Husserl's phenomenology of animality and the paradoxes of normality

Cristian Ciocan

Universitatea din București

pp. 175-190

in: Human Studies 40 (2), 2017.

Abstract

In this article, I will discuss the Husserlian phenomenology of animality, by focusing on several texts of the 1920s in which the animal is determined as an abnormal variation of the human being. My aim is to address the question of the abnormality of the animal by reintegrating it in its original context, which is Husserl's theory of normality. I will sketch the general framework of this theory, its articulations and strata, in order to eventually raise some paradoxical issues, specifically in relation to how the question of animality is interpreted through the couple normality/abnormality.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund