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SAMPLE ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES

These sample entries come from an encyclopedia on human-animal relationships. The first entry (1002 words) begins with (1) a strong paragraph immediately defining the topic, animal classification, and (2) goes on to explain other issues related to the topic. The bold-faced words are cross–references to other entries found in the encyclopedia. Note that there are also 2 cross-references listed after "See also" at the end of the entry, before the Further Reading. These words did not appear in the text of the entry. The bibliographic style here is the author-date style, found on page 16 of these guidelines.

Classification of Animals

In biology, classification is the systematic grouping of organisms into categories or kinds. Its chief aim is to impose conceptual order over living things, thus making it possible for us to write and talk about them by making general references, which in turn helps us to clearly and usefully record and convey information and to make correct predictions based on our knowledge. This kind of "grouping" is typically done by highlighting various similarities (and choosing to ignore certain dissimilarities), including morphological and evolutionary ones. One fundamental unit or category into which kinds of animals are classified is that of a species. It is worth noting here that while popular opinion has it that a species is a unit of evolution, we were happily classifying animals into different species and subspecies long before anyone developed a theory of evolution. Indeed the father of plant and animal classification, Carl Linnaeus, who classified organisms according to their genus and species (the binomial nomenclature method), died over thirty years before Charles Darwin was born.

The species is a larger unit of classification than the subspecies (each subspecies belonging to a species) but a smaller unit than the genus (each species belonging to a genus), which itself belongs to several larger units. For example the subspecies Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris Sumatrae) belongs to the species of a tiger (tigris), which in turn belongs to the genus of a panther (panthera), the family of cats (felidae), order of carnivores (carnivora), class of mammals (mammalia), subphylum of vertebrates (vertebrata), phylum of chordates (chordata), taxon of craniate (craniata), and kingdom of animals (animalia). We classify it so because it is warm-blooded, has well-developed claws, sharp teeth, a skull, a backbone, and so on. Which of the above units of classification we chose to convey information about the Sumatran tiger at any one given time will depend upon our interests and purposes.

There is currently a debate among theorists regarding criteria we appeal to when classifying animals into various categories. According to one school of thought known as essentialism, there are sharp distinctions between various natural kinds in the world that our methods of classification ought to respect. These natural kinds it is argued (or assumed) exist independently of any interest or purpose we might have; hence the only correct way of classifying organisms is to through the employment of scientific knowledge, something that will also help us to refine our discriminatory abilities. In this view, there is only one correct answer to questions such as "are whales fish?", and we must look to science, which will in turn help us to discriminate between different essential kinds, to find that answer. Proponents of essentialism include the philosophers Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke.

A different school of thought is that of pluralism about classification. According to the pluralist, organisms can be classified according to various different organizing principles (some biological, others highlighting nonscientific similarities) none one of which need in itself be more legitimate than any of the others, though one may, in any given context, be more pragmatic. This is not to adopt the antirealist or nominalist position that there are no real differences between groups of animals for science to discover, but rather a "promiscuous realism," which rejects the essentialist suggestion that the existence of such differences entails that there is only one correct way of answering questions of biological classification. In this view, defended by John Dupré (2002) among others, nothing scientists discover could possible answer a question such as "are whales fish?" because terms like "fish" have both a technical scientific sense (viz. cold-blooded aquatic vertebrate with gills) as well an equally legitimate and realist everyday or "ordinary language" sense (according to which aquatic mammals might count as fish), fixed by conventional use. Thus, whether or not we are to count whales as fish depends on which sense of "fish" we are interested in, much like whether or not we wish to call a tomato a vegetable or a fruit depends on whether we are practicing botany or making a fruit salad (it is interesting to note, in this context, that in 1893 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the tomato was a vegetable and, therefore, subject to import taxes). The promiscuous realist is also happy to allow that scientific discovery may well come to change our ordinary (folk biological) concept of a fish (if it has not, to some extent, done so already), perhaps even making it the case that the two definitions will overlap, but he will insist that there is no reason to think that it must, or that until it does (or did) our everyday notion is in some way deficient. Biology cannot tell us what a fish is (what its essence amounts to) because "fish" is not a biological category. In this view, nothing in nature can determine whether or not there is such a thing as a "mammalian fish."

The view that how we chose to classify an organism depends on our interests can easily also be applied to the issue of human-animal relationships If we wish to emphasize the similarities between humans and various (other) animals we may chose to do so by saying that human beings are animals too. If by contrast we wish to highlight general dissimilarities between humans and (other) higher order animals—perhaps while also emphasizing similarities between the latter and lower order animals—we might find it effective to do so by reserving the term "animal" for nonhuman creatures. Yet a person who at one time takes the first approach and at another time the second need not be contradicting herself because it is of interest and also important to come to terms with why both the similarities and differences have evolved. See also Species Concept; Whale and Dolphin Culture

Descartes, René (1596-1650)

The French philosopher René Descartes exerted a strong influence on human-animal relationships by explaining humans and animals as radically different beings. Descartes, who is called the father of modern philosophy, defended a dualistic position. In his view, reality consists of two components that are separate: the material (such as objects and bodies) and the mental (consciousness or souls). Nonhuman animals have only the first component. Descartes thought of them as mindless machines, devoid of any true thoughts or feelings. Humans possess both components. Besides having a material body, humans distinguish themselves from nonhuman animals through possession of a thinking soul.

Descartes argued that through the practice of "methodical doubt," people need to wonder what ideas are really reliable. We may cast doubt on what we perceive around us because who can say that all this is not merely a dream? For Descartes, at least one truth could not be denied: the fact that he doubted things and that therefore he existed. This resulted in his famous words "I think, therefore I am" (Cogito ergo sum). Humans are thinking beings (res cogitans), and we can think because we have a rational, immaterial, and immortal soul. Our innate ideas, which are already present while we are developing in our mother's womb, allow us to understand the world around us. In Descartes' view, all space has to be understood in material terms (res extensa)—there is no empty space. This holds not only for the earth and plants, but also for nonhuman animals.

Descartes held a mechanistic view of the body. His ideas were inspired by the hydraulic automata in the French Royal Gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Visitors stepped on concealed panels that sent water through a network of pipes and thus caused statues of Greek Gods to move. In the Traité de l'Homme (1664), Descartes compares the human and animal body with such automata. The nerves and animal spirits are like the pipes and water of the automata. The heart is the source of the water, and the cavities of the brain are like storage tanks. But whereas nonhuman animals are merely automata, the human body is linked with the soul through the pineal gland.

In the Discours de la Méthode (1637), Descartes mentions two tests to tell the difference between nonhuman animals and humans. First, the language test requires that one be able to use language in a creative way. According to Descartes, deaf-mutes use signs in a meaningful way, but nonhuman animals such as parrots merely utter words as imitations. Their words are not expressions of thought. Second, the action test refers to being able to act appropriately in a variety of areas. Machines may do some things better than humans, but will fail at many others. Nonhuman animals act mechanically—from the disposition of their organs—but not by reason. For Descartes, failure of these two tests "shows not merely that the beasts have less reason than men, but that they have no reason at all."

There exists some ambiguity in Descartes' view of animals. John Cottingham has argued that Descartes' explanation of nonhuman animals as natural automata does not mean that he held them incapable of feelings or sensations. He points out that Descartes wrote about anger, fear, hunger, and joy in nonhuman animals. Tom Regan and Daisie and Michael Radner agree that nonhuman animals may have sensations, but they reply that Descartes distinguished several grades of sensations. The first grade refers to merely mechanical processes, wherein sensory organs are affected by external objects. The second grade comprises immediate mental results, as a result of the soul being united with the body. Examples are the perception of pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, and cold. The third grade includes judgments about external objects and involves reasoning. Regan and the Radners argue that Descartes attributed only sensations of the first grade to nonhuman animals. Indeed, Descartes seemed to confirm this in a particular, clear way in a 1640 letter to his friend the priest Marin Mersenne: "I do not explain the feeling of pain without reference to the soul. For in my view pain exists only in the understanding. What I do explain is all the external movements which accompany this feeling in us; in animals it is these movements alone which occur, and not pain in the strict sense." In short, for Descartes, the cries of animals apparently are not different from those of machines—they are all imitations. Having a thinking soul is not only a condition to have thoughts; it is also a requirement for the having of a conscious mental life at all.

The Cartesian position that nonhuman animals are devoid of souls has two major advantages for people who hold a certain belief system. First, it excludes the possibility that nonhuman animals might attain an immortal afterlife in heaven. Descartes rejected the ideas of doubting the existence of God and of believing that "after this present life we have nothing to fear or to hope for, any more than flies and ants." Second, Descartes offered an important justification for using nonhuman animals by claiming that they cannot feel pain. He commented that his view is "not so much cruel to animals as indulgent to human beings . . . since it absolves them from the suspicion of crime when they eat or kill animals." Descartes experimented on animals in order to understand their anatomy and physiology. In La Description du Corps Humain (1664), he suggests, for example, slicing off the pointed end of the heart of a live dog, so that one can insert a finger and feel the pulsation of the dog's heart. These experiments were done without the application of anesthesia, which was only introduced during the nineteenth century. Cartesian followers kicked pregnant dogs or nailed dogs on boards to vivisect them. Contemporaries protested against such animal abuse, including the philosopher Voltaire, who noted, "You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel?" The Cartesian position that nonhuman animals cannot suffer continues to influence current thinking of scientists and others. Few defend it in an explicit way, but the idea that nonhuman animals and humans strongly differ in terms of sentience remains prevalent in discussions on the use of nonhuman animals.


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