Animalism: Are We Animals?
Animalists make the metaphysical claim that we are animals. The idea seems uncontroversial, but according to philosopher Eric T. Olson it is deeply unpopular among philosophers.
According to philosophers it isnt obvious that we are animals. This is because animalism puts in doubt common theories of personal identity: that we are souls, egos, minds, organs, immaterial substances, material bodies, or are constituted by animals.
The argument that we are animals is simple enough, but difficult for those who deny it. As Olson points out: They must either deny that there are any human animals, deny that human animals can think, or deny that we are the thinking things located where we are.
The argument:
Two questions:
Are each of us numerically identical to an animal?
Why is the idea that we are animals seemingly unpopular among philosophers?
Eric T Olsons argument for animalism.
https://123philosophy.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/eric-olson-an-argument-for-animalism.pdf
SEP article on Animalism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/animalism/
Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel all denied it. With the notable exception of Aristotle and his followers, it is hard to find a major figure in the history of Western philosophy who thought that we are animals. The view is no more popular in non-Western traditions. And probably nine out of ten philosophers writing about personal identity today either deny outright that we are animals or say things that are clearly incompatible with it.
According to philosophers it isnt obvious that we are animals. This is because animalism puts in doubt common theories of personal identity: that we are souls, egos, minds, organs, immaterial substances, material bodies, or are constituted by animals.
The argument that we are animals is simple enough, but difficult for those who deny it. As Olson points out: They must either deny that there are any human animals, deny that human animals can think, or deny that we are the thinking things located where we are.
The argument:
- (P1) Presently sitting in your chair is a human animal.
- (P2) The human animal sitting in your chair is thinking.
- (P3) You are the thinking being sitting in your chair.
- (C) Therefore, the human animal sitting in your chair is you.
Two questions:
Are each of us numerically identical to an animal?
Why is the idea that we are animals seemingly unpopular among philosophers?
Eric T Olsons argument for animalism.
https://123philosophy.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/eric-olson-an-argument-for-animalism.pdf
SEP article on Animalism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/animalism/
Comments (72)
Personally, I'm in agreement with Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel, that there is a difference in kind between h.sapiens and other species, due to the human ability to speak, reason, create art and science, etc.
It seems to be a biological claim. Not sure what it means for it to be a metaphysical one, or what would make us metaphysically distinct from animals were it not the case. The articles suggest a fundamental difference, perhaps in how we persist differently than animals. But I've seen dead people and they persist pretty much the same as a dead frog.
Quoting NOS4A2The philosophers of old had no access to modern biology and presumed a form of anthropocentrism. At least reference the opinions of the ones who have access to and accept Darwin's findings. I do realize that there are plenty that still do not, but almost all of those beg the not-animal conclusion first and then rationalize backwards from there.
The SEP article seems to focus on our nature and persistence, and if either of those are different than animals, and if we are evolved from them, then at some point some fundamental change occurred which needs a hypothesis describing it, which nobody seems to want to produce.
Quoting NOS4A2
I don't know what that means. Give an example of something nonhuman that is numerically identical to an animal (frog?), and then something nonhuman that isn't (tree?). Humans seem more like frogs and less like trees.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree that the argument posted makes no sense to me and the first two premises seem to beg exactly as you describe. I don't see an argument at all outside of this.
Quoting Wayfarer
A difference, sure. A fundamental one? When did that change occur, or do you not consider humans to have animal ancestry?
Which premise do you disagree with?
A cat is numerically identical to an animal. A bottle isnt.
Which premise do you disagree with?
I said, if the aim of the argument is to prove that humans are animals, then P1 already says it, so it begs the question. Begging the question is 'assuming what an argument sets out to prove'.
Quoting noAxioms
I'm quite familiar with paleoanthropology and paleontology. The precursor species of early hominids would have gradually developed characteristics unique to humans such as the upright gait, opposable thumb, and enlarged cranium, but it really came into its own with the development of the hominid (neanderthal and h.sapiens) forebrain over a relatively short span of evolutionary time. It enables h.sapiens to do things and to understand levels of meaning that other species cannot.
Personally, I think we can acknowledge even a fundamental difference between an animal with language (and all that comes with that) and other animals without being bothered by the fact that we are all animals. But if there's any opening to debate the issue, it's got to leverage a distinction between human and person.
The aim is to prove that you are an animal, not that there is an animal sitting in your chair. Im just curious if you disagree with any of those premises.
Quoting Baden
We're related to all other species and descended from earlier hominids, but 'the human condition' is identifiable as a unique state. After all, scientists say we now live in the anthropocene.
Yes, it is. But that doesn't mean humans aren't animals. I've just had a look at the first paper @NOS4A2 quoted and the issue is as I've laid out. It's a truism that human beings, hominids, are animals. But the debate leverages the idea of personhood as making us more than that.
I know what you wrote but Im afraid it doesnt beg the question. Nowhere in the first premise does it say youre the human animal sitting in your chair.
That's a biological answer, not a metaphysical one. Yes, a human is part of the kingdom 'animalia' and a bottle (and a Tulip) is not. The distinction you chose seems to say no more than that.
Quoting NOS4A2
All of them, but the first two beg the conclusion that humans are animals, and that fallacy invalidates the argument.
Quoting Wayfarer
But none of that is fundamental. Plenty of species develop unique abilities, None of that makes them not animals.
Off topic, but the hasty evolution was never finished. We're sort of a train wreck of a being with lots of problems to work out. The thumbs predate humans. The upright gait is the thing that's very much a work in progress, and all my children and my wife (but not me) would have died without modern medical intervention due to defects in this area. I would have died as well, but not from gait defects. Modern medicine is interfering with natural selection.
Quoting NOS4A2
It calls that which is sitting in the chair a 'human animal', which is begging the fact that a human is an animal. That it is you or somebody else seems irrelevant. It isn't talking about the cat also sitting in that chair.
The debate isn't whether human beings are animals. They are. That's just a fact. The debate concerns whether we (the persons reading this thread) are animals.
Quoting NOS4A2
So if the intention of the argument is to prove that humans are animals, then that premise begs the question, as it already assumes that the human is an animal.
Quoting Baden
I would agree provided the implication is that humans arent just animals, or only animals. Its the philosophical implications of that Im wary of.
Souls arent human animals, brains arent human animals, consciousness isnt a human animal, minds arent human animals, are they? Its not a question whether humans are animals, but whether you are a human animal.
Thats not the intention. The intention is to prove that you are a human animal.
If you're open to that implication then your begging-the-question objection isn't water tight, is it? Although I think it's better to phrase it as "people aren't just human animals."
lol, I'm going to have to read that one.
But to add something substantive, I'll clarify on an example. I think Robert Wallace's reading of Plato and Hegel (which I like) would claim that what a human "essentially is" is not defined by being a certain sort of animal precisely because we have access to the transcedent through reason/"the rational part of the soul." We can ask of things "is this truly good" or "is this truly true," and so transcend the given of what we already are in becoming more fully self-determining (not that Wallace addresses this, so maybe he wouldn't agree). Yet this is not to say that a human isn't an animal from the perspective of biology. I don't think Kierkegaard addresses this, but it seems like you could draw something similar out of his work.
On St. Augustine, I would just point out that he and thinkers of his time normally simply refer to animals as "brutes," which denotes living, mobile beings without reason. I don't see Augustine taking issue with man as animal from a biological point of view. After all, the same "breath/soul" (Hebrew ruach) that describes life in animals in the Bible and which is given to the animals in Genesis is also used to describe what God puts in man and man's life. Both are created from the dust.
What Augustine is often concerned with is precisely the ways in which we can degenerate into mere animals. And this is not uncommon for his period. I would tend to agree with Philip Cary that a defining feature of the ancient/medieval and modern splits is:
- Modern man worries about becoming a machine.
-Ancient/medieval man worries about degenerating into a brute.
Given the relative security, access to education, food, actually useful medical care, etc., I think this fixation makes a lot of sense, and it helps explain why freedom for the ancients is so often reflexive freedom over the self or to unify the self (i.e. for reason to rule the animal parts of the soul). And, in defense of the ancients, I do think we might be giving ourselves too much credit when we worry more about the former than the latter.
I also think Aristotle splits the difference here very effectively by recognizing these types of concerns while tying the human good to our essence as a particular sort of animal (in the biological sense).
Thanks, I assumed people would read the paper, but will try to add more.
:up:
We are a different kind of animal just as all the other kinds of animal are. I'm very familiar with Spinoza and I doubt he out of all those mentioned philosophers would deny that we are animals. I'd need an explicit citation to convince me.
I think those who deny it want to believe that there is a human spirit or soul or essence which is not of this world. It seems to me something like that would be the real motivation to deny that we are animals.
We can say we are not just animals because we are "civilized"...enculturated, if being just an animal is defined as being completely determined by instinct in the ways of living or forms of life available to it, we would escape that categorization. But it could also be said that we are the civilized animalthe animal that can act counter to its instincts. Of course we don't know for sure that there are no other kinds of animal that can do that.
To save me the time of researching all of them I tossed it to ChatGPT.
There is a difference in kind between many different kinds of animals, e.g. tigers and nematodes, but they are still all animals.
Right so not merely animals as I already said above. For me the difference all comes down to symbolic language which enables an augmented abstract-capable rationality.
Also Chatbot does not present an explicit citation from Spinoza.
Right. And all that this entails.
It's an ontological distinction - a difference in kind.
Anyway, I started reading the article linked in the OP, and I really didn't like it, so I'll leave this issue to the other participants.
OK, I think I actually clicked with this comment. The bit about being numerically identical with a human animal makes more sense. The desired answer is No. We are fundamentally something else, and we only have temporary control (a free will thing) over this particular animal. Is that it?
In that case, my question becomes, at what point in the evolutionary history of h.sapien did this animal suddenly cede its self control to something else?
The argument in the OP still seems to make no sense. It seems to beg that the human animal in the chair is complete, not requiring a separate thing to do its thinking. There's all kinds of problems with the model of the animal not doing the thinking, but that doesn't seem to be the point here.
Quoting NOS4A2
So I've always said (sort of). Brains don't think. People do. A soul (per ancient definition) I think means something like 'all that is you', not a separate part that persists when the rest does not.
So take a frog. It has a soul by that definition. It is an animal, and it thinks, but nowhere near at our level. It has all that stuff you mention above. What distinguishes a human animal from any other animal that happens to do something better than most/all the other animals? What is being suggested in counter-argument by those that deny animalism?
And yes, I looked briefly at the SEP article to get some of the terminology being used, but I read less than a 10th of it.
Animalism seems to be the default position. It seems to be those denying it that are positing something extraordinary, in need of extraordinary evidence. I don't think either side can be falsified, so any proof one way or the other is bound to have flaws, which are often quite easy to spot.
Quoting Wayfarer
Case in point. This seems to be the claim in need of the evidence. I see no obvious difference in kind.
It's not a metaphysical claim, it's a linguistic one. We can define an animal as anything we want. It's a question of values - some people want to separate humans from animals for social, religious, or spiritual reasons. There is no scientific reason to do so.
How about all the other species in the Homo genus? They've been around for about 3 million years and had increasingly larger brains and, assumedly, higher intelligence. When did they stop being animals and start being human?
I'm doubtful that we would be in agreement as to just "what all that this entails" apart from the bleeding obvious.
But that details the argument under discussion. In fairness to @NOS4A2, he's tried to keep things on track by providing context.
The animalist would claim that those who argue "no" are wrong. That it's incoherent to consider ourselves as fundamentally something other than a human animal.
Quoting noAxioms
That's a problem for those who disagree with animalism as a philosophical position.
Quoting noAxioms
There are several ways to critique the argument as it's laid out but @Wayfarer's issue seemed to rest on a misunderstanding re human (as in human animal) vs "we" (persons).
Its fine to quibble about that but according Olson and animalism in general it is statement about our fundamental nature.
But I do find it extraordinary that we are the last extant species of human beings.
This is it. I also wager this motivation is the beginning of all such theories that are platonic or idealistic. It satisfies some impulse to raise man above everything else, simply because he cannot find value in man if he does otherwise.
The things of this world. What else is there?
Food, territory, mates, power in a hierarchy, freedom of movement and lots of other things. Just because animals don't have explicit values they can articulate to us---as they are non-linguistic---does not mean we can't infer from their behaviour that they (depending on their species) value many of the same types of things we do.
In any case, listing differences between us and other animals does not necessarily bear on whether we are animals. Animals differ widely between each other too. Corals are animals and so are apes. The argument could be made that there are more and more striking differences between apes and corals than between us and apes and yet both are indisputably animals.
That's exactly right. So the question becomes why it matters, one way or the other. One obvious candidate is the belief in some version of the immortal soul. Another is some version of the idea that the animal world, like the mineral one, is just there for us to exploit or, more politely, to adapt to our values and needs.
Quoting T Clark
Well, there couldn't be a scientific reason for a definition that was made only for social, religious or spiritual reasons. But there might be good social, religious or spiritual reasons for some definitions. It all depends on what one considers a good reason to be - and, as you say, that comes down to a question of values.
What puzzles me most is why there is no recognition here that a given organism always falls under several classifications. In biology, there are species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and domain. The method of classification of animals and plants (called cladistics) is according to the proportion of measurable or like characteristics that they have in common. The agenda behind this (or part of it) is that it is assumed that the higher the proportion of characteristics that two organisms share, the more recently they both came from a common ancestor.
I suppose if some one said that human beings are machines, they might be taken to say that human beings are just machines. But that's a misunderstanding. We can think of ourselves as machines for certain purposes in certain contexts, and as animals for other purposes in other contexts, and as people, not to mention as male/female, adult/child and so on. So the substantive question becomes when it is useful or appropriate to think of human beings as animals and when is it not useful or inappropriate to think of them as something else.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, that seems right. But nothing is that simple. There is also the comfortable reflection that, thank God, we are not either.
Quoting Ludwig V
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, I agree. For me, the main point is that it is a matter of values and not a matter of fact. In that case, it becomes a question of whether humans should be considered animals rather than whether they are or aren't.
As I noted in my response to Ludwig V, that's a matter of values and not of fact, which is fine as long as we recognize it.
What would the fact be, then?
Applying criteria established based on observation and a consensus of qualified scientists, humans are classified as animals.
Yes, for the purposes of biology, h. sapiens is just another species. But it would be absurd to apply economic theory to a hive of bees or termintes. But it is not a question is once-for-all; it is pragmatic. For example, people need food and shelter, just the same as their animals; they suffer and die from diseases, just the same as their animals. But it would be absurd to grant animals the right to vote; that belongs to people. Again, in the context of athletics, working out how best to throw a discus requires regarding the body as a machine; for many medical purposes the heart is just a pump. And so on.
And yet...
Quoting Randy Oliver - ScientificBeekeeping.com
Quoting Ludwig V
But not just pragmatic, also ethical, moral.
I suppose it depends on how you want to define persons. Harry Frankfurt had an influential paper that defined persons as entities that have second-order volitions, i.e. the effective desire to have a certain desire. See: https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/notes/frankfurts-theory
But by this criteria, personhood is something that has to be fostered and developed. On the Platonic view, we might always be persons in some sense, but we become more fully persons and more fully ourselves when reason unifies the person (as opposed to being a seething composite of conflicting passions and appetites).
This doesn't require that we are only persons when conscious though, because reason reaches down and "trains" (to use the imagery of the Phaedrus) the passions and appetites. So, we might consider how Aristotle thinks of virtue as a habit. It is something we can train ourselves to or that we can have trained into us. And this indeed is consistent with contemporary science on habit.
So, even though many of our choices are reflexive or less than fully conscious, it can still be the case that our very reflexes are shaped by our more intentional choices. The same is true of "the environment," since we can shape the sort of environment, we find ourselves in.
I think this is also very relevant for the free will debate, because it shows how, even if conscious, self-aware action built on proper understanding only represents a minority of our acts, it can nonetheless shape the course of are entire lives. A good example might be joining the Marines or the priesthood. Now, this might be done impulsively, but if it is done very intentionally, with full understanding, it is also a way to "lock in" one's environment in a way that is conducive to what one truly thinks is best.
That said, I think animalism gets at something important, which is that the human is a specific sort of biological organism, and facts relative to this shape "the human good." So, while it seems to be the case that the "human good" will always be filtered through culture and social practice (we are a social animal), it is also true that facts outside or prior to culture and social practice shape this good. An understanding of the human as animal can be very important here.
And I like animalism because it isn't reductive. I have a lot of overlap with folks like Sam Harris, who think that science can tell us things about the "human good." However, I think Harris' analysis goes off the rails by being overly reductive, reducing persons to brains and brains to neurons. In many cases though, what we care about in promoting the human good is not neuroscience, but more general principles that allow us to shape the world and understand it and ourselves.
Man as animal gets at this, although I can also see how it can be too limiting. If man is "just an animal," we might start to think that the human good is just sensations of well-being, not the development of the person, the development of freedom and self-determination, etc. Yet the development of self-determination, I'd argue, is key to the human good and to ensuring well-being (e.g. the citizens of A Brave New World have an unstable well-being because it will collapse if their economy is disrupted and they cannot get their drugs and entertainment, whereas folks like Boethius, Socrates, St. Ignatius, etc. can be sublime while sitting in prison cells awaiting death.)
Thanks for the insight, and I think youre right. The idea that we are animals, and not angels or something, proves to be a good foundation upon which to reach further metaphysical and ethical insights that might not only prove to be beneficial, but accurate. At any rate it leaves the idealistic and dualistic theories wanting.
As far as I can tell the debate around personhood currently evolves around the conditions of our identity through time, the psychological or physical continuity. Animalism suggests the latter. If this is so it appears to me, at least, that the only thing that does persist is the animal, and personhood ought to be granted to it rather than its psychological conditions.
So then how is animalism vs. not-animalism any different than a stance of physical monism vs dualism?
Quoting PatternerExactly. There are plenty of monist philosophers, and the only difference is that they don't choose this particular term to describe their identical view.
Quoting NOS4A2
It isn't an animal vs angel (or any other non-earth-evolved life form). It is an assertion of us being no more than what any other animal is. There's nothing additional (spirit, whatever goes to heaven say) on top of it that the animals don't have.
Quoting tim wood
Not sure what terms you need, but per the quoted argument in the OP, this is what I got, and certainly did not get at first:
A human animal is our physical body, that which is an individual of a species evolved from the earliest members of the animal kingdom.
A person (or thinking being) is all of you, including especially any part that persists after death. The argument asserts that the two are the same thing, and its opponents assert otherwise. The argument seems to be more of an assertion and seems to employ zero signficant logic in coming to its conclusion, but those in opposition do little better, typically arguing from incredulity or something.
Professional philosophers are often in the capacity of supporting the beliefs they have been taught. The priests take your money in exchange for promises made regarding your fondest wish: Everlasting pain free life, which requires a fancy story behind it to explain why everybody who has paid the price seems to still obviously not become immortal. So that story has to be rationalized, and that's one of the reasons so many philosophers looks for ways to do so.
Somewhere in my teens I became mature enough to realize that the priests were snake oil salesmen. Not the lower ones who genuinely believe what they've been taught, but the upper ones who make up the stories. So while it took a while to abandon the god and the immortality story, it what a pretty quick death of my opinion of how the church leveraged it all.
Yes, quite so. I realized after I signed off that I was wide open to that. If economics is about allocation of resources in a system, then an economy will be an aspect of any society.
Tentatively, I wondered whether any animals have an equivalent of money and I'm a bit sceptical about the claim that bees indulge in trade.
Quoting NOS4A2
I hadn't thought about this. I guess I assumed that a given human is the same machine, the same animal and the same person throughout their life - normally and paradigmatically. But there are questions about psychological identity (self-identity) and social identity that make it more complicated than that.
Worse than that, many animals have capacities that are at least person-like and a certain (complicated\) moral status - though no-one, so far as I know, thinks that they are morally responsible agents.
But I do agree that the identity of persons (and animals and other creatures) ought to be defined in terms of a life-cycle, not as something that is unchanging throughout life. I also think that my identity as a person is, to a great extent, a moral and a social question, not a psychological one.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, that's certainly true. The phenomena around feral children seem to confirm that and, in my understanding, suggest that there is a "window" in our development when those abilities need to be learnt, or are best learnt.
Quoting Patterner
Yes, some people do say there is no difference. But if that were true, the species homo sapiens could not be defined. The issue is what the significance of the differences is. The objection is to the idea of human exceptionalism; I mean the attitude that thinks that animals have no moral claim on us and can be treated in the same way(s) that we treat any other physical resource.
Quoting noAxioms
That may be because the debate is not really about a matter of fact, but a question of attitude and values.
As if that is the sum total of our achievements .
The analogy holds, any contest or hierarchy we've ever used to put ourselves above other beings has also been of our own invention. To my mind it's really quite a pathetic thing to do, inventing a game just to win it.
Beavers practice architecture, ants practice agriculture. Both cannot do this if the environment does not allow them to. Humans on the other hand, through inventions of safety gear, weather-resistant infrastructure, and scientific achievement, can. This is a core differentiator between human beings and non-human animals, I believe? Was human intelligence a fluke? Is it somehow limited only to mammals? Otherwise, according to the theory of evolution, provided enough time is given, other animals would logically one day reach comparable levels of intelligence as human beings, would they not?
We are organisms, that much is certain. "Animals" have different socially-given distinctions (wild, domesticated ie. livestock, companion animals ie. dogs, cat, etc.). When a man calls another man an "animal" that is usually due to a display of non-intelligent, primal-driven, often violent behavior, indicating there is a knowable distinction between human beings and other organisms, whether this is exclusively a social-construct or something a bit more foundational is, rather appears to be, like stated earlier in this discussion, subjective ie. a matter of opinion/utility-dependent.
It's the person associated with the human animal who is doing the thinking. That isn't question begging because that leaves open the possibility that the human animal and the person are one and the same. However, if the 'is' in premise 2 is taken to be the 'is' of identity 9and the argument's validity depends on this) then it's question begging, as it takes for granted that the person who is doing the thinking and is associated with that human body is one and the same as that human body. But that's precisely what those who think we are not human animals (merely associated with them) deny.
Imagine there is a weightless box into which a 90 kg person has been placed. We could now say ' the box is 90 kg'. I am the 90kg person in the box. Does it follow that I am the box? No, for in saying 'the box is 90 kg' we are not committing ourselves to the claim that the box itself weighs 90kg, but leaving open the possibility that it is something inside of it that is responsible for the weight. I think exactly the same applies to 'the human animal is thinking'. The 'is' in that sentence should not be read as the 'is' of identity. It's functioning in the same way as it is in 'the box is 90kg'.
If it was the "is" of identity, everything that is true of the person would also be true of the animal and of the machine. Which is not the case.
The only possibilities in philosophy seem to be reductionism or emergentism. I don't think that either are particularly attractive. As far as I know there hasn't been much work on the logic of cross-categorial relationships, beyond observing that descriptions in one category cannot be meaningfully applied in another category. In the case of human beings, we very much need to understand this.
and again illustrated by the post following
Quoting Clearbury
Not necessarily. The two could be separate things, and it is the human animal part that is doing the thinking, as is asserted by P2 of the OP argument.
How else do you explain why evolution would put such an energy-expensive thing up top if its function is no more than what can be accomplished by 1/8th the mass and energy intake (as evidenced by a similar mass deer).
Quoting Clearbury
OK, to apply that directly to the OP:
(P1) Presently resting on the floor is a box.
(P2) The box masses 90kg
(P3) You are the contents of the box.
(C) Therefore, the box is you.
That doesn't seem to be begging anywhere, yet the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, and it doesn't follow from them if the mass is due to the box itself or the contents.
Perhaps I did not apply the scenario correctly to the argument.
Quoting Clearbury
I don't get that from P2. It clearly says it is the animal doing the thinking, not the person. There's no mention of 'you' or the person in P2, except as an adjective expressing what owns the chair. There's no implication that what is thinking is what owns the chair.
Olson provides the logical form so you can check its validity.
premise 2 is ambiguous, for it could be interpreted to mean (as it does in 'the box is 90kgs') that the human animal sitting in the chair has associated with it something that is thinking). And then 3 could be similarly interpreted to mean 'the thing that is thinking is you'. So interpreted, the conclusion does not follow.
So that cannot be the meaning that Olson has in mind. Instead we must interpret 2 as simply asserting taht the human animal is itself doing the thinking. That's question begging for that's precisely what's at issue.
So, if we interpret the relevant premises in a non-question begging way, the argument is indeed invalid. But if we interpret the relevant premises in a way that preserves the argument's validity, then the premises become question begging.
There's no dispute that we think. And there's no dispute that our bodies are human animals. The dispute is over whether the thing doing the thinking is the human animal or something merely associated with it. That dispute cannot be resolved to everyone's satisfaction by fiat.
That's beside the point. The point is that this claim 'it is the person asociated with the human animal who is doing the thinking' is not question begging, whereas 'it is thet human animal that is doing the thinking' is.
Note, I am not arguing for or agaist the thesis that it is the human animal that is doing the thinking. I am pointing out that Olson's argument is question begging. Question begging arguments can still be sound. Quoting noAxioms
That is not an accurate rendering of my implied argument. I mentioned the ambiguity of the word 'is', yet you've removed that very word from the crucial premise.
The argument would go as follows:
1. The only think on the floor is a box that is 90kg
2. I am on the floor and I am 90kg
3. Therefore, I am the box
If premise 1 is interpreted one way - interpreted as meaning "the only thing on the floor is a box that may or may not contain something and that including whatever it may contain weighs 90kg" - the argument is invalid. For it does not then follow from my being on the floor and weighing 90kg that I am the box, for I may instead be something that is in the box (and is thereby responsible for its weight).
If premise 2 is interpreted much more literally - as meaning that a box alone - a box without any contents - is the only thing on the floor and weighs 90kg, then the conclusion does follow, but is clearly false.
I don't think that's right, though that may accurately characterize the positions most (?) contemporary philosophers hold about the matter.
But another option - I think the one most of the great philosophers of the past held - is that our minds are distinct entities from our biological bodies. A dead human is still a human animal, it's just not got a mind anymore - the person has left the building.
My point was that even if it is accepted that the human animal is doing the thinking, the conclusion that animalism is true does not follow. Yes, the premise begs the animal doing the thinking (as any premise begs whatever it is positing), but it does not beg animalism.
What if 'you' includes the experiencer, the persisting fundamental addition that humans have and that bugs and robots don't. The animal part still does the thinking (explaining the expensive brain), but not the experiencing, and not the exertion of will, if that can somehow be separated from thinking, which it often is.
That's what I mean by P2 not begging animalism, but only begging that the animal does the thinking. A lot of dualists would deny that the animal part does either of the thinking and experiencing. It's not a view I particularly understand, so I cannot speak authoritatively for the opposing view.
Quoting NOS4A2
I actually don't follow the notation, but it seems illustrated by my attempt at applying something real to x.
P1. x)(x is a big toe & x is at the front of your shoe)
P2. (x)((x is a big toe & x is at the front of your shoe) x is thinking)
P3. (x)((x is thinking & x is at the front of your shoe) x = you)
C4. (x)(x is a big toe & x = you)
Clearly this seems wrong, but it is the logic being employed, is it not?
The bit about 'x is thinking' very much begs that it is the toe doing the thinking, and not 'you', which includes the toe but is not entirely consisting of the toe.
Nobody replied to my query asking if animalism is in any way distinct from physical monism. I support such a thing, but that argument totally falls flat. The toe-ism argument is typically countered by one of incredulity, that a toe has not the capability for thinking and therefore there must be something more. That's another poor argument.
We are undeniably animals in bodily nature having the biological functions, desires and system.
However, we are also different from the other animals in respect of having sophisticated language and reasoning capacity .
Intelligence is not same as being rational. I was in deep shock finding out that some folks think those are the same in the other thread here. A dog can be intelligent in doing some tasks and chores and tricks when trained. But no other animals than humans can be rational. And even some humans aren't rational.
"Numerically identical to an animal" - this is the reason I can't take modern philosophy seriously. I scanned through the paper briefly, and maybe I missed it, but I couldn't even find the definition of 'animal' the writer uses to make his point.
Blame the analytics. Before that demon lord Ockham showed up we had perfectly intelligible gems like:
By way of the usual translations, the central argument of the Metaphysics would be: being qua being is being per se in accordance with the categories, which in turn is primarily ousia, but primary ousia is form, while form is quiddity and quiddity is actuality.
We are animals. It is unpopular because the minute we accept that we are animals, dualism, ego/spirit, anamnesis, eternal truths, heaven, hell, and immortality all vanish into the illusions that they are
It is unpopular because by "animal" a philosopher tends to mean much more than what a scientist means by it. You are uncontroversially an animal in the latter sense; but it is worth mentioning that humans, as an animal, are deeply different than other animals. I don't see what's so controversial here.
I'm afraid I don't follow. The large majority of philosophers do not subscribe to the idea of most if not all of the concepts you mention, so this can't be the source of their reasoning at all. Besides, what is an illusion, really? Something that can't be proven to be a substantial thing in its own right, not dependent of some other process or source. What is love? Friendship? Respect? These things by the aforementioned descriptors are but illusions too. Yet they drive men to madness, war, and on the opposite end provide comfort, purpose, and belonging. These things are regarded as substantial entities in and of themself, regardless if they be "facades" of biological workings or mere social constructs, by philosophers and non-philosophers, theists and atheists alike. Is this not so?
You are correct and I was hasty. I believe that notwithstanding most philosophers rejecting the issues I raised, they are still dragged by them. But I am not prepared to provide evidence currently. So, i will happily defer to your point.
Quoting Outlander
It may be true that these things affect us; but I think your 'hint' that they might be facades is closer to the truth. While I realize you are not subscribing to that theory, I think, neither can it just be brushed away. Yes, we are permitted to recognize our differences from other animals because of these facades; but I think if we leap further and conclude that we are not animals because of these appearances, we are just being conceited.