"A Dog Does Not Exist but Merely Lives": The Question of Animality in Heidegger's Philosophy

The objective of this paper is to critically revise the anthropocentric perspective that conditions the Heideggerian philosophy of animality. I shall criticize this theoretical assumption as shared by Heidegger in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude (1929-1930) and in some of Heidegger's later reflections on animality following the Kehre, such as the Letter on Humanism (1946) and the Zollikon Seminars (1959-1969). Hence, the main issue I am raising here is that Heidegger's reflection on animality is revealed as a theoretical strategy aimed at exorcising the presence of the animal in the human and the presence of the natural-biological in the linguistic-spiritual. In my opinion, rather than outlining a withdrawal from the humanist perspective pertaining to metaphysics, Heidegger's philosophy marks its radicalisation in a hyper-humanist sense. Indeed, Heidegger reveals himself as being incapable of understanding the deep ontological nexus that unites animality and humanity.