Much has been written about animals in applied ethics, environmental ethics, and animal rights. This book takes a new turn, offering an examination of the 'animal question' from a more fundamental, philosophical-anthropological perspective. The contributors in this important volume focus on how the animal has appeared and can be used in philosophical argumentation as a metaphor or reference point that helps us understand what is distinctively human and what is not. A recurring theme in the essays is the existence of a zone of ambiguity between animals and humans, which puts into question comfortable assumptions about the uniqueness and superiority of human nature.

While the chapters straddle the boundaries of historical-philosophical and systematic, continental and analytic approaches, their thematic unity knits them together, presenting a rich, broad, and yet cohesive perspective. The first part of the book offers general explorations of the relation between animal and human nature, and of the concomitant existential and ethical dimensions of this relationship. The chapters in the second part address the same theme, but, in so doing, focus on specific aspects of animal and human nature: imagination, politics, history, sense, finitude, and science

Geoffrey Dierckxsensobtained his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Antwerp.

Rudmer Bijlsmais a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa.

Michael Begun is a graduate student in philosophy at Fordham University.

Thomas Kiefer is a graduate student in philosophy at Fordham University.

Introduction /PART I: General Explorations of Human and Animal Nature/ 1. Nonhuman animals: a shared life and a licence to kill,Giulia Sissa/ 2.KataPhusin: Ancient and Contemporary Perspectives on the Hermeneutics of Animality,Thomas Kiefer/ 3. Human Beings and Animals in Early Modern Philosophy,Rudmer Bijlsma/ 4. 'An Insect Fallen on Its Back': Animal Imagery in the Work of Jean-Paul Sartre,Jo Bogaerts/ 5. What is Distinctively Human? Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre on the Relation between Humans and Animals,Rob Compaijen and Michiel Meijer/ 6. Is it better to be a Human than a Lion?: An Analysis of Weighing Species Being,Lantz Miller /PART II: Aspects of Human and Animal Nature/ 7. Imagination -The Imagination of Animals,Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei/ 8. The Political AnimalWerewolves: A Reconsideration of Hobbess State of Nature from the Perspective of Biopolitics,Herbert De Vriese/ 9. History - 'The Genuine Problem of the Human Being': Nietzsche, Animality, and History,Michael Begun /10. Sense -The Hermeneutical Animal: Making Sense of Animals 'In the Flesh', Geoffrey Dierckxsens/ 11. Finitude-Being-toward-Meat: An Analytic of Human-Animal Finitude,Matthew Calarco/ 12. Science- Mirror Neurons and the New Red Peter,Babette Babich/ Index