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The Problem of Automaton and Feeling in Descartes’s theory of Animals-Crossing the Border of ‘Bêtes-machine’ in Cartesianism

KyungHee Lee 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In Descartes, it is his theory of ‘automates’ that causes the controversy on animal’s sentience. He called animal’s body a better ordered machine made by God, comparing with ‘automaton’ made by man in Discourse on the Method. After that, this is generally known as the beginning of the theory of ‘automates’ combined with ‘bête’ and ‘machine’ together. This passage doesn’t have any such meaning that animal alone is the automaton. He is willing to explain not only animal body but also human body equally from his mechanical point of view. He made an attempt to interpret animal’s movements altogether through the mechanical principle. As Cottingham said, it is difficult to conclude that Descartes’s animal lacks sentience from that he calls animal ‘machine’ or ‘automaton’. Descartes’s point doesn’t consist in the negation of animal’s sentience but in the establishment of the mechanic world-view. Therefore the interpretation that Descartes consistently deny animal’s sentience from first to last is too excessive. He is on neutral ground.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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