Introduction

Since Aristotle’s claim that “man is the rational animal” the ability to reason has been regarded as one the hallmarks of the mentalorganisms, like us, that can reason have minds, whereas organisms, like snails and pigeons, that could not reason do not have minds. For Descartes, animals were automata that simply responded to physical stimulation with no mediating processes of rational thought. Reasoning was not something that mere machines could do, but only non-physical souls.