What Are We?
A Study in Personal Ontology
Olson, Eric T. Professor in Philosophy, University of Sheffield
Print publication date: 2007 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2007
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-517642-1







doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176421.003.0002

Eric T. Olson
Abstract: This chapter examines animalism, the view that we are biological organisms. It is based on the claim that human organisms think just as we do. This implies that if I am not an organism, I am one of at least two thinkers of my thoughts, making it hard to see how I could know that I am the nonanimal thinker: the thinking-animal problem. Some proposed solutions are critically examined, notably Shoemaker's claim that human organisms cannot think and Noonan's account of how we might know that we are not the animals thinking our thoughts. Familiar objections to animalism are then reviewed, such as its implication that personal identity does not consist in psychological continuity. It is argued that these objections are weak and that more serious worries lie elsewhere.

Keywords: animal, animalism, organism, Noonan, personal identity, psychological continuity, Shoemaker,

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WHAT ARE WE?