Dr Nishant A. Irudayadason

Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Jnana-DeepaVidyapeeth, Pune.

Can humans already detect themselves in animals, but above all, how does animality remain inscribed in humans? We know today that the hypothesis of the three brains of McLean is today highly contested, namely the one based on a stratified and hierarchical model linking the reptilian brain (the archicortex mainly devoted to the processing of equilibration and gravity), the mammalian brain (limbic and amygdalin paleo-cortex, seat of affects and emotions), the neo-cortex finally (high place of the so-called rationality of homo sapiens!). This attractive hypothesis seems to be questioned today in favour of a much more holistic conception of brain organization, hence the need to rethink Henry Ey’sorgano-dynamism which was based on a dialectical dynamic of inhibition and disinhibition between the so-called higher and so-called lower brain structures.

Is there anything that can be certified as specifically human? The matter is delicate, and none of the phenomena that have been presented as specific to the human being, seems today absolutely certain and undeniable. Access to the symbolic or even to language seems, in reality, possible in some higher primates, and it must be remembered here that language means also nonverbal communication. What about laughter or smile? Are we absolutely that some monkeys, or even some dogs, don’t laugh? Admittedly, the impact of our projections here is immense, but the question nevertheless exists from a more objective point of view, and it deserves to be raised before we can conclude hastily that laughter is specifically human.

The ability to think tomorrow according to A. Jacquard, or the ability to evoke one’s grandparents according to E. Morin, would constitute relatively specific human facts. It is true that these representations introduce the themes of temporality and trans-generational transmission, but what do we really know about these in animals? In the absence of certainty, let us only say that if the cult of the dead seems to testify to an access to a certain consciousness of time, it should then be known that the first burials, even if they were open burials, were indeed described in some great apes. What about Culture and its transmission? Recent discoveries have shown that tool-making appeared before the appearance of homo sapiens, and that this transmission of acquired know-how is indeed possible in the most evolved primates, thus constituting a true cultural emergence. Chimpanzees to whom a certain number of symbolic rudiments have been taught by humans, are now able to transmit them to their descendants, which does not go without causing perplexity as to the future of this research.

Would the organization and the reorganization of foes and friends specify the human, if we consider that the animals living as a horde are organized in a fixed and non-evolutionary way? Accepting this proposition then leads to consider that it is politics that would define human. This seems possible but then human specificity in terms of being a political animal has not always been very glorious. Paul Ricoeur, for his part, defended the idea that human identity is fundamentally a “narrative identity” referring to our particular ability to narrate our own history. Tell, and tell. It is basically the processes of bonding that are thus designated, but what knowledge do we really have of what animals say to each other?

What remains—and this is essential—is the fact of being able to think about one’s impulses and, therefore, to regulate them unlike what happens to the animal instinct? The distinction between instincts and impulses provides one of the cornerstones of metapsychology, hence the idea, then, that it is the contingency of the object that would specify what is human. To conclude, I will mention the question of love, which never ceases to touch and amaze us. We would like to believe that human love has something special, which is possible, but it must be remembered that some wolves or lions are known for a fidelity to the test of a lifetime! So, again, let us remain modest, and admit that, at the end of the day, we still do not know very well where, if any, the real gap between humans and animals lies, which is, it seems to me, all the charm of this issue.