We don’t need a Science of Animal Consciousness. On the Unexpected Insights gained from Walter Veit’s A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousnes
We don’t need a Science of Animal Consciousness. On the Unexpected Insights gained from Walter Veit’s A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousnes

Summary/Abstract: This paper is a critical commentary on Walter Veit’s book A philosophy for thescience of animal consciousness . My goal is to show that although Veit succeedsin presenting a compelling account of animal consciousness, he may have un-intentionally undermined the purpose of such science. I argue that, despite theauthor’s claims, his theory is not as empirically grounded as he makes it out tobe. Paradoxically, some of Veit’s arguments against his opponents seem to bedouble-edged. Still, I also argue that this is a necessary cost, as an alternativewould be to succumb to a particular form of metatheoretical anthropomor-phism. In effect, we end up with a surprising conclusion that we need manysciences of different consciousnesses, which seems at odds with Veit’s Darwin-ian continuity assumption. However, this only goes to show that the book iswell worth discussing.

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