The Animal Human Continuum Saturday, December 15th, 2018 Past Event Watch the video » Ancient Egyptians placed animal and bird heads on divinities’ bodies, in an embracing worldview wherein both gods and beasts extend and transcend the human ken. In his scientific extension of this ancient mythology, Darwin’s 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals explored non-human sentience. The affective neuroscientist of our era, Jaak Panksepp, pursued the social, emotional and neuro-physiological foundations of human consciousness on a continuum with the being-in-the-world of animals. He announced “the tall tale end of an intellectual era when the animal mind was deemed nonexistent or impenetrable.” The sixteenth century materialist understanding of animal behavior, associated with Descartes’s animal automata, became the prevailing view of animals’ lives. Cruelty to Animals movements ran concurrently with this “scientific” view, leading in 1876 to Britain’s Cruelty to Animals Act. Tradition has it that in 1889, Nietzsche collapsed on seeing a horse flogged, akin to scenes from a dream, diaries, and literary passages Dostoevsky recorded as illustration of how our relation to animals reflects ethical relation to other humans. In current neuroscience, reptiles and rodents, wild, laboratory and domesticated animals are perceived as carriers of emotion. Human-animal bonding is affirmed through anecdote, research, clinical studies, therapeutic models, and even travel regulations – reflecting broader and deeper understanding of the interactional dynamics between species. Animals are now participants in therapies for childhood development and recovery, for spectrum disorders, geriatric syndromes, and PTSD treatment of civilians and veterans. They detect both explosives and diseases. Freud perceived termite mounds as manifestations of the sublimation of individual will to the needs of the group. Social insects’ behavior are cited as examples of inclusive fitness and eusociality, For social mammals, these overlap with empathy and “theories of mind.” How are these concepts applied in robotics and A.I., where individual “cells” are designed to act on histories inscribed in their chemistry/circuitry. Today, what do science and belief systems teach about our animal kin and our animal selves? How is human consciousness and development informed by these trends? If it is not ethical to treat humans like animals, is it acceptable to treat animals like “animals”? As Panksepp observed, it “is time for neuroscience to accept that animals are capable of many emotional feelings,” essential both for their sake and our own. Participants: Josh Aronson Producer/Director/Writer, Josh Aonson began his career out of college as a still photographer for Time Life and began making films in 1979. He directed hundreds of commercials, rock videos, television pilots and, for the past 20 years, he specialized in documentaries. He directed the Oscar- nominated Sound & Fury followed by films about transsexuals for… read more » William Grassie William Grassie is an interdisciplinary scholar, academic entrepreneur, social activist, and author. Grassie received a B.A. in political science from Middlebury College and then worked for ten years on nuclear disarmament, citizen diplomacy, community organizing, and sustainability issues in Washington, D.C, Jerusalem, Philadelphia, and West Berlin. He completed a Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University, where… read more » Elizabeth Hess Elizabeth Hess is the author of two books on animals. The first, Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats and Everyday Heroes was published by Harcourt Brace (1998). The second, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would be Human was published by Bantam Books (2008). This remains one of the only biographies of an animal. The book was… read more » Gerald Hurowitz Associate Director, The Helix Center Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center Gerald Hurowitz is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and on faculty for the past 30 years at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. He has a full-time clinical practice in psychopharmacology and neuropsychiatry in New York City. Dr. Hurowitz is a founder and Chief Medical Officer at M3 Information, an information technology company that… read more » James Serpell James Serpell holds the Marie A. Moore endowed Chair of Animal Ethics & Welfare at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor’s degree in Zoology from University College London and his PhD in Animal Behavior from the University of Liverpool, UK. At Penn Vet he teaches veterinary ethics and animal… read more »
Josh Aronson Producer/Director/Writer, Josh Aonson began his career out of college as a still photographer for Time Life and began making films in 1979. He directed hundreds of commercials, rock videos, television pilots and, for the past 20 years, he specialized in documentaries. He directed the Oscar- nominated Sound & Fury followed by films about transsexuals for… read more »
William Grassie William Grassie is an interdisciplinary scholar, academic entrepreneur, social activist, and author. Grassie received a B.A. in political science from Middlebury College and then worked for ten years on nuclear disarmament, citizen diplomacy, community organizing, and sustainability issues in Washington, D.C, Jerusalem, Philadelphia, and West Berlin. He completed a Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University, where… read more »
Elizabeth Hess Elizabeth Hess is the author of two books on animals. The first, Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats and Everyday Heroes was published by Harcourt Brace (1998). The second, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would be Human was published by Bantam Books (2008). This remains one of the only biographies of an animal. The book was… read more »
Gerald Hurowitz Associate Director, The Helix Center Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center Gerald Hurowitz is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and on faculty for the past 30 years at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. He has a full-time clinical practice in psychopharmacology and neuropsychiatry in New York City. Dr. Hurowitz is a founder and Chief Medical Officer at M3 Information, an information technology company that… read more »
James Serpell James Serpell holds the Marie A. Moore endowed Chair of Animal Ethics & Welfare at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor’s degree in Zoology from University College London and his PhD in Animal Behavior from the University of Liverpool, UK. At Penn Vet he teaches veterinary ethics and animal… read more »
yes! as well as many more Leaping Bunny app, neavs.org, navs.org and pcrm.org, Phil Arkow’s NationalLinkCoalition.org and the HSUS’s campaign, First Strike http://www.hsi.org/assets/pdfs/eng_develop_first_strike_campaign.pdf both linking animal abuse & domestic violence and fishfeel.org and the ALDF .org and the IDA’s guardian initiative https://www.idausa.org/campaign/guardian-initiative/ and kerulos.org, a project of Gay Bradshaw (Elephants on the Edge* Yale, 2009) who is developing trans-species psychology, emphasizing the similarities shared by humans and other species using ethology, psychology and neurology to include trauma-informed care for rescued anymals* and and and . . . . *Lisa A. Kemmerer* Verbal Activism: “Anymal” Society & Animals 14:1 (2006) © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Should Trees Have Standing Christopher D. Stone Avon, 1972 Beastly Morality Animals as Ethical Agents Jonathan K. Crane, ed Columbia Univ, 2016 Eternal Treblinka Charles Patterson Lantern, 2002 The Case for Animal Rights Tom Regan Univ California, 1083 Ciferae A Bestiary in Five Fingers Tom Tyler UMinn, 2012 Critical Theory and Animal Liberation John Sanbonmatsu, ed Roman Littlefield, 2011 Reply