Dimensions of Animal Consciousness

Trends in Cognitive Sciences 24 (10):789-801 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

How does consciousness vary across the animal kingdom? Are some animals ‘more conscious’ than others? This article presents a multidimensional framework for understanding interspecies variation in states of consciousness. The framework distinguishes five key dimensions of variation: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-consciousness. For each dimension, existing experiments that bear on it are reviewed and future experiments are suggested. By assessing a given species against each dimension, we can construct a consciousness profile for that species. On this framework, there is no single scale along which species can be ranked as more or less conscious. Rather, each species has its own distinctive consciousness profile.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Dimensions of animal wellbeing.Leonard Dung - 2023 - Philosophy and the Mind Sciences 4.
A Case for Conservatism about Animal Consciousness.Samuel Murray - 2020 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 27 (9-10):163-185.
Consciousness, Subjectivity, and Gradedness.Jakub Jonkisz - 2021 - Studia Semiotyczne 35 (1):9-34.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-08-21

Downloads
996 (#21,448)

6 months
243 (#10,830)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Nicola Clayton
University of Cambridge
Jonathan Birch
London School of Economics

Citations of this work

Non-Human Moral Status: Problems with Phenomenal Consciousness.Joshua Shepherd - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):148-157.
Animal Sentience.Heather Browning & Jonathan Birch - 2022 - Philosophy Compass 17 (5):e12822.
Degrees of Consciousness.Andrew Y. Lee - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):553-575.
Towards a Comparative Study of Animal Consciousness.Walter Veit - 2022 - Biological Theory 17 (4):292-303.
Understanding Artificial Agency.Leonard Dung - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.

View all 43 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Consciousness Explained.Daniel Dennett - 1991 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (4):905-910.
Valence and Value.Peter Carruthers - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (3):658-680.

View all 18 references / Add more references