Jurassic world and life world: the constitution of prehistoric animals

Abstract

Our acquaintance with dinosaurs comes from the movies, but it begins with school handbooks and natural science museums, whereby we know that, unlike other fantastic beings displayed on the screen or in fairy-tales, they are real but not actually given beings. How does the dinosaur phenomenologically constitute itself as an animal which predates any creature we can have experience of? Following Husserl’s constitutive analyses, we shall try to sketch an answer in three stages. First, with regard to the givenness of the Other through empathy and the Body. Second, with regard to the giveness of living animals. Finally, with regard to the givenness of fossils as cultural bodies which make the appearance of Jurassic animals possible.