ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to answer the question concerning the particles of which the concepts “man” and “animal” are formed. Following Agamben, but expanding his argument to include Aristotle and Descartes, among others, the chapter establishes that the caesura between the animal and the human lies first and foremost inside man. This leads to a reinterpretation of the classical forms of defining man with reference to the animal – saying that man is, for example, an animal rationale does not determine the genus proximum and the differentia specifica of the being in question, but rather shows the locus of the differentiation: man is human insofar as he is rational, but also insofar as he is rational, he is not animal. One might thus say that man is at once animal and rational (political, ethical etc.), making him at once animal and human.
