Avicenna on Non-conceptual Content and Self-Awareness in Non-human Animals

Avicenna’s contributions to what might be called animal cognition are not confined to a novel understanding of Aristotle’s psychology, but they raise an issue that is still a matter of discussion in contemporary philosophy of mind: whether non-human animals have consciousness and intentional states that constitute a structured experience of their relation to the world, even though they do not have conceptual knowledge. This paper provides an explanation of Avicenna’s position concerning the cognitive content of sense perception and self-awareness in non-human animals as an attempt to show that Avicenna’s stance should be considered in the current discussion as an alternative that provides a provocative solution to a mainstream issue in contemporary philosophy. ©2016, Springer International Publishing.