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Self-awareness in animals
Abstract
This chapter claims that the cumulative force of various empirical data and conceptual considerations makes it more reasonable to accept than to deny that many animals are self-aware. It considers studies focusing on animals' preferences. In the philosophy of mind, desires and beliefs are classified as propositional attitudes, mental states that take propositions or sentences as their objects. Desires to do certain things and intentional actions that involve doing them suggest at least some rudimentary awareness of oneself as persisting through time. Strengthening the case for intentional action, and therefore for bodily self-awareness, is evidence of more sophisticated behaviors in animals involving planning, complex problem-solving, and/or tool use. Like intentional action involving a plan, fear requires some awareness that one will continue into the future. Since Gordon Gallup's pioneering experiments, self-recognition with mirrors has often been cited as evidence of self-awareness in animals.
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“Like all the other dimensions, this is a capacity that admits of gradations [60,61].”
From Dimensions of Animal Consciousness (2020) · cites this paper as [61]
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Items 101–114 of 114
(2024) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-443-13581-1.10000-7
Rowlands, M. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190846039.002.0006
Rowlands, M. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190846039.002.0003
Rowlands, M. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190846039.002.0004
Do Animals Have Consciousness?
Huber, L. (2024) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-60803-2_10
A FENOMENOLOGIA DA PERCEPÇÃO ANIMAL NOS CONCEITOS FUNDAMENTAIS DA METAFÍSICA
dos Reis, R. R. (2019) · Dissertatio · doi:10.15210/dissertatio.v48i0.13536
The Minimally Good Life Account of Abortion's Permissibility
Kreuder, N., & Hassoun, N. J. (2024) · Public Affairs Quarterly · doi:10.5406/21520542.38.3.03
REBA: Robotic Emotional-Based Awareness
Kriadis, P., & Gerasimou, S. (2024) · IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Self-Organizing Systems (ACSOS) · doi:10.1109/acsos61780.2024.00024
Williford, K., & Rudrauf, D. (2024) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-73294-2_8
Virtue and Action: Selected Papers
Stangl, R. L. (2025) · The Philosophical Review · doi:10.1215/00318108-11676205
Bindayel, A., Elsayed, H., & Khan, M. U. (2025) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-93412-4_17
Dissonant Theodicy: Theodicy and Anti-Theodicy in Irresolvable Tension
McLaughlin, R. P. (2025) · The Palgrave Macmillan animal ethics series · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-88233-3_7
Attending like a dog: On learning ethical attention from other animals
Panizza, S. C. (2025) · Environmental Values · doi:10.1177/09632719251392999
Ulmschneider, P. (2013) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-29926-1_9
Metadata
- Authors
- DeGrazia, D.
- Affiliations
- George Washington University (US)
- Corresponding author
- DeGrazia, David
- ORCID
- DeGrazia, David
- Venue
- The Philosophy of Animal Minds
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2009-09-03
- Pages
- 201-217
- OpenAlex
- W1630360875
- Cited by
- 115
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 6.21
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- animal self-awareness, mirror self-recognition, propositional attitudes, intentional action, body awareness, animal preferences, animal cognition, tool use, problem solving, fear, persistence of the self
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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