Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human

by Kelly Oliver

Philosophy reads humanity against animality, arguing that "man" is man because he is separate from beast. Deftly challenging this position, Kelly Oliver proves that, in fact, it is the animal that teaches us to be human. Through their sex, their habits, and our perception of their purpose, animals show us how not to be them.

This kinship plays out in a number of ways. We sacrifice animals to establish human kinship, but without the animal, the bonds of "brotherhood" fall apart. Either kinship with animals is possible or kinship with humans is impossible. Philosophy holds that humans and animals are distinct, but in defending this position, the discipline depends on a discourse that relies on the animal for its very definition of the human. Through these and other examples, Oliver does more than just establish an animal ethics. She transforms ethics by showing how its very origin is dependent upon the animal. Examining for the first time the treatment of the animal in the work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Agamben, Freud, Lacan, and Kristeva, among others, Animal Lessons argues that the animal bites back, thereby reopening the question of the animal for philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Animals, Nonfiction

364 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2009

About the author

Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of four mysteries series:
Jessica James Mysteries (contemporary suspense), Pet Detective Mysteries (middle grade), Fiona Figg Mysteries (historical cozies), and The Detection Club Mysteries (traditional).

When she’s not writing mysteries, Kelly is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

Kelly lives in Nashville with three very demanding felines.

To learn more about Kelly and her books, please visit her website at www.kellyoliverbooks.com.

Reviews

[Karl Steel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great and boggy disappointment. Do we need yet another book cataloging the failures of Lacan and Heidegger on animals? After Derrida, after Calarco, after Wolfe, probably not. It does help that Oliver gives us chapters on the failures of Freud and Kristeva, Rousseau and Herder, de Beauvoir and Agamben, and on the successes of Derrida and Merleau-Ponty, but the failures are all roughly the same (animals stand in for the body, or the presymbolic, or they're symbolic substitutions of family relationships or drives, or human sociality forms around eating them and not other humans, or animals lack the 'as such,' with all that implies), and as for the successes, well, they've been cataloged too. It would have been more efficient, then, to present the book thematically rather than as successive brief chapter summaries of the animal attitudes of various philosophers.

And greater efficiency is needed. The book is unnecessarily long for what it delivers. Owing to its organization, Oliver repeats herself frequently, and then explains that time and space prevented her from dealing with Deleuze and Guattari on animals (let alone Montaigne, who surely deserves a place in here). She should have made room, though, as that would have cut down the padding in the Rousseau and Kristeva chapters, and eliminated the repetition of certain quotations (cf. 321 n9 to 319 n33). Had she trimmed, say, 20,000 words, she could have made room, as well, for Cary Wolfe's "Logic of the Pet" (and indeed, while she cites Wolfe frequently, she never cites Animal Rites, whose points she often repeats; likewise, there are sadly few references to Donovan and Adams, and none at all to Ralph Acampora, despite the phenomenological turn she takes towards the end). She could have made space to acknowledge (and Wolfe would have helped here too) the tensions between Ecocriticism and Critical Animal Theory: the former deals with whole systems, and the latter, regardless of its sophistication, with individuals. Critical Animal Theory, as interested as it is in particular cats and dogs, too often forgets this.

This isn't to say that Oliver has nothing to say for Critical Animal Theory: it's good to have another strong feminist voice, good to have more exposition on Derrida's hyperbolic ethics, and good to see Merleau-Ponty get his due, for example:

Unlike Heidegger, he does not distinguish between merely living and existing; rather, living beings exhibit different styles of existing. If meaning, style, expression, and logos are already exhibited in behavior, then animals also are intentional beings oriented to their environments and others....Perhaps the most fundamental difference is that for Merleau-Ponty, instincts are aimed toward pleasure, whereas for Heidegger, they are aimed toward self-preservation. (213)

Zing! Take that, Heidegger, and go cherish your being seriously elsewhere while we sit here and play with our reversible flesh.

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I read almost half of "Animal Lessons" I greatly enjoyed what I did get through (chapters 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, so on Derrida, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Kristeva). Yes, Oliver does have a highly repetitive writing style and there were times when I wished she would go more in-depth or even further beyond the material she was looking at, rather than simply backpeddaling and repeating her initial thesis-like thoughts to the reader. However, as someone who hasn't read most of these theorists directly, Oliver's writing style is highly accessible and the repetition does have a silver lining to it by helping to reinforce Oliver's thoughts. It's a good starting point and a great resource, although I was really surprised that Deleuze and Guattari were not included in here, whereas Derrida got two chapters, both an individual one and in pairing with Rousseau, so the selection criteria is a bit iffy and could have been better/more diverse (I similarly think of Elizabeth Grosz and Jane Bennett, who I believe also had some interesting things to say about animals, and the notable absence of Donna Harraway feels like a big oversight). So for those who, like me, don't have the solid background in the subject, "Animal Lessons" is a great place to start and an accessible entry point, though it's not entirely clear/self-guiding on where one might go from here.

[Mirrani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was sadly disappointed with this book, which I was hoping would deliver so much more. I felt as if there was a lot of rambling for a little content that didn't exactly match the nature of the title. It wasn't so much as what animals teach us as it was a comparison of human behavior to that of animals. If you are looking for a book that questions the divide between human and animal, something that defines where the line is drawn, that is the real question discussed in this book. I am sure someone more familiar with the field would have a better, more critical opinion than this one, but it was a real struggle for me to keep my focus on the text, even though I was honestly curious about the subject matter.