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Foundations of Human and Animal Sensory Awareness: Descartes and Willis

  • Deborah Brown
  • Brian Key

In arguing against the likelihood of consciousness in non-human animals, Descartes advances a slippery slope argument that if thought were attributed to any one animal, it would have to be attributed to all, which is absurd. This paper examines the foundations of Thomas Willis’ comparative neuroanatomy against the background of Descartes’ slippery slope argument against animal consciousness. Inspired by Gassendi’s ideas about the corporeal soul, Thomas Willis distinguished between neural circuitry responsible for reflex behaviour and that responsible for cognitively or consciously mediated behaviour. This afforded Willis a non-arbitrary basis for distinguishing between animals with thought and consciousness and those without, a methodology which retains currency for neuroscience today.

  • Keywords:
  • René Descartes,
  • Thomas Willis,
  • consciousness,
  • animal soul,
  • structure-determines-function principle,
  • immortality,
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Deborah Brown

University of Queensland, Australia - ORCID: 0000-0001-5707-7605

Brian Key

University of Queensland, Australia - ORCID: 0000-0002-1150-3848

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  • Publication Year: 2023
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Foundations of Human and Animal Sensory Awareness: Descartes and Willis

Authors

Deborah Brown, Brian Key

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8.06

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Reading Descartes

Book Subtitle

Consciousness, Body, and Reasoning

Editors

Andrea Strazzoni, Marco Sgarbi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

206

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0168-1

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979-12-215-0169-8

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979-12-215-0170-4

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Knowledge and its Histories

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