Abstract

The phenomenological interpretation of the human being is not a naturalistic explanation. Likewise phenomenology does not interpret the human being as an example of a complex animal: from a phenomenological point of view man is not an animal, inasmuch as his definition and his essence imply a specifically human component, which cannot be attributed to the linear development of animal complexity. However, this does not mean that any animal component is excluded from the structure of humans. How can human animality be acknowledged without denying human specificity and upholding a reductionist view? The purpose of the paper is to analyse and compare two different ways in which the phenomenological tradition has answered this question.