Rosenthal, David
(2025)
Dennett, Nonhuman Animals, and Consciousness.
[Preprint]
Abstract
Daniel Dennett’s view about consciousness in nonhuman animals has two parts. One is a methodological injunction that we rely on our best theory of consciousness to settle that issue, a theory that must initially work for consciousness in humans. The other part is Dennett’s application of his own theory of consciousness, developed in Consciousness Explained (1991), which leads him to conclude that nonhuman animals are likely never in conscious mental states. I defend the methodological injunction as both sound and important, and argue that the alternative approaches that dominate the literature are unworkable. But I also urge that Dennett’s theory of consciousness and his arguments against conscious states in nonhuman animals face significant difficulties. Those difficulties are avoided by a higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, which is close to Dennett’s theory, and provides leverage in assessing which kinds of mental state are likely to be conscious in nonhuman animals. Finally, I describe a promising experimental strategy for showing that conscious states do occur in some nonhuman animals, which fits comfortably with the higher-order-thought theory but not with Dennett’s.
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