Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T02:47:43.330Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Descartes on the Animal Within, and the Animals Without

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2020

Evan Thomas Open the ORCID record for Evan Thomas [Opens in a new window]
Evan Thomas*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Descartes held that animals are material automata without minds. However, this raises a puzzle. Descartes’s argument for this doctrine relies on the claims that animals lack language and general intelligence. But these claims seem compatible with the view that animals have minds. As a solution to this puzzle, I defend what I call the introspective-analogical interpretation. According to this interpretation, Descartes employs introspection to show that certain human behaviors do not depend on thought but rather on automatic bodily processes. Descartes then argues that animal behavior resembles only those behaviors that are automatic in humans. Analogy thus supports the view that the behaviors of animals do not depend on thought but are, rather, automatic. And if animal behavior is automatic, then animals are best regarded as automata.

Keywords

Descartesanimalsanimal automatismanimal mindsconsciousnessanimal consciousnessbeast-machineintrospection
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 8 , November 2020 , pp. 999 - 1014
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Gordon, and Morris, Katherine. 1996. Descartes’ Dualism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bayle, François. 1670. “The General Systeme of the Cartesian Philosophy.” In A Discourse Written to a Learned Frier [i.e., Gabriel Cossart], by M. Des Fourneillis; Shewing, That the Systeme of M. Des Cartes, and Particularly His Opinion Concerning Brutes, Does Contain Nothing Dangerous; and That All He Hath Written of Both Seems to Have Been Taken Out of the First Chapter of Genesis. To Which Is Annexed the Systeme General of the Same Cartesian Philosophy. By Francis Bayle, Etc. Ms. Notes, translated by Grangeron, Henri. Little Britain, London: Moses Pitt.Google Scholar
Bayle, Pierre. 1965. Historical and Critical Dictionary. Translated by Popkin, Richard. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jonathan. 1988. “Thoughtful Brutes.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 62: 197.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1966. Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clerselier, Claude, ed. 1677. L’homme de René Descartes et La Formation Du Foetus, Avec Des Remarques de Louis de La Forge, a Quoy l’on a Ajouté Le Monde Ou Traité de La Lumière Du Mesme Autheur. Paris: Charles Angot.Google Scholar
Cottingham, John. 1978. “‘A Brute to the Brutes?’: Descartes’ Treatment of Animals.” Philosophy 53 (206): 551–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100026371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cottingham, John. 1992. “Cartesian Dualism: Theology, Metaphysics and Science.” In The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, edited by John, Cottingham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaukroger, Stephen. 2003. “The Resources of a Mechanist Physiology and the Problem of Goal-Directed Processes.” In Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, 395–412. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Peter. 1992. “Descartes on Animals.” Philosophical Quarterly 42 (167): 219–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatfield, Gary. 2008. “Animals.” In A Companion to Descartes, 404–25. Malden: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470696439.ch24.Google Scholar
Loeb, Louis E. 1981. From Descartes to Hume. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Norman. 1972. “Thoughtless Brutes.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 46 (September): 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Katherine. 2003. “Bêtes-Machines.” In Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, 413–31. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Newman, Lex. 2001. “Unmasking Descartes’s Case for the Bête Machine Doctrine.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 31 (3): 389–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, Elliot Samuel. 2018. “Descartes’s Anti-Transparency and the Need for Radical Doubt.” Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5: 1083–129.Google Scholar
Radner, Daisie M., and Radner, Michael. 1996. Animal Consciousness. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Rozemond, Marleen. 1993. “The Role of the Intellect in Descartes’s Case for the Incorporeity of the Mind.” In Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes, edited by Voss, Stephen. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rozemond, Marleen. 2014. “The Faces of Simplicity in Descartes’s Soul.” In Partitioning the Soul: Debates From Plato to Leibniz, edited by Perler, Dominik and Corcilius, Klaus, 219–44. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sencerz, Stefan. 1990. “Descartes on Sensations and ‘Animal’ Minds.” Philosophical Papers 19 (2): 119–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/05568649009506333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, Alison. 2003. “Descartes on the Cognitive Structure of Sensory Experience.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (3): 549–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, John. 2000. “The Body and the Brain.” In Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, edited by Gaukroger, Stephen, Schuster, John, and Sutton, John, 697–722. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Thomas, Evan. 2020. “Animals and Cartesian Consciousness: Pardies vs. the Cartesians.” Journal of Modern Philosophy 2 (1): 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Janice. 2006. “Does Descartes Deny Consciousness to Animals?” Ratio 19 (3): 336–63. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9329.2006.00331.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wee, Cecilia. 2005. “Animal Sentience and Descartes’s Dualism: Exploring the Implications of Baker and Morris’s Views.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 13 (4): 611–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608780500293018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1978. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margaret D. 1978. “Cartesian Dualism.” Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays, 197–211.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margaret Dauler. 1999. “Animal Ideas.” In Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Wilson, Margaret Dauler, 495–512. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar