Marginality of the Animal Nature in the Economy of Human Existence: Historical and Philosophical Analysis

Aim. To disclose the meaning of the problem of a person’s devaluing attitude towards his animal nature, concentrated in his own body, through his perception as the Other, as a result of a historical and philosophical analysis of the concepts of J. Simondon, J. Bataille and M. Foucault.

Methodology. Philosophical-anthropological and historical-philosophical approaches are used along with comparative, dialectical and hermeneutical methods, which allow us to non-classically analyze and systematically rethink the specifics of the problematic relationship between man and his animal being in order to find ways to fully ensure their harmoniously ordered unity.

Results. According to the results of the study, it was revealed that the deep contradiction between human and animal arises in a complex dynamic process of economic relations, in which the human body becomes the central source of violence and the spread of repressive relations due to the fact that it does not correspond to the capitalistically idealized process of self-determination, which is why its animal origin is devalued and perceived as the marginal Other, pushed into an unconscious dimension. Therefore, in J. Simondon’s theory of individuation, the beginning of contradictions between them is an ontological dualism based on a substantial approach in which a person as an individual is considered in priority over an animal, which in turn is understood as its archaic relic. Simondon justifies individuation as a transindividual process of transduction, in which both animal and human are complementary phases of a single, animated, and thus evolving being in its integrity. In J. Bataille’s concept, an animal has a sacramental significance for a person through his own body, which is why he is a religiously erotic being who exposes his worship to him through a transgressive experience of self-determination in the process of overcoming various rules, norms, laws and prohibitions prevailing under the capitalist form of organization of economic life. In the concept of M. Foucault’s animal, which manifests itself in an unconscious form in the human body, is subjected to violent treatment through disciplinary practices of anonymous control and coercion in a symbolic form, thus forming in economic life the phenomenon of bio-power, reducing everything human in man to the non-human Other, with whom he conducts an irreconcilable struggle through himself.

Research implications. The peculiarity of the theoretical and practical component of this study consists mainly in the interdisciplinary approach, which made it possible to formulate the problem of an animal as an unconscious Other, within the framework of the historical and philosophical analysis of the concepts of J. Simondon, J. Bataille and M. Foucault. This study allows us to expand economic and philosophical horizons in the perspective of a deeper consideration and understanding of the processes of crisis self-determination of a person based on the emerging problematic relationship with his own body, personifying his animal counterpart. Also, the results of this research can be used as material for lectures and seminars within the framework of university courses on the history of philosophy, philosophical anthropology, as well as in the applied field of theoretical psychoanalysis.

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