Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:58:22 +0100
From: "steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: what it is to be human ...


Eric

All three.

It is the opposite of reductionist - those who produce a difference 
between a human and  another animal are all to often remaining in the 
fraudulent intellectual terriroty of Descartes and his followers. The 
argument  is  that there is no substansive difference between creatures 
we are merely animals.  Modern day reductionism is contained in Lyotards 
statement on the 'cat' and the 'infant'...

Ethically - no ethics which allows a heirachical difference to be 
confirmed between a human and an animal - is acceptable.

Scientifically of course there is no question - post genetics and 
Darwinian evolution there is merely the issue of how it is possible for 
a human being to still imagine that there is a heirarchy of value 
between a human and another animal. Rather there is mere difference...

steve





Eric wrote:

>Steve,
>
>This non-difference between the human and animal, which sounds
>reductionist to my ears (and probably to the dead ears of Lyotard), do
>you mean it ethically, ontologically, or in some other mode?
>
>Eric
>
>
>  
>


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