Tak asked:

I'm a Malaysian Chinese, studying in the Sedaya International College. I'm currently taking my
philosophy courses there, doing my major in Philosophy.

Lately I have discovered a difficult matter to be understood:

"Some people argue that because non-human animals can think, humans are not unique at all. What
is the difference between thinking and reasoning? What mental states indicate a thinking process?
Would you say that reasoning presumes thinking but that thinking does not presume reasoning?"

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Since you haven't defined what you mean by "thinking" or "reasoning", I cannot answer your question.
If you look at the literature, you find an enormous amount of controversy on the issue of human vs.
"animal" (quotes because I consider humans to be animals) thought. In addition, this is not (I believe)
really a philosophical issue, but a psychological (cognitive) one. You might take a look at: Bickerton,
D. (1990) Language & Species. Allen, C. (1997) Species of mind: the philosophy and biology of
cognitive ethologyCambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Midgley, M. (1995) Beast and man: the roots of
human natureNew York, NY: Routledge. Armstrong, D. F., Stokoe, W. C., & Wilcox, S. E. (1996)
Gesture and the nature of languageCambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Also, there are two conferences being held:

RATIONAL ANIMALS?

Oxford, 3-4 October 2002

http://www.cogneuro.ox.ac.uk/seminars/animalintelligence.html

PERSPECTIVES ON IMITATION:

FROM COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE TO SOCIAL SCIENCE

Royaumont Abbey, France, 24-26 May 2002

http://www.imitationconference.org

You might look into them.

Now. Here are some of the issues, as I see them. First, the only people who have settled, for
themselves, the question of what language is are those with very particular positions on that matter.
There is no general consensus. Do apes have language? Can they be taught (sign) language? Can
grey parrots speak (i.e., do they have language)? What about feral children? According to Bickerton,
as I understand him (and others), one (maybe the only real categorical difference) major difference
between animals' "languages" and ours is the absence of various markers for tenses, action, etc.; and
"pigeon" languages are the equivalent of what apes have when they learn sign language. Suppose
this is true; how significant a difference is this; what does it indicate about ape vs. human thought?
Suppose it is not true, and apes, etc., do not have language in any generative sense, but only
conditioned responses. Can they nonetheless think? Are they rational? Well, without language, how
do you test that? Defining "rational" would help. There are recent studies that seem to indicate that
mice dream of the mazes they've run that day. Is that thinking? Kohler, a long time ago, seemed to
observe an ape make an intuitive leap involving a stick and a banana. Was that thinking?

Apes don't do abstractions to the extent we do; I think there's no doubt about that. The level of
abstraction that we can manipulate and comprehend seems beyond them. They can't do
mathematical equations or symbolic logical thought, for example. Is that the difference between
"rational" and "non-rational"? What about the next level of abstraction, the one beyond us, that we
cannot imagine, just as apes cannot imagine mathematics? Are entities who think at that level
"rational", while we are not truly rational? What about the level beyond that one, etc.?

If your question is, at base, "are some animals conscious?", then the answer, for apes, is almost
certainly "yes". Their neuroanatomy is just too similar to ours. And by "conscious", I do indeed mean
self-conscious. And this hasbeen tested; look up the "mirror test", where apes recognize themselves
in a mirror. Again, there is a huge literature in this whole area; you can start with the refs in the above
books, etc.

Steven Ravett Brown