Sharing “the flesh of the world”: alterity, animality, and radical community in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy

<p>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).</p>

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Singer, Jonathan

• Merleau-Ponty
• phenomenology
• animal ethics
• animals
• alterity

Repository record dc:identifier

https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/295

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:via.library.depaul.edu:etd-1300