Gaps in Differance: Marc Richir's Reading of Heidegger's Analyses of Animality

This article casts light on Marc Richir's remarkable and yet poorly known interpretation of the analyses of animality that Martin Heidegger develops in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude and Soli- tude. It shows that this interpretation unfolds as a two-step critical revision of Heidegger's analyses within the framework of Richir's neo-phenomenological project. On the one hand, Richir aims to offer the “right” interpretation of the cybernetic and grammatological history of life told by Jacques Derrida, by measuring it against Heidegger's theory of the organism. On the other hand, Richir rewrites the limits of Heidegger's conception of animality in light of the overview of contemporary ethological research provided by Konrad Lorenz.