The Human/Animal Logic of Sovereignty: Derrida on Robinson Crusoe

Baumeister, David

doi:10.5840/envirophil201912381

Environmental Philosophy

ONLINE FIRST

published on January 24, 2019

David Baumeister

https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil201912381

The Human/Animal Logic of Sovereignty
Derrida on Robinson Crusoe

This essay offers an analysis of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe read in concert with Derrida’s treatment of the novel in the second volume of The Beast and the Sovereign. Drawing from Derrida while developing insights of my own, I assemble the elements of a unique account and critique of the logic of human sovereignty. Focusing on a crucial moment in both the novel and in Derrida’s reading of it, I argue the thesis that human sovereignty rests upon a logically prior mastery of both non-human animals and subordinated human beings—a relation of mastery I call the human/animal logic of sovereignty.

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