behavior, seems itself to carry traces of the problem it tries to address. The idea that humans have the power to give speech back to animals implies a hierarchy—the human decides who gets what—and also implies that other animals do not currently speak.11 For Derrida, this power is never ultimate and can never not be deconstructed, but here he is still seeing language as exclusively human, something that is also evident in how he approaches interaction with other animals. There are three problems with this view.
First of all, it is important to recognize that there is a close relationship between language and intersubjectivity. Speech and language can and do create common, interspecies worlds, and are ways of expressing these. Non-human animals express themselves, and these expressions need to be taken into account if we want to adequately address how they have been silenced in the philosophical tradition, and more especially if we want to move beyond that. Derrida describes in detail how his cat companion looks at him while he is in the bathroom, naked. The gaze of the cat affects him; it makes him feel naked and ashamed. The cat looks at him but does not speak, he looks at the cat but does not speak to her, nor does he touch her or communicate with her in any other way (Haraway 2008; Warkentin 2010). Looking at someone, making eye contact or avoiding eye contact, is an act of communication. Derrida does not mention eye contact with the cat; the situation is fixed and silent like a film still. We see a scene with a naked man and a cat, told from the perspective of the man. We do not know whether the cat wants to leave the room, if she is hungry, upset, or if she wants to play. There is no interaction, and therefore no space for the cat to give meaning to the situation. The cat is merely an animal mirror in which Derrida sees himself reflected, naked. If the human is the only party to the interaction who thinks about their difference, the non-human animal individual remains dependent on the human to interpret and acknowledge her presence. In his discussion of Bentham, Derrida appreciates the change in question, the move to receiving, suffering, answering, and the power in these seemingly passive acts. His response to the gaze of the cat is an illustration of this; he cannot help becoming embarrassed and feeling ashamed. But although he describes many different—real and imaginary—animals in detail,12 he never mentions an actual non-human animal responding to him, and there is no mention of a dialogue between humans and other animals. This is unfortunate, because other animals do express themselves and can be consulted. In order to create a meaningful dialogue, we need to ask other animals questions and respond to them, not just look at them looking at us.
The second objection to Derrida’s remark is that there is political power in explicating animal speech and voice, and in addressing the epistemic dimensions of violence inherent in viewing non-human animals as silent (chapter 4). Who speaks, who is heard, and who determines this are important questions in political interspecies interactions. As we have already seen, there is a strong connection between anthropocentrism—seeing language as exclusively human—and the borders of the political community. Viewing other animals as silent and incapable of language and speech—which is often connected to other negative stereotypes, such as seeing them as unruly, unreasonable, or just plain stupid—reinforces their status as objects that we can treat in any way we wish. Furthermore, defining language as human language and excluding other animals from it by definition leads to a situation in which there is no common language with which they can address the harms done to them,13 even though they do communicate with us and try to make themselves known (Derrida 2008; Lyotard 1988; Meijer 2016). Investigating how other animals have been silenced as social groups14 can help to clarify power relations. Animal activists often point out similarities between human and non-human animals, and stress that other animals are subjects with their own views on life. Drawing attention to their languages and bringing to light what they say to us has great potential for improving their social and political status (chapter 7). Speaking for them and letting them speak for themselves are both important, and language is an essential tool in working towards change and developing new forms of political interaction.
The third objection arises as regards the meaning of “speech” in “giving speech back to animals.” What is meant by speech—who speaks and who has been allowed to speak—has changed over time, and differs between human and non-human, Western and non-Western cultures. It will change again, under the influence of social movements, cultural changes, and, in the case of non-human animals, empirical research. Exploring the history of existing concepts can function as a tool in envisioning change. In order to move away from anthropocentrism, however, we need to begin to reconsider the meaning of these concepts with other animals.
Rethinking Language with Other Animals
Rethinking language with other animals starts from two directions. First, it is important to recognize that humans and other animals share languages, or language games, in which non-human animals exercise agency. I will discuss this in more detail in the next chapter. Second, existing human concepts are already influenced by animals of different species, because humans and other animals coexist and coevolve. Raimond Gaita (2002) argues for taking the public character of language into account in interspecies communities. He gives the example of intentions (2002, 60) and states that it is wrong to think that this is a human concept that we do, or do not, apply to other animals. Rather, the meaning of “intention” is formed by interaction with, and influenced by, the behavior of different kinds of animals; humans learn what it means by watching the intentions of other animals and humans, by reading about the intentions of others in books, and by understanding their own intentions as intentions. In this view, stating that other animals have intentions is not anthropomorphic, not because of its truth value as a judgment of the mental states of other animals, but because animal intentions are part of what gives the concept “intention” its meaning. Because the meaning of concepts comes into being and can be subject to change in interactions with other animals, communicating with them in new ways can change this meaning. Humans can experience this at an individual level; if one grows up only with humans, a concept such as love might be mostly understood as love in relation to humans, something that a close relationship with an individual of another species in later life can change. But it can also take place at a social and political level; the concept of “rights” changes meaning—the way that it does with women’s rights—when animal rights are discussed, and would change meaning again if they were to be implemented in society and were further developed in interaction with other animals (chapter 8).
Rethinking language involves more than rethinking human concepts. Other animals have their own species-specific languages, something that will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. Using the word “language” to describe communication with and between non-human animals is, however, contentious. It is seen as problematic in animal philosophy because of the anthropocentric history of the concept of “language” (see, for example, Calarco 2008; Derrida 2008) and in other fields of study it is often seen as anthropomorphic. Humans who argue for taking other animals into account in moral and political decisions are often accused of anthropomorphism, of attributing human characteristics to non-human animals (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2013a). This usually refers back to skepticism about other animals’ minds, which is often connected to the fact that most of them do not speak in human language (chapter 3). It is argued that humans can never gain insight into the emotions and language of members of other species precisely because they belong to different species and their perception of the world is radically different. A primary problem with this view is that it is unclear why species membership is a relevant characteristic in understanding someone else; there are many differences between individuals from different groups, and while these differences may influence possibilities for understanding, meaning is always generated between different perspectives and comes into being through interaction, not by referring to a pre-given truth. Species membership matters, but so do other characteristics. Second, sharing a language is no guarantee of understanding someone; human language can, for example, also deceive, and the risk of misunderstanding is always inherent in communicating with others. A third objection is that it does not take the public character of language into account (see chapters 2 & 3).
