Law and painting : the animal cause, from the snail (del Cossa) to the ermine (da Vinci)

Alain Papaux has been invited by the Collège de France assembly at the suggestion of Professor Samantha Besson. The conference will be held under an agreement signed with the University of Lausanne.

Abstract

Adopting the animal cause as an object of reflection and painting as a means of cognition, we will examine the way in which the law operates to categorize reality, in particular its singular way of translating scientific data, in the order of the just, into the order of the true. From the snail (in del Cossa's Annunciation ) to the ermine (in Vinci'sCecilia Gallerani ), the animal cause, through the questions and contradictions it raises (animal-machine, animal-movable, " intrinsic value ", " dignity "), forces us to revisit the legal categorization of reality. This means revising our relationship with the world, if we accept that the law has a powerful anthropological function (A. Supiot ; A. Schiavone) : what if the human being were a " vivant " among other animate beings, literally " animaux ", all entitled to the status of " sujet de droit " ? A trivial legal technique, in fact, which could well prove to be an obstacle to the ecological transition.