Vallier, Robert. Review of Brett Buchanan's ONTO-ETHOLOGIES. NDPR (June 2009).

Buchanan, Brett. Onto-Ethologies: the Animal Environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze. Albany: SUNY Press, 2008. In the last few years Continental philosophy, in various guises, has rediscovered life. Phenomenologists direct their attention to the lifeworld, and to the phenomena of life and living beings. Some poststructuralists "deconstruct" the difference between organic and inorganic, while others concern themselves with germinal and viroid life and propose various biophilosophies, and still others talk about life as that to which 'biopower' is directed. And most evidently, if we take recent book catalogues as an index, there is a great deal of interest in animality (here I don't refer to animal rights or ethics, which have also given rise to much reflection and debate, but rather the question of animal being) to think about the animal in itself, and about the original difference between animal and human being, thus in some way clarifying the special status of the latter which many, since Aristotle, have determined to be both rational and political. What so much -- it would be unfair to say all -- of this resuscitated interest has in common is a striking disregard for the sciences of life, all too easily dismissing them as predicated on an unreflected and non-philosophical concept of life, which, the standard narrative goes, is inevitably reduced to some form of (neo-)vitalism, (neo-)mechanism, or (neo-)finalism. That may or may not be true as a criticism of the life-sciences, but it certainly should not constitute an excuse to avoid a careful reading of and thoughtful engagement with their theoretical research and experimental findings, which seems so often to be symptomatic of this return to life. It is precisely in this regard that Brett Buchanan's Onto-Ethologies marks a difference. As suggested by the subtitle ("The Animal Environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze"), Buchanan endeavors to show how the theoretical findings of the properly experimental work of one particular scientist -- the important Swiss biologist, Jakob von Uexküll, sometimes called "the father of ethology" -- made their way into and helped to shape the itineraries of three major Continental philosophers. This alone makes it a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on life-philosophy generally, and animality in particular. Given that it is written with a great deal of clarity and attention to detail, the book will certainly repay careful study. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16305.