Zwierzęce, jakiego nie ma

Beata Mytych-ForajterORCID: 0000-0002-0588-2087 Wydział FilologicznyInstytut Nauk o Literaturze Polskiej im. Ireneusza Opackiego Abstract The Animal That Is Not ThereThe text constitutes an attempt to  discuss the  idea of  the  “animal” itself, which is  an empty set. Following Jacques Derrida’s line of  thought, we  remain surprised, asking what links the  elephant with the ant or the echidna with the hedgehog. The only benefit of the concept of the “animal” lies in revealing the  way in which humans try to extricate themselves from the  net designed by them for “animals,” but ultimately end up wrapping it tightly about themselves. The question about the so-called “animal” constitutes part of the battle over language that seems to have forgotten that it was born from the relation with animals; however, it preserves this knowledge not in the scientific jargon, but in those of its registers which allow people to talk about the individual relation not with the “animal,” but with the concrete individual of a concrete species.Keywords:animal, human, generalization, difference, relation