Last updated 09/23/2025 — accessed:
Times, Locations, and Instructor InformationCanvas Site |
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(Prof) Colin Allen
<colinallen@ucsb.edu>
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(TA) Wade Fu
<yangfu@ucsb.edu>
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Course Description
Have you ever wondered what your pet animal is thinking? Or whether they think at all? Do animals have their own languages, or is it anthropmorphic to read complex meanings into their grunts and squeals? Can any of these questions be answered in a rigorous way? What does the latest science tell us about animal minds?
The goal of this course is to examine and historically situate current research in animal cognition with a view to understanding how philosophical and scientific questions about animal minds interact.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the course, students should have sufficient grasp of the material to be able to explain a range of ideas about the nature of animal mind, intelligence, cognition and consciousness. Students should be able to articulate different perspectives on the issues and state and critically evaluate the main lines of the arguments for and against these views.
Required Materials
Textbook: Kristin Andrews The Animal Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Animal Cogntion, 2nd edition. Routledge, 2020. [Available through the campus textbook store or on Amazon, etc.]
The textbook reading will be supplemented by original articles to be provided digitally via library or Canvas links.
This is an upper-division/graduate hybrid course. Students at both levels are expected to be able to read original research articles in philosophy and adjacent fields, and to extract the main lines of argument from them. If you are unsure about your capacity to do this, please make an appointment to talk to me before the end of the first week of the course.
Grading Basis
The following applies to students taking the course as PHIL125 for undergraduate credit. The grading basis for students taking PHIL225 for graduate credit will be discussed at the first 225-only meeting (time tba).
Grades will be assigned based on the following point schedule: 0-59=F 60-65=D 66-69=D+ 70-72=C- 73-76=C 77-79=C+ 80-82=B- 83-86=B 87-79=B- 90-93=A- 94-97=A 98-100=A+
Grades will be based on in-class/section activities, a writing assignment that will structured throughout the term, and a final exam. [THIS PART OF THE SYLLABUS IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION.]
Schedule of Readings, Topics, and Major Assignments
Ch#s refer to the Andrews book. Assigned readings should be
done before class on the dates indicated.
Class activities may include reading quizzes on the assigned readings.
| Date | Topic | Readings / Assignments |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to the Course Topics | |
| Mon 09/29 | Intro | |
| Wed 10/01 | Kinds of Arguments | READ: Andrews Ch1 "Other Minds" |
| Week 2 | Anthropomorphism and Evidence | |
| Mon 10/06 | READ: Allen, C. & Bekoff, M. (1997)
"Cognitive Ethology and Philosophy of Mind: An Interdisciplinary Approach."
Chapter 1 of Species of Mind: The philosophy and biology of
cognitive ethology MIT Press
[UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 10/08 | READ: Andrews Ch2 Understanding Animal Behavior | |
| Week 3 | Interpreting and Explaining | |
| Mon 10/13 |
READ: Wynne, C.D.L. (2007). "What are Animals? Why Anthropomorphism is Still Not a Scientific Approach to Behavior."
Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews 2, 125-135.
[doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20008.] [UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 10/15 | READ: Andrews Ch3 The Science of Other Minds | |
| Week 4 | Science and?of Consciousness | |
| Mon 10/20 |
READ: Buckner, C. (2013) Morgan’s Canon, meet Hume’s Dictum: avoiding
anthropofabulation in cross-species comparisons. Biology &
Philosophy 28, 853–871.
[doi:10.1007/s10539-013-9376-0] [UCSB Canvas Link] | |
| Wed 10/22 | READ: Andrews Ch4 Consciousness | |
| Week 5 | Feeling and Thinking | |
| Mon 10/27 |
READ: Allen, C. (work in-progress). "On the prospects for inventing a test for consciousness in animals."
[UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 10/29 | READ: Andrews Ch5 Can animals think? | |
| Week 6 | Thinking and Communicating | |
| Mon 11/03 |
READ: Roskies, A. (2015). Davidson on Believers - Can Non-Linguistic Creatures Have Propositional Attitudes?
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 33(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group.
Behavioural Processes 89(3), 244–255.
[doi:10.15502/9783958570337] [UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 11/05 | READ: Andrews Ch6 Communication | |
| Week 7 | Meaning and Mindreading | |
| Mon 11/10 |
READ: Bar-On, D. (2013). "Origins of Meaning: Must We ‘Go Gricean’?" Mind & Language 28: 342-375.
[doi:10.1111/mila.12021] [UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 11/12 | READ: Andrews Ch7 Social Knowledge | |
| Week 8 | Social and Culture | |
| Mon 11/17 |
READ: Halina, M. (2018). "What apes know about seeing"
in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds
ed. K. Andrews and J. Beck, 247-257.
[ author's copy] [UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 11/19 | READ: Andrews Ch8 Culture | |
| Week 9 | Culture (cont'd) | |
| Mon 11/24 |
READ: Ramsey, G. (2013). "Culture in humans and other animals."
Biology & Philosophy 28: 457–479.
[doi: 10.1007/s10539-012-9347-x] [UCSB Canvas link] | |
| Wed 11/26 | no class (day before Thanksgiving) | |
| Moral Minds | ||
| Mon 12/01 | READ: Andrews Ch9 Moral Minds | |
| Wed 12/03 |
READ: Andrews, K. (2020). "Naïve Normativity: The Social Foundation of Moral Cognition."
Journal of the American Philosophical Association. 2020;6(1):36-56.
[doi:10.1017/apa.2019.30] [UCSB Canvas link]] | |
| Finals Week | ||
| THU 12/11 | FINAL EXAM Noon-3:00 | |
Still Relatively New to Philosophy Courses?
Except in Logic (PHIL 183), you may find my concise guides to reading philosophy and writing philosophy helpful. You may find them useful even if you are not so new to philosophy.
Classwork expectations
Undergraduate full time load at UCSB is a minimum of 12 units and an average of 15 units. Based on a 40-hour work week, this comes out to between 2.7 and 3.3 hours per credit hour per week. Thus, in a 3 unit course you should be spending roughly 9 hours per week on the course, and for a 4 unit course, it would be 12 hours. If your course meets for 75 minutes twice a week, that's 2.5 hrs of contact time leaving 6 to 9 hours per week of outside lecture time. If you have a discussion section, then one hour is allocated there and these numbers drop to 5 and 8. In other words, you should be spending roughly 2 hours outside class on readings and assignments for every hour in class.
Notetaking and Studying
Concerning note-taking and studying styles, you are advised to read the following two articles from the cognitive science of learning.
TLDR:
(1) taking notes on a keyboard is less effective than taking notes by hand;
(2) practicing recall via repeated testing is more effective than re-reading for long term retention.
Missed Assignments
Except when indicated in the main part of the syllabus above, you may request to make up for missed exams or other assignments for and only for University-recognized officially excused absences:
Statement about Academic Misconduct
Students in this course are obliged to comply with UCSB's Academic Integrity Policies. Any student suspected of violating this obligation for any reason during the quarter will be referred via the Academic Integrity procedures detailed at the above link. When you submit assignments with your name on them in this course, you are signifying that the work contained therein is all yours, unless otherwise cited or referenced. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged. If you are unsure about the expectations for completing an assignment or taking a test or exam, be sure to seek clarification beforehand. Use of ChatGPT or similar generative AI products will be discussed in prior to any writing assigments, and may not be used unless you are explicitly given permission to do so, and never without explicit acknowledgment of its use.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal anti-discrimination statute that provides comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with disabilities. Among other things, this legislation requires that all students with disabilities be guaranteed a learning environment that provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and UCSB's Disabled Students Program for information about accomodations and services.
The University of California, in accordance with applicable federal and state laws and University policy, prohibits discrimination against or harassment of any person at the University on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition (cancer-related or genetic characteristics), ancestry, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, or age. For more information see https://eodp.ucsb.edu/resources/policies.
I ask that everyone in the class strive to help ensure that other members of this class can learn in a supportive and respectful environment. If there are instances of the aforementioned issues, you may contact the Title IX Office, by calling 805-893-2701 or visiting https://titleix.ucsb.edu/. You may also choose to report this to a faculty/staff member; they may also be required to communicate about such issues to the University’s Office of Diversity and Incusion. If you wish to maintain complete confidentiality, you may also contact University Counseling & Psychological Services .
Statement on Classroom Recording
To ensure the free and open discussion of ideas, students may not record classroom lectures, discussion and/or activities without the advance written permission of the instructor, and any such recording properly approved in advance can be used solely for the student’s own private use.
Materials provided for the course may be protected by copyright. United States copyright law, 17 USC section 101, et seq., in addition to University policy and procedures, prohibit unauthorized duplication or retransmission of course materials. See Library of Congress Copyright Office and the University Copyright Policy.