The naked philosopher

In his book The Animal that Therefore I am, philosopher Jacques Derrida tells about a morning when he gets up naked and is heading for the bathroom. A cat is following him – not a symbol or an animal in a story but a real, living cat. The cat’s gaze meets his gaze, and Derrida notices that he is seen. He stops in his tracks, feeling guilty – not because of being a human without clothes, “in his birthday suit”, but because his nakedness is revealed in the animal’s gaze. That moment undermines his conception of humanity and the special position of humans: where does the line fall between animal and human if the animal is able to look back at him? Derrida no longer sees the cat the same way. The cat’s staring makes him aware of his own vulnerability and corporeality – of what it is to be a human who becomes seen by an other-than-human being.