The question of the human in its relations with the animal and, in general, with the living being is focused through a reading of some of Martin Heidegger works and through the reading of Jacques Derrida. Some allegations that the latter turns to Heidegger seem somewhat out of place. In fact, the basic positions of the German philosopher on the question of the animal in relation to the human seem to allow the possibility of a response, in terms of a responsibility on the part of the human, just by virtue of the absolute essential distance that he stresses between man and living being. The paper try to show the need for a response to the other, in that dimension of otherness which hardly one might approach or even assimilate, as some recent reflections seem to hope and expect.
