深渊之前：阿甘本论海德格尔与生命.pdfVIP

Continental Philosophy Review (2007) 40:1–16 Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s11007-007-9047-4 Before the abyss: Agamben on Heidegger and the living TRACY COLONY European College of Liberal Arts, Platanenstrasse 24, 13156, Berlin, Germany (E-mail: tcolony@) Abstract. In his recent book The Open: Man and Animal, Giorgio Agamben examines the relation between the essence of the human and the living in Martin Heidegger’s thought. Focusing on the treatment of this relation in Heidegger’s 1929/30 lecture course ‘‘The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,’’ Agamben argues that the dimension of the open, which is central to Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence, can be seen as implicitly dependent upon Heidegger’s account of the essence of animality. In this essay, I argue that Agamben’s reading is insufficient because it has not taken full account of the specifically temporal character of the openness proper to Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence. In conclusion, I present an alternative account of the way in which Heidegger framed his descriptions of animality in the 1929/ 30 lecture course as articulating the openness characteristic of human being. Key words: Heidegger, Agamben, Humanism, Animality Of all the beings that are, presumably the most difficult to think about are living creatures, because on the one hand they are in a certain way most closely akin to us, and on the other are at the same time separated from our ek-sistent essence by an abyss.1 One of the most questioned aspects of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy has been its absolute division between what is defined as a living being and the essence of human being. Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence as a figure of openness, whether in the early works as ecstatic temporality or later as an ecstasis in being, can be seen