Descartes' Argument - The Multimedia Experience

In Rene Descartes' letters, he makes a compelling yet simple argument. His form of thinking and deduction in these letters makes it obvious why his thinking is considered to have been integral in establishing the linear and concise concepts of the Scientific Method. In Descartes' letters to The Marquess of Newcastle and More, he explains why he believes animals, aside from the human race, to be without thoughts.
Descartes' continuously is quite concerned with assuring his readers that he is not claiming animals to be without life, sensation, or even superiority to humans in many matters, simply that they are without thoughts. He explains that perhaps the reason animals are superior to humans in many tasks is this lack of thought, the way that "...they act naturally and mechanically, like a clock which tells the time better than our judgement does" (Descartes 60). His mechanical comparison does not end here, he describes animals as nature's "automata", calling it only natural that nature would produce a form of automata superior to mankind's.



*visual aid, automata 

Descartes' primary evidence for this claim, that animals are without thoughts, is animals' lack of vocal language:

"Yet although animals easily communicate to us, by voice or bodily movement, their natural impulses of anger, fear, hunger, and so on, it has never yet been observed that any brute animal reached the stage of using real speech, that is to say, of indicating by word or sign something pertaining to pure thought and not to natural impulse" (Descartes 61).

Although this argument is definitely outdated, his thinking is clear. Without proof of animal's thought we cannot assume that they think, therefore if the only qualifying proof is language, we must assume that animals are without thoughts. However, Descartes has since been proved wrong by his own method of deduction, for example Koko the gorilla and her learning of sign language:


Descartes displays a scientific approach to comparing animals to humans in terms of the ability to think. He does so in a sensitive tone, somewhat surprising considering how long ago this was written, definitely not a time nearly as concerned with animal rights as our present day. Although Descartes is pretty much blatantly wrong, proved so by a youtube video, questions regarding the same ideas are still consistently being asked and explored. One could say that Koko, and her entire story, could be considered an exploration of Descartes' exact argument.