focus from whatever the animals can and cannot do or be—from their actions and powers—to their responses. According to Derrida, all doubts and questions that surround issues of logos, thought, and language disappear when we turn to the notion of suffering. “No one can deny the suffering, fear, or panic, the terror of fright that can seize certain animals and that we humans can witness” (2008, 28). Traditionally, the animal has not only been denied the right to speak, but also the opportunity to answer because of how language is delineated, and because language and reason are seen as powers one either does or does not possess. Taking the ability to suffer as the central notion reframes the question, and allows animals to answer. Suffering is, of course, not completely passive, and there is a contradiction in the question “can they suffer?,” because it is at once active (can) and passive (suffer). Humans are also affected, and they can suffer from the suffering of others.
It is important to note that there is no collective “animal” that suffers, acts, or responds. Non-human animals do not and cannot speak as one person with one voice—thinking this would yet again deprive them of a response. Language, and the word “animal,” deceives us. The word “animal” categorizes all non-human animals and distances humans from other animals (Derrida 2008, 31). Seeing all other animals as one group in contrast to humans reinforces anthropocentrism, which contributes to the legitimization of practices in which other animals are used for human benefit. Derrida argues that instead of one line between Man on the one side and Animal on the other, there is a multiple and heterogeneous border (2008, 31); beyond the edge of the “so-called human” (ibid.), we find a heterogeneous multiplicity of the living. To account for this multitude, he proposes to use the word “animot.” In speech it refers to the plural, the multiplicity of animals, which is necessary because there is no one “animal.” The “mot” in “animot” refers to the act of naming and the stakes involved in drawing a distinction between human and animal by the human. It reminds us of the fact that it is a word for animals, not a reference to an existing group of animals.
Acknowledging this multitude of other animals does not, however, mean that philosophy can just throw the difference between humans and other animals overboard. Derrida phrases this as follows: “To suppose that I, or anyone else for that matter, could ignore that rupture, indeed that abyss, would mean first of all blinding oneself to so much contrary evidence; and, as far as my own modest case is concerned, it would mean forgetting all the signs that I have managed to give, tirelessly, of my attention to difference, to differences, to heterogeneities and abyssal ruptures as against the homogeneous and the continuous” (2008, 30). This remark may seem puzzling and problematic in light of Derrida’s refusal to see “animal” as one group (Calarco 2008). There are three reasons why it is not. First, Derrida emphasizes the power relations that have formed current interpretations of “the human.” A naturalistic ethic, an empirical refutation of empirical claims stating that other animals are like humans, will not suffice. This would leave the structure of the debate intact, and could lead to measuring the worth of other animals on the basis of their resemblance to humans (Wolfe 2003). Second, and relatedly, “the multiple and heterogeneous border of this abyssal rupture” (Derrida 2008, 32) has a history. If we deny the abyss between human and animal that is so prominently present in the history of Western philosophy, we fail to challenge the discourse that produced it, which is necessary for thinking about alternatives. Third, Derrida argues that there is a multiplicity of organizations of relations that are at once “intertwined and abyssal” (ibid.). There is not one difference, not one abyss between human and animal, but a multitude of differences. Forgetting these differences would run the risk of flattening all individuals into the category “same.”9 Instead we need to think about how to interact with those who are different.
Derrida rightly directs our attention to the fact that instead of one difference, there are many differences that must be taken into account in thinking about human and non-human animals. Other animals need to be thought of in their own right, not on the basis of how much they resemble humans or how close they are to humans. It is important to note that in thinking about non-human animals, belonging to a certain species is not the defining characteristic of an individual. Each individual, human or non-human, belongs to different groups, with regard to gender, age, species, race, and so on. Species membership might matter under certain circumstances—for example, in thinking about habitat rights—and be less relevant in others—such as in forming friendships. Humans and other animals sometimes have close relations, and may even form communities. Non-human animals have their own species-specific languages, dialects, and cultural traditions (see chapter 2), but when animals of different species form communities, interspecies cultural norms and ways of creating meaning come into being and evolve. This happens at the level of society, for example, when dogs and humans became attuned to one another in processes of domestication (Haraway 2008); it can also happen on an individual level (Howard 1952; Smuts 2001), or in small interspecies communities (Howard 1952; Kerasote 2008).
While Derrida’s critical analysis of the construction of the concepts “animal” and “language” in the philosophical tradition is convincing, he does not offer a framework for thinking about non-human animal languages, interspecies languages, or positive human-animal relations. In his discussion of Heidegger, he argues that addressing unjust power relations cannot be a matter of “giving speech back” to animals.10 This would, according to him, leave the structure of the problem intact, because by offering this capacity to them, it would again be the human who determines the framework in which other animals can operate. The structure of inclusion and exclusion that this framework relies upon would not be challenged. While his critique of Heidegger is convincing, Derrida does not envision or explicate being with other animals in a different way, nor does he seriously discuss communication with other animals. This follows from his method of deconstruction, in which he shows that certain distinctions that are seen as constitutive are impossible to uphold. But it also seems to exaggerate the importance of species membership in building relations and communities, and in being able to speak.
Because he only focuses on the negative and does not build a positive framework in which we can rethink multispecies relations, Derrida also fails to offer a starting point for rethinking the meaning of concepts with other animals, which is necessary if we want to move beyond anthropocentrism. This runs the risk of reinforcing a view of other animals as silent, which is ontologically problematic and has consequences for the social and political position of other animals. Furthermore, it does not take into account that other animals do speak, whether or not humans acknowledge the fact.
Speaking Back
Derrida’s cat sits in the bathroom and looks at him. “I must immediately make it clear,” he writes, “the cat I am talking about is a real cat, truly, believe me, a little cat. It isn’t the figure of a cat. It doesn’t silently enter the bedroom as an allegory for all the cats on the earth, the felines that traverse our myths and religions, literature and fables” (2008, 6). This real cat’s gaze makes him uncomfortable, which is the starting point for his reflections. The cat sits there while Derrida writes about human and non-human animals, about the human and the animal—he returns to her every now and then.
In response to Heidegger’s view that only human animals understand themselves as being, possess language, and have a world, Derrida argues that there are no such things as a “human” or an “animal,” and that we should problematize the kind of understanding that humans have of their own condition—as regards reason, language, death, and so on. There are different ways of understanding one’s surroundings, responding to them, and being in the world more generally. This appeal to “pluralizing and varying the ‘as such’” (2008, 160) is important, and we should indeed understand that humans do not have the powers they like to think they have—we are as vulnerable as other animals, and our knowledge is always limited by our sensory mechanisms, ways of being situated socially and politically, or more generally, by our specific ways of being. However, Derrida also argues that we should not simply give speech back to animals, an argument that, once we read
