The philosophy of animal minds: an introduction

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The minds of animals has been an abiding topic in philosophy since its earliest beginnings. Some may find this surprising. After all, a fairly common picture of the philosopher is someone (in a darkened study) ruminating on the nature of the human mind, or on the mind of God, or on some other abstruse idea, but certainly not on the minds of cats, dogs, and honeybees. As common as this picture may be, however, it does not paint an entirely accurate portrait. Philosophers have thought long and hard about the minds of animals and have held and defended significant and influential views on the topic. Moreover, in the past ten years or so there has been an unprecedented amount of interest among philosophers in animal minds, with numerous publications and conferences dedicated to the subject. The level of interest and publication has reached a critical mass and has sustained itself long enough that it is now appropriate to say that the philosophy of animal minds is a field in its own right. The purpose of this volume is to highlight the state of the art in the field by bringing together a collection of new and cutting-edge essays by the best and brightest philosophers.

Since the essays in this volume have been shaped by various lines in the rich history of philosophical thought on animal minds, I provide a brief (albeit, vastly incomplete) sketch of some of the most important and influential ideas and arguments in this history, as well as a road map to the volume itself.