Animal selfhood and affectivity in Helmuth Plessner's philosophical biology

Abstract

AbstractHelmuth Plessner's philosophical anthropology is undergirded by a comprehensive theory of living nature. Central to this philosophical biology is the claim that animals lack self‐consciousness but their awareness of their surroundings is nevertheless anchored in a self. Since Plessner does not explain how this unselfconscious self is manifest to the animal, the warrant for his claim remains unclear. Following Plessner's construal of human existence as a radically transformed variant of animal life, I argue that he leaves animals' selfhood unaccounted for because he overlooks the animal precursor of the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, which affords a pre‐reflective self‐awareness. I fill this lacuna by drawing on Kant's and Plessner's theories of human feelings, Hans Jonas's conception of animal emotion, and recent arguments that make evaluative affects fundamental to animal consciousness. Revised along these lines, Plessner's framework allows us to specify how animal affectivity is transformed in self‐conscious human life.