Persons as Animals: Understanding the Animal Bases of Agency, Perceptual Knowledge and Thought

我们人类是动物这一事实与我们的自我理解有什么关系？哲学探究往往把注意力集中在人类与其他动物之间的区别--例如，语言、理性、道德、自我意识、美感等方面。然而，最近几年，在一些相关领域，人们越来越多地认识到，更认真地对待我们与其他动物的共性的调查是有兴趣的。特别是，似乎越来越明显的是，即使是我们最珍视的、我们认为最独特的人类能力--如自由意志和概念能力--也受到我们作为动物存在的本性的重要制约。这项研究将探索三个领域，有理由认为，通过考虑人类力量植根于我们的动物性的方式，可以取得实质性的哲学进步。一种是自由意志和代理的哲学，在这里我将探讨这样一种建议，即在某些方面可以被视为某种自由的启示的方式，不仅仅是我们人类代理人的行为。第二个是知觉哲学。长期以来，视觉一直主导着关于知觉的哲学讨论；但它是一种比任何其他感觉都更强调主体与世界的分离性的感觉。我想考虑更多地关注身体形式的知觉的好处，这些知觉可以说是更基本的，在动物世界中更广泛，例如本体知觉(对自己身体的知觉)，动觉知觉(对运动的知觉)，以及触觉(触觉)知觉，所有这些都倾向于涉及主体在世界中更大程度的嵌入。第三个也是最后一个领域是思想哲学。最近激动人心的工作表明，推理和思维的结构正是从我们具体化的细节中浮现出来的。我的目标是探索这些发现对我们关于我们是什么样的人的概念的影响。总体目标是通过对这三个具体领域的详细考虑来表明，如果我们希望了解关于自己的真相，将我们的人性理解为动物的一个版本，那么它是多么重要。然而，同样重要的是避免一种简单化的倾向，到目前为止，这种倾向经常主导着关于我们动物本性的讨论。因此，例如，有时有人提出，既然我们只是动物，我们必须发现我们的基本动机是在驱力和本能、欲望、权力斗争、领土争端等方面，这些通常被理解为动物的行为。我们是动物，但仍然是独一无二的，我试图通过展示我们一些最独特的人类能力是如何由我们是动物这一事实塑造的，我希望提供一种不同的方式来理解坚持人类是动物意味着什么。

What is the relevance to our self-understanding of the fact that we human beings are animals? Philosophical enquiry has often focused its attention on those aspects of ourselves which *differentiate* (or are alleged to differentiate) human beings from the other animals - for example, language, rationality, morality, self-consciousness, aesthetic sensibility. In more recent years, however, there has been increasing recognition, in a number of related areas, of the interest to be had in investigations which take more seriously our *commonality* with other animals. In particular, it is coming to seem apparent that even the capacities we cherish most highly, and which we regard as most distinctive of humanity - such as free will and conceptual abilities - are importantly conditioned by our nature as animal beings. This research will explore three areas in which there is reason to think that substantial philosophical progress can be made by considering the ways in which specifically human powers are rooted and grounded in our animality. One is the philosophy of free will and agency, where I shall explore the suggestion that it is not only we human agents that act in ways which can be regarded as in some respects revelatory of a certain freedom. A second is the philosophy of perception. Vision has long dominated philosophical discussions of perception; but it is a sense which emphasises more than any other the separateness of subject from world. I should like to consider the benefits of focusing more on bodily forms of perception which are arguably more fundamental, and more widespread throughout the animal world, such as proprioception (perception of one's own body), kinaesthetic perception (perception of motion); and haptic (touch) perception, all of which tend to involve a much greater degree of embeddedness of the subject in the world. The third and final area is the philosophy of thought. Recent exciting work has suggested that the very structure of reasoning and thinking emerges from the detail of our embodiment. I aim to explore the consequences of these findings for our conception of the sorts of beings we are. The overall aim is to show, via detailed consideration of these three specific areas, how important it is, if we wish to know the truth about ourselves, to understand our humanity as a version of animality. However, it is equally important to avoid a reductive tendency which has thus far often dominated discussion of our animal nature. Thus, for example, it is sometimes suggested that since we are 'just' animals, we must find our basic motivations to be amongst the drives and instincts, lusts, power struggles, territorial disputes, and so on, in terms of which animal behaviour is often understood. By trying to show how some of our most distinctively human capacities are shaped by the fact that we are animals, but remain nevertheless unique to us, I hope to provide a different way of understanding what it might mean to insist that human beings are animals.