Nature's Metabolism: On Eating in Derrida, Agamben, and Spinoza

This article studies a series of provocative references to Spinoza by Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben. For both contemporary philosophers, the context is discussions of eating, a subject matter that turns out to involve such central issues as subjectivity, nature, ethics, and teleology. Each sit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research in phenomenology 2003, Vol.33 (1), p.186-217
Main Author: Klein, Julie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agamben, Giorgio
Animals
Aristotelianism
Breeding
food
Derrida, Jacques
Desire
Ethics
Food
General points
History of science and technology
Humans
Immanence
Life sciences
Metaphysics
Nature
Philosophers
Political ethics
Spinoza, Benedictus de (1632-1677)
Teleological ethics
Teleology
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Summary:This article studies a series of provocative references to Spinoza by Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben. For both contemporary philosophers, the context is discussions of eating, a subject matter that turns out to involve such central issues as subjectivity, nature, ethics, and teleology. Each situates Spinoza in a counter-history of philosophy and suggests that Spinoza constitutes an important resource for contemporary reflections. Through an analysis of the three philosophers' texts about eating, nutrition, and being metabolized, I argue that Spinoza's nonteleological, nonhumanistic conception of nature remains a radical possibility, even in the face of contemporary attempts to think outside the canonical discourses of transcendental subjectivity, technological reason, and teleological ethics. Spinoza's position is, in the end, more uncompromising than that of Derrida or Agamben.
ISSN:0085-5553
1569-1640
0085-5553
DOI:10.1163/15691640360699672