Mowgli

Summary

Dominique Pagani uses Mowgli as the generic name for feral children, children raised by she-wolves or "wolf children"12. He notes that The Jungle Book romanticizes the most famous of them3, and he uses the figure to raise a question that recurs from one session to the next: being born human is not enough to be human. His wording varies. Sometimes he says that every baby becomes a wild child again4, or that it is a little Mowgli in potential5, and sometimes that human children are not born like Mowglis6. Either way, what makes a human being is not a matter of mere birth. He also points out that the animals look away from Mowgli's human gaze7. More recently, he brings up wolf children in connection with the innocence of nature, which he sets against naturalist ideology8.

1. 1#3.4 From Ulysses to Daedalus1 Aug 2017 · 36:13
2. 2Naturalist ideology: answers to questions25 Jul 2025 · 1:02:25
3. 3Being born human is not enough to be human19 Jul 2021 · 16:47
4. 4#2.7 Between crisis and war: philosophising?1 Aug 2017 · 1:12:26
5. 5#7 Answers to questions (continued)3 Dec 2020 · 51:00
6. 6#5.2 ter Questions, following workshop #5.2 (Facebook Live)6 Dec 2018 · 1:09:42
7. 7#9 Return to the logics of the subject30 May 2020 · 53:53
8. 8The essence of evil: innocence of nature, horror of naturalism!17 Dec 2024 · 5:38

Summary produced automatically from 8 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.