Pirachula Chulanon

Topic: Philosophy of Animal Minds from Descartes to Kant

In the past decade, there has been a growing interest among philosophers in the question of animal minds. However, philosophers have been thinking seriously about animal minds throughout history. This course will trace the development of the philosophical debate on the existence and nature of animal minds in the early modern period up until the end of the 18th century. We will closely examine writings on the subject by Descartes, Malebranche, Cavendish, Leibniz, Bayle, Locke, Willis, La Mettrie, Condillac, Hume, Rousseau, Herder, and Kant. Apart from considering the views and arguments of these philosophers, we will pay particular attention to the conceptual and methodological implications of the problem of animal minds for the disciplines of philosophy of mind and history of philosophy.