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Document Details :

Title: Priver de monde, priver de vie
Author(s): BURGAT, Florence
Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies
Volume: 6    Date: 2022   
Pages: 209-221
DOI: 10.2143/EPH.6.0.3289798

Abstract :
The starting point of this reflection on the conditions of possibility for living an individuated life is the definition of the animal well-being as an organism’s adaptation to its environment. Formulated by the contemporary biology of behavior, this reductionist definition is framed in the rationality of intensive confined farming. First, I trace the genealogy of this definition as well as the definition of the 'surrounding world'; second, I compare and contrast these definitions with the definition that phenomenology offers of behavior and the animal world; third, I show how and why cages or confined buildings can never constitute an appropriate surrounding world for living a life that chooses itself. The psychopathologies developed by animals living in these conditions will convince any skeptical mind. I conclude by evoking via Adorno the dependence that exists between a reductionist science and the market that it serves.

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