What kind of thing are we? Paul Snowdon's answer is that we are animals, of a sort. This view--'animalism'--may seem obvious but on the whole philosophers have rejected it. Snowdon argues that animalism is a defensible way of thinking about ourselves. Its rejection rests on the tendency when doing philosophy to mistake fantasy for reality.

Paul Snowdon; XI*—Perception, Vision and Causation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 81, Issue 1, 1 June 1981, Pages 175–192, https://doi.org/10.

The purpose of this paper is to raise some questions about the idea, which was first made prominent by Gilbert Ryle, and has remained associated with him ever since, that there are at least two types of knowledge (or to put it in a slightly different way, two types of states ascribed by knowledge ascriptions) identified, on the one hand, as the knowledge (or state) which is expressed in the ‘knowing that’ construction (sometimes called, for fairly obvious reasons, ‘propositional’ or (...) ‘factual’ knowledge) and, on the other, as the knowledge (or state) which is ascribed in the ‘knowing how’ construction (sometimes called ‘practical’ knowledge). This idea, which might be said to be Ryle's most lasting philosophical legacy, has, in some vague form, remained part of conventional wisdom in philosophy since he put it forward. My purpose here is fairly accurately described as ‘raising questions’, since both the criticisms of the received view (as I interpret it), and the positive alternative suggestions to be advanced, are, to some extent, tentative and exploratory. The aim is to assemble a broad range of evidence for the conclusion that we need to replace the standard account, to query especially what Ryle suggested as evidence for it, and to explore what seems to me to be the indicated replacement for it. (shrink)

Paul Snowdon; XI*—Perception, Vision and Causation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 81, Issue 1, 1 June 1981, Pages 175–192, https://doi.org/10.

Fish proposes that we need to elucidate what 'disjunctivism' stands for, and he also proposes that it stands for the rejection of a principle about the nature of experience that he calls the decisiveness principle. The present paper argues that his first proposal is reasonable, but then argues, in Section II, that his positive suggestion does not draw the line between disjunctivism and non-disjunctivism in the right place. In Section III, it is argued that disjunctivism is a thesis about the (...) special nature of perceptual experience, and the thesis as elucidated here is then distinguished from and related to certain other ideas about perception, namely, direct realism and also McDowell's epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers to hold that experience can be characterized in a basic way as being something it is like for someone to undergo. In the paper it is argued that when this slogan is examined it is in some respects trivial and in others mistaken. It is concluded that the slogan should be abandoned.

What are we? What is the nature of the human person? Animalism has a straightforward answer to these long-standing philosophical questions: we are animals. After being ignored for a long time in philosophical discussions of our nature, this idea has recently gained considerable support in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Containing mainly new papers as well as two highly important articles that were recently published elsewhere, this volume's contributors include both emerging voices in the debate and many of those who (...) have been instrumental in shaping it. Some of their contributions defend animalism, others criticize it, still others explore its more general implications. The book also contains a substantial introduction by the editors explaining what animalism is, identifying leading issues that merit attention, and highlighting many of the issues that the contributors have raised. (shrink)

My topic is personal identity, or rather, our identity. There is general, but not, of course, unanimous, agreement that it is wrong to give an account of what is involved in, and essential to, our persistence over time which requires the existence of immaterial entities, but, it seems to me, there is no consensus about how, within, what might be called this naturalistic framework, we should best procede. This lack of consensus, no doubt, reflects the difficulty, which must strike anyone (...) who has considered the issue, of achieving, just in one's own thinking, a reflective equilibrium. The theory of personal identity, I feel, provides a curious contrast. On the one side, it seems highly important to know what sort of thing we are, but, on the other, it is hard to find any answer which has a ‘solid’ feel. (shrink)

It is suggested that the best way to interpret animalism is as an identity thesis saying that each of us is identical to an animal. Since there are disagreements about the nature of animal persistence, this means that animalism itself not does not explicitly propose criteria of identity for persons. It implies the negative claim that features that have nothing to do with animal persistence have nothing to do with our persistence. Thinking of it as an identity thesis also makes (...) sense of the nature of the arguments surrounding the thesis. Central to such arguments are claims about the persistence of animals and persons in certain imagined scenarios. To adjudicate such arguments, we need a secure grip on some claims about animal persistence. Often these are generated by a theory of animal persistence. In the second part of the paper, it is argued that the attempt to build such theories on the assumption that life is essential for animal existence is implausible. In the way we speak, we seem not to recognise death as the ceasing to exist of an animal. No better way to think of animals is proposed in this paper. (shrink)

A scholastic-Cartesian schema faithfully maps ordinary, effective ways of dealing with intentionality; yet its apparent incoherence provokes philosophers into opting for one of two stances, 'Cartesian' or 'direct realist', seemingly incompatible, yet each seem in accord with ordinary thought. A wide range of canonical and current theories, realist, idealist and hybrid, essentially involve one option or the other. We should instead consider why the language of intentionality, with its apparent anomalies, works so well. Released from the obligation to opt for (...) one stance over the other, we can identify a robust realism different in kind from anything currently on offer. (shrink)

A scholastic-Cartesian schema faithfully maps ordinary, effective ways of dealing with intentionality; yet its apparent incoherence provokes philosophers into opting for one of two stances, 'Cartesian' or 'direct realist', seemingly incompatible, yet each seem in accord with ordinary thought. A wide range of canonical and current theories, realist, idealist and hybrid, essentially involve one option or the other. We should instead consider why the language of intentionality, with its apparent anomalies, works so well. Released from the obligation to opt for (...) one stance over the other, we can identify a robust realism different in kind from anything currently on offer. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of Individuals, entitled ‘Persons’, Strawson argues against dualism and the no-ownership theory, and proposes instead that our concept of a person is a primitive concept. In this paper, it is argued that the basic questions that frame Strawson’s discussion, and some of his main arguments and claims, are dubious. A general diagnosis of the source of these problems is proposed. It is argued that despite these problems Strawson gives an accurate and very insightful description of the way (...) we think about ourselves, which should form the starting point for more speculative accounts of ourselves. (shrink)

The thesis of the paper is that it is an illusion to think that the mind/body problem is one that philosophy can expect to solve. The basic reason is that the problem is one of determining the real nature of conscious states, and philosophy lacks the tools to work this out. It is argued that anti-materialist arguments in philosophy tend to rely on modal intuitions which lack any support. It is then argued that pro-materialist arguments, such as those of Smart (...) and of Papineau, are dubious because they either yield a conclusion that is too conditional on what other types of research might discover, or rely on premises that anyone who is not already a materialist can simply query. Even if these points are correct the main thesis remains fairly speculative, but at least some support for it is presented. (shrink)

The paper discusses some of the themes in Professor Dainton’s article ‘The Sense of Self’. In the first part it is proposed that some of the arguments in favour of the theory that Dainton proposes are questionable, and that in its more extreme version there are features which look doubtful. A simpler account of subjects is then proposed. In the second part some aspects of Dainton’s discussion of the sense of self are analysed. It is argued that although Dainton’s own (...) account of our sense of self is not obviously correct, the views he is opposed to are not well supported, nor is the debate very clear. (shrink)

I am not an exponent of any sport at a level above the barely competent, unlike some other writers in this collection. Moreover, I have long since abandoned efforts at engaging in sport and now merely watch it, again with no special powers of analysis or understanding. But one's level of competence and understanding do not, fortunately, determine the importance in one's life of things, and sport has played a large, and I think largely enhancing, role in my life. So (...) I am writing as someone with a lifelong interest in it with the aim of examining this thing, sport, trying to articulate what it is that I have been engaged with, and what it has given me. I am assuming that my own attitudes towards sport are not eccentric or unusual and so these reflections growing out of my own experiences will resonate with others. In effect I am engaging here in what is normally thought of as central philosophical task, that of trying to live an examined life – a life in which one of its components is to reflect hard on the nature and value of some of its other components. It would be, of course, a terrible mistake to think, as some philosophers are supposed to do, that an unexamined life is not worth living , an attitude which consigns the vast majority of lives to worthlessness, but we are, probably, committed to thinking that the reflective examination of our lives represents something good. (shrink)

What, I believe, we need to cultivate in explorations of our own nature is the ability to resist being swept away from solid and clear ways of thinking into realms of fantasy, where more or less anything goes.

In chapter 2 Swinburne rejects physicalism for two reason. The first is that it is committed to entailments that do not exist. It is suggested that this reason is questionable both because there is no persuasive reason to deny there are such entailments, and also no reason to think that physicalism has such entailments. The second reason is that the mental involves privileged access by the subject and physical features do not allow privileged access. It is proposed that the physical (...) does in fact permit privileged access. In chapter 3 Swinburne defends the Simple View of personal identity. The reasoning is very complex and rich, but it is proposed that Swinburne has not really shown that a reductionist account cannot be correct. (shrink)