Graduation Date
6-2020
Document Type
Dissertation
Department/Program Conferring Degree
Philosophy
Keywords
Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology, animal ethics, animals, alterity
Abstract
In this dissertation, I closely examine Maurice Merleau-Ponty's treatment of non-human ("animal") subjectivities and his later conception of the relationship - or what he calls the "strange kinship'' - between 'the human" and "the animal." I argue that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy - especially the relational ontology of "flesh" that he develops in his later writings - provides powerful resources for dismantling anthropocentric or human-exceptionalist philosophical commitments, as well as a positive basis for deveiopi.ng a genuinely non-anthropocentric or anti-speciesist understanding of moral and political community (one that would be a better alternative to traditional anti-speciesist moral and political theories).
Recommended Citation
Singer, Jonathan, "Sharing “the flesh of the world”: alterity, animality, and radical community in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy" (2020). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 295.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/295