Relating to CC201’s study of The Renaissance is the essay ‘One Of Us’\u00a0by\u00a0John Jeremiah Sullivan on animal consciousness, in which he discusses Descartes’ views on the topic. Here is an extract:<\/p>\n
Descartes\u2019 term for them [animals] was\u00a0automata<\/em>\u2014windup toys, like the Renaissance protorobots he\u2019d seen as a boy in the gardens at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, \u201chydraulic statues\u201d that moved and made music and even appeared to speak as they sprinkled the plants.<\/p>\n
This is how it was with animals, Descartes held.\u00a0We look at them\u2014they seem so full of depth, so like us, but it\u2019s an illusion.\u00a0Everything they do can be attached by causal chain to some process, some natural event.<\/p>\n
Picture two kittens next to each other, watching a cat toy fly around, their heads making precisely the same movements at precisely the same time, as if choreographed, two little fleshy machines made of nerves and electricity, obeying their mechanical mandate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n