The Human at the Border of the Animal World

In the article, the interpretation of the modern philosophy of the opposition "human-animal" is investigated. The author allocates three strategies: animalization of the human, anthropomorphization of animals, conceptualization of the border between the human and the animal. In connection with the first strategy, the author considers the modern philosophy's interest in Aristotle and in Simon-don. In connection with the second strategy, the author analyzes Sloterdijk's concept of the "human zoo". In connection with the third strategy, the author investigates Agamben's concept of the "anthropological machine". The author draws conclusions that the attention of modern thinkers to Aristotle is connected with the fact that he equaled the human and the animal at the functional level in his treatises History of Animals and Parts of Animal. The interest in Simondon, a philosopher of the middle of the 20th century, is connected with the fact that his philosophy can be used as an additional argument for the abolition of borders between the human and the animal, and also between the human and the machine. The author of the article shows that Sloterdijk's concept of the "human zoo" contains some intellectual tricks. Firstly, Sloterdijk uses the concepts "animal" and "bestial" as synonyms and thus gives the concept "bestial" anthropological, but not zoological sense. Therefore, the phrase "human zoo" can be justified only as a provocation. Secondly, Sloterdijk interprets humanity in social but not in anthropological terms. The author of the article shows that Agamben's concept of the "anthropological machine" allows philosophy to declare the death of the human. The human is an ephemeral being. There is no human as a phenomenon. The human is a temporary effect by the anthropological machine that establishes distinctions between the human and the animal. However, this conclusion is superfluous because Agamben initially does not raise the question of the human as such and thinks of the human as of a derivative of a certain whole. All the studied strategies have a common anti-anthropocentric pathos, which is generally characteristic for modern philosophy. Modern philosophy sympathizes with the idea of the end of human exclusiveness. According to this idea, the human is deprived of ontological privileges. Removal of borders between the human and the animal is among similar processes in modern intellectual culture - abolition of borders between the human and the nature, the human and the technology, the human and the set of objects. It is natural that new concepts of the inhuman other and anthropology without the human emerge in modern philosophy and anthropology.

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