The Suffering Animal : Life Between Weakness and Power

Simone Ghelli

ISBN 10: 3031329813 / ISBN 13: 9783031329814

Published by Springer International Publishing, Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023

About this Item

Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - This book provides a critical and innovative reassessment of contemporary debate on the human-animal relationship. Starting with a critique of the 'official philosophical narration' of animal studies, and then a reassessment of Descartes' animal-machine paradigm, Simone Ghelli tracks down the conceptual coordinates of what he calls 'the paradigm of the suffering animal.' The suffering animal is a materialist thesis on the condition of the living, which, while contesting the metaphysical and anthropocentric structure of western axiology, eventually redefines and re-establishes ethics on the experience of suffering, that is on the mutual compassion sentient beings feel before the unjust sight of their finitude. The suffering animal paradigm shows how, within our philosophical tradition, the animal question has been always intertwined with the questions of atheism and of materialism. The ultimate aim of this research is to define the 'ethical equilibrium' between aspects of the living,such as weakness and power, joy and suffering, life and death, which our philosophical tradition largely tends to consider as mutually excluding. To overcome such oppositions means avoiding opposing, in our ethical and political discourse, the defense of the vulnerability of the weak and the freedomof the powerful.

Seller Inventory # 9783031329814

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Suffering Animal : Life Between Weakness and Power
• Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Springer Nature Switzerland
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3031329813
• ISBN 13: 9783031329814
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 216W x 153H x 19D millimeters 216 millimeters width by 153 millimeters height by 19 millimeters depth
• Weight: 443 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This book provides a critical and innovative reassessment of contemporary debate on the human-animal relationship. Starting with a critique of the “official philosophical narration” of animal studies, and then a reassessment of Descartes' animal-machine paradigm, Simone Ghelli tracks down the conceptual coordinates of what he calls “the paradigm of the suffering animal.” The suffering animal is a materialist thesis on the condition of the living, which, while contesting the metaphysical and anthropocentric structure of western axiology, eventually redefines and re-establishes ethics on the experience of suffering, that is on the mutual compassion sentient beings feel before the unjust sight of their finitude. The suffering animal paradigm shows how, within our philosophical tradition, the animal question has been always intertwined with the questions of atheism and of materialism. The ultimate aim of this research is to define the “ethical equilibrium” between aspects of the living,such as weakness and power, joy and suffering, life and death, which our philosophical tradition largely tends to consider as mutually excluding. To overcome such oppositions means avoiding opposing, in our ethical and political discourse, the defense of the vulnerability of the weak and the freedom of the powerful.

About the Author

Simone Ghelli is a postdoctoral researcher at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy.