Felice Cimatti
Centro Studi Filosofia e Psicoanalisi (www.http://centrostudifilosofiaepsicoanalisi.unical.it/)
Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio
(http://www.rifl.unical.it/)
Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio
(http://www.rifl.unical.it/)
less
InterestsView All (14)
Uploads
Papers by Felice Cimatti
world that had always been there, but which she had never allowed herself to imagine. The cockroach is a mistake,
as it was never meant to be encountered, but it is also an opportunity. G.H. finds something of herself in the cockroach, and thus finds that the cockroach is not out there: the cockroach is inside, has always been inside. At the end
of the novel G.H. will find herself neither outside nor inside. She has herself become a porous surface, between
human and insect, between inside and outside, between thought and mouth. The cockroach is an exemplary case
of an experience that always arises from an error, from an encounter with the real.
world that had always been there, but which she had never allowed herself to imagine. The cockroach is a mistake,
as it was never meant to be encountered, but it is also an opportunity. G.H. finds something of herself in the cockroach, and thus finds that the cockroach is not out there: the cockroach is inside, has always been inside. At the end
of the novel G.H. will find herself neither outside nor inside. She has herself become a porous surface, between
human and insect, between inside and outside, between thought and mouth. The cockroach is an exemplary case
of an experience that always arises from an error, from an encounter with the real.
In this paper, I shall analyse the relationship between Lacan and Wittgenstein. The passages in the (published and
unpublished) Seminars are discussed where Lacan explicitly quotes Wittgenstein. What Lacan finds in the Tractatus is:
a) a consistent description of the logical system of language; b) a precise analysis of the place of an autonomous subject
(or, better, lack thereof) in the system of language. This is consonant with Lacan’s representation of the grip of
language on the body. Wittgenstein thinks that a way of breaking free of language lies in what he calls the “Mystical”.
In this paper I claim that Lacan's conception of psychoanalysis begins where Wittgenstein said one must stop by passing
over in silence (Tractatus, § 7). From this point of view, one can interpret Lacan’s work as an attempt to imagine the
shape of proposition 8 of the Tractatus.
Proposes a philosophical concept of animality that applies to both human and nonhuman living beings
Draws the first fully detailed cartography of the complex field of animality as it appears in continental philosophy, literary studies, environmental humanities, anthropocene studies, feminist studies, posthumanism, and critical animal studies
Covers two points that have never before been addressed: the deep connection between the question of the lack of animality in human beings and language; and the connection between post-humanism and human animality
Explores the problem of animality in psychoanalysis, in particular in the work of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Jacques-Alain Miller
Comments on some of the most important scientists and philosophers who dealt with the theme of animality: von Uexküll, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari and Agamben
The animality of human beings is completely unknown. Being human means to be something other than an animal, to not be an animal. Felice Cimatti, with reference to the work of Gilles Deleuze, explores what human animality looks like. He shows that becoming animal means to stop thinking of humanity as the reference point of nature and the world. It means that our value as humans has the very same value as a cloud, a rock or a spider.
Drawing on a wide range of texts – from philosophical ethology to classical texts, and from continental philosophy to literature – Cimatti creates a dialogue with Flaubert, Derrida, Temple Grandin, Heidegger as well as Malaparte and Landolfi – as part of this intriguing discussion about our humanity – and our unknown animality.
Literary Case Studies
Franz Kafka: 'The Wish to be a Red Indian' and 'A Report to an Academy'
Temple Grandin: Animals in Translation: The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow
Curzio Malaparte: Kaputt
D. H. Lawrence: 'St Mawr' and 'The Man Who Died'
Gustave Flaubert: 'La légende de saint-Julien l'Hospitalier'
Romeo Castellucci's theatre