ABSTRACT
In the Discourse on Method, quoted here and first published in 1637, Rene Descartes formulates human identity by comparing humans, animals and machines. He imagines two sorts of automata, the first of which is designed to mimic a monkey, and the second to imitate a human. He claims that there is no reason why, in principle, the first should not succeed in its purpose, convincing us that it is indeed a monkey. However, the second would fail for two interconnected reasons: it would be incapable of responding to the sense of anything said to it (even though it could be constructed to say particular phrases in response to being touched), and it would fail in any task that required it to act 'through knowledge' (even though it could conceivably perform certain predictable tasks better than people).
