ON BEING AN ANIMAL

THURSDAY, FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 16 AND 17

It is a platitude that human beings are animals. It is also true that we are a special sort of animal, with capacities for language, culture, science and the arts. We cannot understand what it means to be an animal without confronting similarities and differences between human and non-human animals.

Join a discussion of these and other issues with guest speakers Sarah Boysen and Colin Allen. Boysen, a primatologist from Ohio State University, has been working with chimpanzees for nearly 30 years and has been featured on the Discovery Channel as well as Scientific American Frontiers. Allen, a professor of philosophy from Texas A&M, is the co-author of Species of Mind. He has written extensively about how to understand the animal mind and about how it can be misunderstood and undervalued. 

The program begins on April 15 with a 6:00 p.m. screening in A306 Tribble of a video about Sarah Boysen’s work with chimpanzees. This will be hosted by the Philosophy Club and presented by Karen Roper of the WFU Psychology Department. Dr. Boysen will give a talk, "Cultural Hybridization with Chimpanzees: It's not Smoke and Mirrors," on April 16 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. in DeTamble Auditorium, followed by a 6:00 p.m. reception. Dr. Allen will give a talk, "Jumping the GAP: animal cognition beyond the great apes," on April 17, 9:00-10:30 a.m. in DeTamble. Following Dr. Allen's talk, at 11:00 a.m., Hugh LaFollette, professor of philosophy at East Tennessee State University and former host of the public radio show "Ideas and Issues," will moderate a panel discussion featuring Sarah Boysen, Colin Allen, Robert Beck (WFU Dept of Psychology), Karen Roper (WFU Dept of Psychology) and Carol Shively (WFU School of Medicine).

All events are sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Thomas Jack Lynch Philosophy Fund and are free and open to the public.