0.3188849

Abstract :
The relation between Dasein and the human being was never adequately characterized in Being and Time. In the decade following that publication, Heidegger explored this relation as he tried to work out a phenomenologically based metaphysics. A key moment in this attempt is found in his discussion of the animal in his 1929/30 lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. This paper explores Heidegger’s treatment of the difference between the animal (including homo sapiens) and the 'Dasein in us'. It does so in dialogue with a recent example of what I call 'bio-posthumanism', the view that there is no normatively meaningful distinction to be drawn between human beings and other animals. A picture of Heidegger’s phenomenological post-humanism emerges.

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