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Quote :Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics
We can formulate these distinctions in the following three theses: [1.] the stone (material object) is worldless; [2.] the animal is poor in world, [3.] man is world forming.
Like hierarchies? Marty Heidegger's clearly got one for you here. Heidegger was a German philosopher into thinking about "worlds" and ways of "world-making." To have "a world"' for Heidegger is basically just "having a life." Heidegger's stone clearly needs to get a life—it is "worldless." Poor little stoney.
The stone is without perception of its existence or those around it. The animal, Heidegger tells us, is a little better off—"poor in world." The animal's social life needs a kickstart. Maybe they could get a boost from humans—for Heidegger, we're the masters of the universe. We're "world forming"—we create social, aesthetic, and political spheres of life. We're also, clearly, egomaniacs.
At some level this hierarchy makes sense, right? Most of us probably operate with this kind of hierarchy in mind in on our everyday lives: that's why you insult someone as being "dumb as a rock" or, if they're slightly less idiotic but acting badly, they're "an animal."
Animal studies theorists interrogate this kind of hierarchy for the way that it recreates the same logic of the Ancient Greek's Great Chain of Being, which organized the world on a rock-to-God spectrum. Our animal studies buddies charge Heidegger with being super outdated. In light of research into animal behavior and just basic observation of animal life, many have argued that Heidegger's claim that animals are poor in world must come arise from a humanist prejudice. Ol' Marty Heidegger just needed a good pet and a sense of dang empathy.
Heidegger's claim for a stone-to-animal-to-human hierarchy (with humans firmly placed at the top) illustrates how we normally understand our place in the world: we're #1. But how can we be so "worldly" if we can't imagine the lives of animals and what kinds of interesting worlds animals inhabit?