The impenetrable silence of the animal heart. On the conception of animals in Descartes’ works
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v78.i298.y2022.029Keywords:
animal, automaton, body, Descartes, passionAbstract
Descartes is traditionally credited with the «animal-machine» thesis, according to which animals lack cognitive capacities, emotions and, in general, consciousness. This interpretation, which is still alive, is based on the advances of Cartesian natural philosophy, which broke with the Aristotelianscholastic, qualitative, proposing a quantitative physical-mathematical model much closer to ours. But Descartes’ proposal, in its physiological aspect, which basically implies an innovative conception of the human being, left many things out: such as life, health, or the ends of behavior. However, these elements reappear in his therapeutic and moral treatment of passions, considering the subject as a primitive union of mind and body. This Cartesian solution can also reach animals which, we will conclude, are not necessarily cold and dispassionate machines.
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