Abstract

The objective of this thesis is twofold: On the one hand, this thesis is a critical assessment of the legacy of Western philosophy from the perspective of those beings that it has consistently excluded from its realm of concern: the so-called 'non-human animal'. In the first part I examine some parallels between the ideas that led to the Nazi Holocaust of over 6 million Jews and others and the ideologies and concepts that underlie the continuing murder of over 9 billion animals in North America's slaughterhouses every year. Starting out with the work of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, I attempt to show that there are more than a few accidental affinities between the ways the Nazis treated and conceptualized the Jews and the ways in which some of the most important philosophers in the history of Western philosophy have thought about animals. In the second part, through the work of Jacques Derrida I shall embark on a radical examination of the human-animal binary by taking a closer look at the function and genesis of the concept of 'the animal'. My main focus here is on the significance of our practices of "eating" animals. I shall analyze how the act of killing and eating animals communicates a certain self-understanding or truth about ourselves that needs to be decoded and analyzed if we want to lastingly subvert our oppressive-exploitative attitude towards nonhuman animals. The aim of both parts is to disrupt the veiling normalcy of the violence we continue to inflict upon literally countless animals every year and to devise and open possible forms of opposition against this violence.