The Anthropocentrism of Anti-realism

by Leonardo Caffo

The purpose of my talk is to discuss about the issue of metaphysical Anti-realism advocating its ‘Anthropocentrism’ (and speciesism), meaning the theory according to which the species Homo sapiens is endowed with ontological pre-eminence above reality. The standard theory proposed by Anti-realism suggests that one or more classes of objects depend on humans. This theory is contested by the fact – properly analyzed by Jacob von Uexküll (von Uexküll 1985) – that other animals apart from us do perceive the same objects and get acquainted with them. The idea underlying Anti-realism’s theory is that our way of perceiving reality is not only the best one, but the only way possible as well. This incorrect belief is contested by modern science (Caffo 2014) which shows how animals play the same role humans have as ‘shapers of the world’ (Darwin 1881), and furthermore, it represents a dangerous ethical drift that has to be firmly stemmed, as I am going to affirm throughout the paper.

Keywords: Realism, Anthropocentrism, Antirealism, Ontology, Metaphysics 


Biography:
Leonardo Caffo, PhD, is Post-doctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Turin, where he is also member of the LabOnt (Laboratory for Ontology). He has been Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford) and visiting scholar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, (New Delhi, India). He has also been Chief of Seminar (Animal Philosophy) with DAAD Program at the University of Kassel (Germany). He is a columnist for ‘Huffington Post Italy’ and ‘Corriere della Sera’ (La Lettura), the Co-director of ‘Animot: l’altra filosofia’, and the founder and past-director of ‘Animal Studies’ and the ‘Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Analitica Jr” and his is also founder and secretary of “Gallinae in Fabula Onlus”. His most recent publications include: Il maiale non fa la rivoluzione (2013), Naturalism and Constructivism in Metaethics (2014), Only for Them, preface to Matthew Calarco and Melanie Joy, (2014), A come Animale (2015), An Art for the Other, preface to Steve Baker, (2015), and Il bosco interiore (2015). Leonardo Caffo has worked in the field of social ontology and realism, animal studies and cognition, applied ethics, and philosophy of anarchism and architecture (in both analytic and continental traditions). Attaching is name to the theory of  “antispecismo debole” (weak antispeciesism), he won the “Premio Nazionale Frascati Filosofia” (2015).

The street dog and the slum dweller: twin victims of urban renewal in modern India

by Lisa Warden

The city of Ahmedabad, India is portrayed as a pioneer in urban governance. In this paper, I will examine the parallel effacing effects of urban planning on street dogs and slum dwellers in the city of Ahmedabad.
In India, there are millions of street dogs who reside in proximity to the human population. There are laws pertaining to free-roaming canines. They can be neither killed nor displaced. If a city deems the local street dog population to be problematic in any way, all they are permitted to do, by law, is humanely catch, sterilize and vaccinate the dogs, and return them to their original locations.
The municipality of Ahmedabad has, however, under the guise of governance, dealt with the street dog population in a brutal, oppressive manner.
A street dog population census in 2010 found there to be approximately 220,000 street dogs in Ahmedabad. A 2014 report revealed that between 2003 and 2012, city workers, in contravention of the law, caught approximately 185,000 “complaint dogs” and dumped them on the city outskirts. One of the main dumping grounds for the dogs was Pirana, a massive landfill site on the east side of the city. An unknown number of dogs died either in the extremely violent catching process, from hyperthermia in the vans en route to the dumping site, or at the site itself. The majority of citizen complaints about free-roaming dogs to which the municipal workers responded to catch dogs come from higher income areas of the city.
The municipality’s rogue street dog “management” efforts bear much in common with its treatment of slum dwellers in the scope of its urban renewal programs, with stated aims such as “beautification”, the intended beneficiaries of which are the city’s upper classes. One such project, the redevelopment of the Sabarmati River and its adjacent banks, has involved the violent eviction of thousands of urban working poor families from riverbank settlements to make way for chic downtown leisure space and luxury real estate. Many of the slum dwellers were displaced to a wasteland by the municipal landfill at Pirana, adjacent to where the street dogs were dumped. Researchers reported the poisoning death of “resettled” children who had taken to feeding on wild weeds due to the lack of affordable food in the vicinity. Infants, and pregnant women trying to make it to hospitals in the city died due to severe temperatures. Displaced persons suffered a drastic decline in living conditions, and a sharp increase in poverty indicators.
In this paper I will explore the parallel, violent effacement of both slum dwellers and street dogs in India’s push for urban renewal, specifically in Ahmedabad. I will explore the implied classification of both street dogs and the urban poor as contaminating encroachers whose presence in the city threatens the neo-liberal vision of modern urban India designed by and for upper class consumers. Urban planners’ collaboration and entanglement with commercial interests will be made clear, as will their disqualification of street dogs and slum dwellers as constituents whose needs are worthy of consideration in city planning.




Biography:
Lisa Warden (lisa.warden@gmail.com) is a formerly Asia-based, currently UK-based animal advocate and independent researcher with a PhD in Political Philosophy and French Literature. In India in 2008 she founded the philanthropic research and advisory group DOGSTOP, aimed at street dog population management and rabies eradication. Her area of research, writing and implementation lies at the intersection of dog population management and critical animal studies.

From whale to whale: nation and identity in Australia’s opposition to Japanese whaling.

by Colin Salter

Australia has a bifurcated history with whaling. Moving quickly from a pro- to anti-whaling nation in 1979, Australia views itself as providing leadership in a just battle to protect whales. More specifically, protecting our whales from the Japanese Other.
In 2008 the Federal Court of Australia ruled Japanese whaling to be illegal in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, in a case brought by Humane Society International (HSI). On March 30, 2014 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found the the JARPA II whaling program was not carried out for scientific purposes and its operations must cease. Japan’s has subsequently signalled intent to resume whaling, inspiring renewed criticism.
Whereas opposition to Japanese whaling manifests in disagreements over maritime boundaries, economic zones, jurisdiction, science, and claims of the commercial nature of Japanese whaling, in this paper I will argue that — at its core — the dispute is rooted in differentiated perceptions of, and values afforded, to whales. What I am referring to is the
socio-cultural construction of whales (relationally positioned against other, less noteworthyto-humans, species).
How whales are differently afforded values in Australia (and Japan) comprises a form of animal nationalism. By animal nationalism, I am referring to a process of mapping ‘gendered, raced, and classed ideologies of nation and sovereignty’ onto whales as a means to stake political and cultural claims (Davis 2013: 550). In focusing on discourse in Australia, this paper will interrogate examples of linking identify and nationhood with to concern for whales in the Southern Ocean. Relationally contracted against and evil Japanese whaling fleet — and layered with racist nations linked to Australia as a colonial outpost — opposition to whaling is really about how Australian’s want to see themselves, and how they want to be perceived by others. In short, it’s not really about whales, or Japan.



Biography: 
Colin Salter researches across movements for peace and justice. He is primarily interested in critical animals studies, whiteness, postcolonial studies, gender and masculinity, and microsociology (activism as subcultural practice). In particular, his research explores strategies and approaches to social change (i.e. nonviolent action) in theory and practice. He also has an interest in the use of the internet and social media for social change, and as pedagogical tools more broadly.
His publications include the books Animals and War: Confronting the MilitaryAnimal Industrial Complex, 2014 (editor)—winner of the Central New York Peace Studies Consortium Peace Studies Book of the Year Award; Whiteness and Social Change, 2013; and papers "Animals and War: Anthropocentrism and Technoscience", 2015; "Intersections of the colonial and postcolonial: pragmatism, praxis and transformative grassroots activism at Sandon Point", 2014; and "Activism as Terrorism: The Green Scare, Radical Environmentalism and Governmentality", 2011.

The human representation of animals as the other, in a cross-cultural, western perspective

by Isa Rasmussen

“If we were aware of the processes whereby we form mental images, we would no longer be able to trust them as a basis for action” (Bateson and Bateson 1987: 89, Milton 2002: 26).

This paper suggest to introduce some challenging considerations that we should come to face in the cross-cultural fields, as offspring of an anthropocentric discipline. This challenge is manifested in our relationships with that which we have come to call ‘animals’. I have been looking at the classification and representation of animals with special consideration of the distinction between humans and animals. More specifically this paper argues that the ‘human-animal’ dichotomisation is interesting because it still is a source of surprising cultural sensitivity, which manifests itself through a prevailing unwillingness to look at this specific case of othering analytically. In this talk I will be addressing the fact that anthropology and later cultural and comparative studies historically have been relying on the process of naturalisation of the ‘human-animal’ divide as a way to protect human superiority. It is so deeply woven into our lives and habits that it seems to be structuring our own thoughts and theeby appear to be practically transparent and illusory.
So the main goal with this is a call for a “post-anthropological” application of anthropological and cross-cultural knowledge concerning the problematic of representation and othering of animals. Even though the real challenges in the analyses this paper presents us with, lie in the sphere of praxis. It is in that sphere that we must reconsider our representation of ‘animals’- a focus on the mechanisms of othering may provide the ground for such a reflective change. Therefore my conclusion is that if we wanna understand this relationship we must consider the ways in which cultural ideas about humans vis-à-vis animals are constructed, and how they have changed and are continuing to do so.
More specifically I will be looking at three different cases where animals are represented as the other, and where different otherpositions are negotiated.
The first case is the so called Holocaust-analogy, the second a case regarding the yukagirs of Siberia and their animistic perspectives on animals, and the last a case about the disneyfication of dolphins. All three cases shows how essential it is for humanbeings to portrait animals at the radical other, in support of our own ontological worldview. This talk will be focusing on the anthropocentric construction of the most radical other: the animals.



Biography:
My name is Isa Rasmussen, I have a Master from Copenhagen University in Cross-Cultural studies, where I did my thesis in this subject. Last year I followed a decal course at Berkely, California, called “Critical Animal Studies” to get inspiration to my thesis.
I am very interested in this topic which I think is not only essential for understanding animals, but as well for understanding humans. As anthropologist Tim Ingold says the question “what is an animal?” forces us to ask the “more” essential question “what does it mean to be human?””

Wildlife, hunting and colonialism in central Mozambique in the early 20th century

by Bárbara Direito

Since the late 19th century, African wildlife became the object of protectionist measures in different colonial territories in Africa and also of intercolonial conventions, in 1900 and 1933. As a growing body of academic literature has shown, measures included in both local regulations and multilateral conventions, namely closed seasons, the strict protection granted to young elephants and the creation of nature reserves, originally stemmed from economic interests rather than from conservationism per se, and reflect class and race-based divisions present in colonial societies. Drawing mostly on primary and secondary sources, including on selected photographs, this paper proposes a reflection on the evolution and consequences of policies dealing with hunting and wildlife protection in Manica and Sofala, a region in central Mozambique which was ruled by a chartered company, the Mozambique Company, between 1891 and 1942. It specifically focuses on how hunting and protectionist regulations in Manica and Sofala in the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflected and helped reinforce representations about wildlife and game, as well as about the role and rights of both Africans and settlers regarding natural resources and livelihoods in an increasingly divided colonial society.


 
Biography:
Bárbara Direito (barbaradireito@gmail.com) is an integrated researcher at the Instituto de História Contemporânea, FCSH-New University of Lisbon. In 2013, she completed her doctoral thesis on land and colonialism in central Mozambique at the University of Lisbon (“Políticas coloniais de terras em Moçambique: o caso de Manica e Sofala sob a Companhia de Moçambique, 1892-1942”). Since then she has been developing research on different aspects of colonial rural policies but also of health policies in 20th century Mozambique.

The Histories and Politics of a Critical Animal Studies

by Richard Twine

In examining the histories of Critical Animal Studies it becomes clear that there is a political struggle over its history in certain senses. Those academics and activists who have come to identify with the term or ‘field’ are diverse in their own attachments and politics. As it attempts to globalize CAS also encounters issues over its dominant meanings and claims. As well as espousing different attachments, notably to ecofeminism or anarchism, the multiple CASs also differ according to their use and orientation toward different theoretical frameworks or concepts. Examples here include posthumanism and intersectionality. Moreover there are also ongoing tensions with its contrasted ‘other’, the construction of a ‘mainstream animal studies’. There have been recent protestations from those presumably labelled as inhabiting this space (e.g. Buller 2015). 
A useful demarcation that has been made by Vasile Stanescu & Helena Pedersen which gives, I think, some focus to important political differences in the broad field of (critical) animal studies refers to a distinction of emphasis between a focus on the ‘question of the animal’ and a further concern, in critical animal studies, with the ‘condition of the animal’. We might loosely map this onto a theory/practice distinction – though of course all academics struggle, I think, in the endeavour to do something practically useful, something that might actually contribute to change. Specifically, modes of social change that could alter our dominant instrumental treatment of other animals taking place on an enormous scale. 
It’s the apprehension of that violence which seems absent from those writing in less critical forms of animal studies. Unsurprisingly we can also trace these unavoidable fractures in the broad field by attending to the substantive focus of respective scholars. We must surely define ourselves and those differing areas of the field by the research that is done. For example, we can note an emergent sociological focus on veganism in Critical Animal Studies, something I have also increasingly focussed upon. The conversation on veganism also inevitably asks us to consider what we might mean when we bring words like ‘liberation’ into discursive life. Thus I end this deliberation on Critical Animal Studies – its histories and politics - with reflection upon my research on vegan transition, arguing that it can potentially satisfy the criteria of usefulness, as an attempt to engage with and contest the dominant violence of our human/animal relations.

Biography:
Richard is a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for Human Animal Studies (CfHAS http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/cfhas/ ) at Edge Hill University.
He previously worked at the Institute of Education, University of London; the  University of Glasgow and for ten years at Lancaster University, where he was a researcher with the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen). His research interests take place at the nexus of gender studies, human/animal relations, science studies and environmental Sociology. Much current research focuses upon the issue of sustainable food transitions in the context of climate change.
Richard is the author of the book Animals as Biotechnology – Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies (Routledge, 2010), and co-editor, with Nik Taylor of Flinders University, Australia, of The Rise of Critical Animal Studies – From the Margins to the Centre (Routledge Advances in Sociology, 2014). He has published many articles and chapters on issues as diverse as veganism, antibiotics, ecofeminism, intersectionality, posthumanism, bioethics and physiognomy. His own web-site can be found at http://www.richardtwine.com

6 October

8:30 – 8:45 – Registration (room Multiusos 3)


8:45 – 9:00 – Welcoming and presentation (room Multiusos 2)


9:00 – 9:50 – Keynote Session

The Histories and Politics of a Critical Animal Studies, by Richard Twine (Edge Hill University) - Room Multiusos 2

9:50 – 10:00 – Break 

10:00 – 11:40

Animals, identities, colonialism (or Animals and the Other) (Room Multiusos 2)

• Wildlife, hunting and colonialism in central Mozambique in the early 20th century, by Bárbara Direito (IHC - FCSH/UNL
• The human representation of animals as the other, in a cross-cultural, western perspective, by Isa Rasmussen (Copenhagen University)
• From whale to whale: nation and identity in Australia’s opposition to Japanese whaling, by Colin Salter (University of Wollongong)

Philosophy, Ethics, Ontology (Room Multiusos 3)

• The Anthropocentrism of Anti-realism, by Leonardo Caffo (Università degli studi di Torino)
• Animal liberation as the ability to overstep ourselves, by Roberto Marchesini (Centre Study for Posthuman Philosophy and SIUA - School of Human Animal Interaction)
• Expanding the Harm Principle to a Posthumanist Ethic: John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1869) enhanced by Rosi Braidotti's The Posthuman (2013), by Brandon Taylor (University of British Columbia, Okanagan)

11:40 – 12:00 – Break


12:00 – 13.30

Agency and history (Room Multiusos 2)

• The Spontaneous Horse: Understanding what liberation means from the horse’s point of view, by Francesco De Giorgio & José De Giorgio-Schoorl (Learning Animals, Institute for Zooanthropology)
• “An Alligator Got Betty”: Dangerous Animals as Historical Agents, by Krista Maglen (Indiana University)  
• Animal voices: history, agency, and the politics of language, by Eva Meijer (University of Amsterdam)

Changing Attitudes and Promoting Animal Liberation (Room Multiusos 3)

• Critical Animal Pedagogy: Explorations toward Reflective Practice, by Karin Gunnarson Dinker (Swansea University)
• Narrative Power and Animal Liberation, or How to Experiment on Humans for the Good of the Animals and Get Away with It, Wojciech Małecki (University of Wrocław)
• Social psychology approach toward animal liberation, by Tereza Vandrovcová (Charles University, Prague)

13:30 – 14:30 – Lunch


14:30 – 16:10

Food Production, Research and Welfare (Room Multiusos 2)

• About confined freedoms and shared lives: animals, humans and welfare in beef cattle breeding farms, by Graciela Froehlich (University of Brasilia)
• "Animal welfare" and "economic efficiency" according to the official discourse of Portuguese livestock industry, by Rui Pedro Fonseca (CIES-IUL)
• Food production’s Post-Animal Turn? In Vitro Meat, the Subsumption of Nature, and Non-existence as Animal Liberation, by Erik Jönsson (Lund University)
• Contesting the ethics of animal farming: the moral visibility and categorization of animals in focus group discussions on food practices, by Saara Kupsala (University of Eastern Finland)

Human and Non-human Animal Interactions (Room Multiusos 3)

• Human-animal interactions: a sustainable relationship?, by Pim Martens (Maastricht University)
• Animals in religion and sustainable development: recognition and reorientation, by Yamini Narayanan (Deakin University)
• In black and white: explorations on Animalario by Nuria Cubas, by Vanessa Badagliacca (FCSH-UNL)
• The Filmic Order and Animal Studies, by Ilda Castro (IFILNOVA-UNL)

16:10 – 16-30 – Break

16:30 – 17:50

Debates, questions and concepts (Room Multiusos 2)

• Is the animal rights movement a social movement?, by Pierre André-Gagnon (University of Ottawa)
• ‘Is Our Position Utopian?’ Inheriting Utopia and the Im/possibility of Animal Liberation Today, by Francis Tarpey (La Trobe University)
• Human Competitions Involving Nonhuman Animals, by Nico Müller (University of Zurich)

 

17:50 – 18:00 – Break 

18:00 – 19:00 – Keynote Session

Taking Stock of the Scholarly ‘Animal Turn’: An exploration of the innovative, politicised and tainted nature of human-animal scholarship, by Rhoda Wilkie (University of Aberdeen) - Room Multiusos 2