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Full-Text Articles in Cognition and Perception
A Model Of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities, Leslie Irvine
A Model Of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities, Leslie Irvine
Leslie Irvine, PhD
Interaction between people and companion animals provides the basis for a model of the self that does not depend on spoken language. Drawing on ethnographic research in an animal shelter as well as interviews and autoethnography, this article argues that interaction between people and animals contributes to human selfhood. In order for animals to contribute to selfhood in the ways that they do, they must be subjective others and not just the objects of anthropomorphic projection. Several dimensions of subjectivity appear among dogs and cats, constituting a “core” self consisting of agency, coherence, affectivity, and history. Conceptualizing selfhood in this …
Animal Cognition, Kristin Andrews, Ljiljana Radenovic
Animal Cognition, Kristin Andrews, Ljiljana Radenovic
Kristin Andrews, PhD
Debates in applied ethics about the proper treatment of animals often refer to empirical data about animal cognition, emotion, and behavior. In addition, there is increasing interest in the question of whether any nonhuman animal could be something like a moral agent.
Understanding Norms Without A Theory Of Mind, Kristin Andrews
Understanding Norms Without A Theory Of Mind, Kristin Andrews
Kristin Andrews, PhD
I argue that having a theory of mind requires having at least implicit knowledge of the norms of the community, and that an implicit understanding of the normative is what drives the development of a theory of mind. This conclusion is defended by two arguments. First I argue that a theory of mind likely did not develop in order to predict behavior, because before individuals can use propositional attitudes to predict behavior, they have to be able to use them in explanations of behavior. Rather, I suggest that the need to explain behavior in terms of reasons is the primary …