Descartes’ Error and Animal Identity

Stevan Harnad: “Descartes’ Error and Animal Identity”

4pm, Thursday 22 September, Dawson College, Montreal

(part of Humanities & Public Life Conference: Thinking About Identity 19-23 September)

Descartes’ Cogito — “I think therefore I am” — was supposed to guarantee that humans exist: “I must exist because I am thinking.”

But how do I know I’m thinking? Because it feels like something to think. And I know I’m feeling something when I’m feeling something.

So it’s feeling, not thinking, that matters. In fact, it’s the only thing that matters. There is no right or wrong in a feelingless world. Things just happen. No joy, no sorrow, no mind/body problem, no self or other, no identity, or identity crises.

Descartes also thought that (nonhuman) animals don’t think: that they are just feelingless robots. They have no identity.

I will try to show how very wrong he was about that, and how very much Descartes’ error matters — for the animal victims… as well as for every decent human being.