Animalism (philosophy)

Not to be confused with the fictional philosophy from Animal Farm, or with Animism.

In philosophy, animalism is a theory about personal identity according to which personal identity is a biological property of human beings, just as it is for other animals.[1] Animalism is not a theory about personhood, that is, a theory about what it means to be a person. Animalists could hold that robots or angels were persons without that contradicting their animalism.[2]

According to the German philosopher W. Sombart, "Animalism", in opposition to "Hominism", contains every ideology that gives up the notion of humans possessing a life-form of their own, and understands them as a part of nature, as an animal species.[3]

The concept of animalism is among interests of philosophers Eric T. Olson and David Wiggins.[4][5]

Notes

  1. Baker, Lynne Rudder. 'When Does a Person Begin?', in Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Dycus Miller, and Jeffrey Paul (eds.), Personal Identity, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 39.
  2. Eric T. Olson (2007) What are we?: a study in personal ontology, Oxford University Press, section 2.1.
  3. (Historisches Wörterbuch der philosophie, 1971 Historical Dictionary of Philosophy )
  4. Olson, Eric T. What are we?: a study in personal ontology, Oxford University Press, 2007.
  5. Brian Garrett, Personal Identity and Self-Consciousness. Routledge, 1998. 137 pages. ISBN 0-415-16573-3

References