Descartes And Animals: What If They Also Think?

26 October 2017

 - René Descartes, whose most famous quote is, “I think, therefore I am,” also stated that animals acted merely by instinct, and that even their cries during vivisection came as reflexes rather than from pain as humans experience. This was a ghastly error that reverberates even today in animal research, as experiments worldwide subject millions of animals to terrible pain in the name of science. But that’s another story.

Before humans shifted into rational thinking, we saw our world as reflections of us; we knew we existed as a part of the great web of existence. And we therefore understood that non-human animals are different from us in degree only. We did not see ourselves as distinct, as a completely separate species. We knew that other animals operate with awareness, understand the world in different, sometimes superior ways, and respond consciously to the world. We saw them with compassion.

But we’ve left that behind since Descartes. We still, as a society, see non-human animals as instinctual, reflexive beings. At least that’s the official line. I grew up with this mindset. While I grew up with cats, the occasional dog, monkeys, hamsters, and so on, I observed them through this rational, scientific filter and interpreted their actions from within its framework. I especially enjoyed cats, and spent many happy hours petting and observing them—still I never really saw them. At least, most of the time. Occasionally, they jolted me awake with behaviors I couldn’t explain as instinctual.