Human-Animal Interactions in the Eighteenth Century

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Stockhorst ◽  
Jürgen Overhoff ◽  
Penelope J. Corfield
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Animal

scholarly journals “None of Them Could Say They Ever Had Seen Them, but Only Had It from Others”: Encounters with Animals in Eighteenth-Century Natural Histories of Greenland

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2024
Author(s):  
Helen Parish
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Natural Histories

The pages of early modern natural histories expose the plasticity of the natural world, and the variegated nature of the encounter between human and animal in this period. Descriptions of the flora and fauna reflect this kind of negotiated encounter between the world that is seen, that which is heard about, and that which is constructed from the language of the sacred text of scripture. The natural histories of Greenland that form the basis of this analysis exemplify the complexity of human–animal encounters in this period, and the intersections that existed between natural and unnatural, written authority and personal testimony, and culture, belief, and ethnography in natural histories. They invite a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which animals and people interact in the making of culture, and demonstrate the contribution made by such texts to the study of animal encounters, cultures, and concepts. This article explores the intersection between natural history and the work of Christian mission in the eighteenth century, and the connections between personal encounter, ethnography, history, and oral and written tradition. The analysis demonstrates that European natural histories continued to be anthropocentric in content and tone, the product of what was believed, as much as what was seen.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 249-254
Author(s):  
Jane Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Political Tension ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Site ◽  
Two Sides

Drawing together the threads of the previous chapters, these pages reflect on the way the entangled development of the concepts of human rights and animal rights made the human–animal border a site of political tension. During the eighteenth century people were exploring the similarities between human and nonhuman animals in new ways, encouraged by developments in natural history and the cultural spread of sympathy. The concept of animal rights was an almost inevitable (if uncertain) extension of the concept of human rights, and made the borderline between human and animal a site of great political tension. That animals are like humans, and that humans are (like) animals, were propositions brought together, two sides of the same coin, but what that might mean for human politics and for human–animal relations was debatable and debated, then as now. As we have seen, both the possibility that human–animal kinship could inspire greater kindness, and the danger that the animalization of human groups could be used to rationalize oppression, were realized during the period. The work concludes with a brief consideration of the legacy of eighteenth-century writing in contemporary animal representation, highlighting the continuing importance of storytelling to the creation of respect for nonhuman animals.

The Notion of Civility in Contemporary Society

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis A. Coser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Human Kind

Ever since the Enlightenment, most intellectuals on the liberal and radical end of the ideological spectrum have tended to stand for a morality and politics of authenticity, sincerity, and naturalness; while their conservative opponents defended the need for decorum, civility, and restraints. These differences were, of course, largely rooted in differing basic conceptions about the nature of the human animal. Traditionally, the conservatives had a pessimistic view of human nature and hence believed that it had to be curbed; they pitted their views against the progressive belief in the basic goodness of human-kind that emerged in the eighteenth century. When Rousseau proclaimed in Émile: ‘Coming from the hands of the author of all things, everything is good; in the hands of man, everything degenerates’, Bonald, the great critic of Enlightenment thought, answered: ‘We are bad by nature, good through society. The savage is not a man, he is not even a childish man, he is only a degenerate man’.

Political Bodies as Living Mechanisms in Scottish Political Theory during the Late Eighteenth Century

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-70
Author(s):  
Oili Pulkkinen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
State Machine ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Economic Advancement

Newtonian science and mechanics left an important imprint on the Scottish Enlightenment. Even though the usage of mechanical metaphors, especially that of a “state machine” per se, were rare in Scottish philosophy, its conception of the human, animal and political bodies as mechanisms that function according to regular principles, or laws, helped to shape many of the theories that have now become popular in various fields of Scottish studies. Most research in these fields focus on the conceptions of history related to theories of economic advancement. In this article the author suggests that the theories produced in the Scottish Enlightenment were also nuanced attempts to describe how historical mechanisms operate.

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