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Possibilities and Limitations of the Study of the Animal Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

J Van Rooijen
J Van Rooijen*
Affiliation:
Churchillweg 37-c, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Extract

It is my conviction that all animals, including invertebrates, possess a mind. This conviction is not based on scientific evidence. We are unable to observe the mind directly. According to the principle of parsimony, I assume that body and mind are two aspects of the same. This assumption predicts that it will always be possible to find a bodily explanation, implying that it will never be possible to perform an experiment that proves that a mind is present in any animal species, including human beings. As a result, it will never be possible to prove scientifically that my conviction that all animals possess a mind is correct or wrong.

Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 10 , Issue S1: Consciousness, Cognition and Animal Welfare: Proceedings of the UFAW Symposium, Zoological Society of London, 11-12 May 2000 , February 2001 , pp. S248 - S249
Copyright
© 2001 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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References

Kennedy, J S 1992 The New Anthropomorphism. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UKCrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Visser, M B H and Grommers, F J 1988 Dier of Ding. Pudoc: Wageningen, The NetherlandsGoogle Scholar