ABSTRACT
In this chapter it is assumed that the notion of an animal is a natural kind notion, where the fundamental nature of animals is an empirical matter. Despite not having a full theory of animals the notion is employed in the metaphysical thesis called “animalism” which says that we are (identical with) animals. In Section 13.2 an interpretation of animalism is provided and it is argued that it is not immediately a theory of our persistence conditions, which Lockeanism is usually presented as, but rather a timeless identity thesis. It is argued in Section 13.3 that most of the claims about animals that figure in the debates about animalism are either so obvious as to not need validation by science, or the cases too unrealistic for science to give us a verdict on them. In the final section various interpretations of the proposal that animals (and hence we) should be thought of as processes are presented, some arguments for that proposal are examined and some criticisms of them advanced. It is also suggested that there is no general reason to replace a conception of animals as objects with one viewing them as processes, but also conceded that the assessment of the proposal leaves much to be considered.
