Animal Minds

Rating:
Summary: Unsophisticated interpretation of important evidence
Review: Griffin, one of the founding fathers of cognitive ethology, summarizes the best scientific evidence that animals have a rich mental life that involves thought, intentionality, and consciousness. He focuses on three phenomena: the versatility and adaptiveness of animal behavior, nervous system physiology, and animal communication. To his credit, Griffin is not dogmatic; he admits that much scientific work remains before any of the evidence can be considered significant, and he is willing to consider interpretations of the data that reject his own views on animal minds.

In the end, unfortunately, Griffin's impassioned claims about behavior that "indicates" complex thought don't go far enough. The book consists of relatively undetailed reports of animal studies. He provides little detail about scientific methodology and does not develop an adequate theoretical framework for a deep understanding animal mentality. He has no clear methodology for interpreting the strength of the data he summarizes, and consistently conflates important distinctions between perception, consciousness, and self-consciousness. Although Griffin champions an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems of mind, he pays little heed to the many philospohical problems with understanding crucial mental concepts.

Committed defenders of animal minds will enjoy this general retrospective by one of their intellectual heroes. Readers who want a deeper exploration must turn elsewhere -- Collen Allen and Marc Bekoff's *Species of Mind* would be an excellent starting point.

Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed it.
Review: I recently read this book for a class, and found it very readable. Granted, it doesn't go as far into interpretations of what all of this means, and more leaves that up to the reader. Try the book Animal Consciousness by Daise and Michael Radner if you want to go more into the philosophical, and not a run through of animal behavior. It will also help you, in addition to this book, come to your own informed conclusions about the reality of animal consciousness and thought.

Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed it.
Review: I recently read this book for a class, and found it very readable. Granted, it doesn't go as far into interpretations of what all of this means, and more leaves that up to the reader. Try the book Animal Consciousness by Daise and Michael Radner if you want to go more into the philosophical, and not a run through of animal behavior. It will also help you, in addition to this book, come to your own informed conclusions about the reality of animal consciousness and thought.

Rating:
Summary: a dry, scientific text
Review: This isn't a book geared toward the general population. The material is well-documented, but not written in a way that captures the readers' attention. It is very dry.