Founding animals

While the animal is retained within both the history of philosophy and the history of art both the nature of that relation and thus the conception of animality take on importantly different forms. Hence relationality and animality have a history that is neither continuous nor organised within a perpetual Sameness. While the animal has symbolic and representational presence, it is also be the case that the animal in question will have differing modes of presence. In a painting by Piero della Francesca of the Archangel Michael having just slain the devil, the Saint is presented having decapitated an animal (see Figure 6.1). While the animal is of course the appearance of the Devil, it is nonetheless unmistakeably animal. The Devil oscillates between ‘dragon’ and ‘snake’. Here, however, the devil has nothing other than a snake-like quality. Having slain it, St Michael stands with the animal's head in one hand while in the other he holds his falchion. Neither the animal's face nor its body have either traces or indications of being human. The reference therefore is to an intrinsic animality. The apparent nonchalance of St Michael's stance reinforces the position in which what obtains is not indifference but the enactment of a specific economy in respect to the animal. The dead animal operates in a domain in which its retention is structured by that economy. The human as the after-effect of the ‘word’ having become ‘flesh’ reinforces, in this presentation, the incorporated refusal of the animal. As such it is one of a number of forms of animal presence.