If the aim of the argument is to prove that humans are animals, then it begs the question, because it starts by presuming the conclusion.

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.

Animalists make the metaphysical claim that we are animals. — NOS4A2

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.

Why is the idea that we are animals seemingly unpopular among philosophers? — NOS4A2

The 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.

Are each of us numerically identical to an animal? — 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.

If the aim of the argument is to prove that humans are animals, then it begs the question, because it starts by presuming the conclusion. — 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.

that there is a difference in kind between h.sapiens and other species — 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?

I don't know what that means. Give an example of something nonhuman that is numerically identical to an animal, and then something nonhuman that isn't.

A cat is numerically identical to an animal. A bottle isn’t.

I agree that the argument posted makes no sense to me and seems to beg exactly as you describe. I don't see an argument at all outside of this.

Which premise do you disagree with?

Which premise do you disagree with? — NOS4A2

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'.

that there is a difference in kind between h.sapiens and other species
— Wayfarer
A difference, sure. A fundamental one? When did that change occur, or do you not consider humans to have animal ancestry? — 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.

Humans are animals. That's an incontrovertible scientific fact. You would have to disbelieve evolutionary theory to dispute it. However, it could be argued that people are not wholly animals, that the person transcends the human. Personhood could be considered a metaphysical category (depending on your philosophical worldview). Maybe that's where @Wayfarer is coming from.

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.

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'.

The aim is to prove that you are an animal, not that there is an animal sitting in your chair. I’m just curious if you disagree with any of those premises.

And I said, the argument begs the question.

Personally, I think we can acknowledge even a fundamental difference between animals with language and all that comes with that, such as humans, and other animals without being bothered by the fact that we are all animals. — 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.

'the human condition' is identifiable as a unique state. — Wayfarer

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.

And I said, the argument begs the question.

I know what you wrote but I’m afraid it doesn’t beg the question. Nowhere in the first premise does it say you’re the human animal sitting in your chair.

A cat is numerically identical to an animal. A bottle isn’t. — NOS4A2

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.

Which premise do you disagree with? — NOS4A2

All of them, but the first two beg the conclusion that humans are animals, and that fallacy invalidates the argument.

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. — 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.

No where in the first premise does it say you’re the human animal sitting in your chair. — 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.

@Wayfarer Have a look at the E.T. Olson link. There's an animal sitting in your chair because it's a truism that human beings are a type of animal (a scientific fact).

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.

It doesn’t need to stipulate the identity of whomever is in the chair. It is a general claim, to wit:

(P1) Presently sitting in your chair is a human animal. — 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.

But that doesn't mean humans aren't animals — Baden

I would agree provided the implication is that humans aren’t just animals, or only animals. It’s the philosophical implications of that I’m wary of.

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.

Souls aren’t human animals, brains aren’t human animals, consciousness isn’t a human animal, minds aren’t human animals, are they? It’s not a question whether humans are animals, but whether you are a human animal.

@NOS4A2 I think your approach is fine, but maybe you ought to add a bit to the OP to clarify because not everyone will look at the paper.

Cross posted. But that might help if it was in the OP.

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.

That’s not the intention. The intention is to prove that you are a human animal.

I would agree provided the implication is that humans aren’t just animals, or only animals. It’s the philosophical implications of that I’m wary of. — Wayfarer

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."

This seems like a topic where it will be very easy to fall into discussing something trivial through equivocation, however, I couldn't help commenting on:

According to the animalism account of our most fundamental nature, we are not

immaterial souls or egos (Descartes; Foster 1991);
material bodies (Thomson 1997; Williams 1957);
body-soul complexes (Swinburne 1984);
bundles of mental states (Hume; Rovane 1998; S. Campbell 2006);
material simples (Chisholm 1978 [1989]; Lowe 1996, 2001);
parts of brains (Puccetti 1973; McMahan 2002);
persons materially constituted by, but nonidentical with, animals (S. Shoemaker 1999; Baker 2000; Johnston 2007); or
nothing at all (Unger 1979a,b; cf. Unger 1990).

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:

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. — Wayfarer

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 animal—the 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.

I doubt how out of all those mentioned philosophers would deny that we are animals. — Janus

To save me the time of researching all of them I tossed it to ChatGPT.

there is a difference in kind between h.sapiens and other species — Wayfarer

There is a difference in kind between many different kinds of animals, e.g. tigers and nematodes, but they are still all animals.

"Though Spinoza’s Ethics suggests a monistic view where everything is part of a single substance (God or Nature), he also suggests that the mind and body are distinct modes. Humans possess a unique kind of rationality, which he considers a higher function than that of 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.

For me the difference all comes down to symbolic language which enables an augmented abstract-capable rationality. — Janus

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.

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. — Baden

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.

Souls aren’t human animals, brains aren’t human animals, consciousness isn’t a human animal, minds aren’t human animals, are they? It’s not a question whether humans are animals, but whether you are a human animal. — 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.

It's an ontological distinction - a difference in kind. — Wayfarer

Case in point. This seems to be the claim in need of the evidence. I see no obvious difference in kind.

Animalists make the metaphysical claim that we are animals. — NOS4A2

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?

Right. And all that this entails. — Wayfarer

I'm doubtful that we would be in agreement as to just "what all that this entails" apart from the bleeding obvious.