PUNTOS DE ACUPUNTURA UTILIZADOS PARA EL SIGUIENTE ESTUDIO

preda-tors, a matter of live and death immediately upon birth, was perceived by ancient thinkers as a manifestation of the nexus of philosophical ideas embodied in the concept of oikeio¯sis so fundamental to the Stoic ethical system (see pp. 27–28). While the Stoics judged this recognition of the need for self-preservation and at the same time for community membership to be a matter of natural impulse (horme¯) in ani-mals (see the formulation of the Stoic position as given in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VII. 85, on p. 28), Plutarch argued that some degree of rationality had to be operative in animals to guarantee that they could recognize the differ-ence between the harmful and the beneficial in their lives (see p. 47).

Philo of Alexandria

Philo’s formulation below of the principle that animals shun the harmful combines the Stoic assertion that a desire for self-preservation is a primary motivating factor

in animal behavior with the Stoic doctrine that the pursuit of pleasure is natural to animals as well (Diogenes Laertius VII. 85–86), although Philo appears to make the pursuit of pleasure in animals a more important impulse in animals than the Stoics allowed since they argued rather that the desire for self-preservation far outweighed the pursuit of pleasure in animals.

Animals Flee the Harmful

However it is worth noting – for it is obvious – that they have various ways of coping with opposites as well as of facing obstacles. With regard to heat and cold, sweet and bitter, white and black, large and small, or whatever inconveniences result from these opposites, they set their reasoning mind differently toward them, so as to make them pleasant and agreeable. They long for that which produces pleasure and flee from that which is loathsome and painful. Although they are unable to express their mental conceptions because of their inarticulate tongues, they conduct themselves with such abundant wisdom that they exhibit many characteristics of speech. To the keenly perceptive there is something more evident than voice – the truth which their actions reveal.

(On Animals 44)

Seneca

Letter 121 of Seneca’s Moral Letters contains his longest continuous discussion of the nature of animal intellect. In common with his Stoic brethren, Seneca denied reason to non-human animals, but in the selection below, he concedes to them at least as “consciousness of their own constitution” (constitutionis suae sensus, 121.

5), the presence of which in animals is proven by their ability to move their limbs appropriately and readily, as if trained to do so. The philosopher’s imaginary interlocutor in the letter observes that Seneca seems to equate this constitution, which the animal understands by nature, with the “principle of the soul.” The interlocutor refers here to the so-called he¯gemonikon identified in Stoic philosophy (see pp. 3–4), which, he maintains, is a concept so subtle in nature that a human being can scarcely grasp its meaning. Seneca replies that the animal understands its own constitution rather than the concept of a constitution. The doctrine that underlies Seneca’s arguments here is that of oikeio¯sis, which enables an animal from birth to recognize what is appropriate to itself. No sophisticated mental fac-ulties, therefore, need to be attributed to an animal’s understanding of its own constitution.

Animal Self-Preservation Is Based on Self-Awareness

Someone asserts, “Animals move the parts of their bodies appropriately because if they should move otherwise, they would feel pain. Hence as you [philosophers] say, they are under compulsion, and fear, not will, moves them correctly.” This is false.

Those things that are propelled by a force are slow, while those that move on their

own possess quickness. So utterly untrue it is that fear of pain moves them that they even struggle to perform their natural motion when pain inhibits them. Thus an infant who is intent on standing up and is becoming used to his own weight falls and gets up repeatedly, in tears, until, in the midst of the pain, he has trained himself to that which nature requires. Certain animals that have hard shells, when turned over, twist themselves and thrust out their legs and bend about until they are restored to a proper position. A tortoise when on its back feels no pain, but is restless on account of its desire for its normal position, and it does not cease to struggle and shake itself about until it has reestablished its footing. Thus all creatures have an understanding of their own constitution (constitutionis) and thus can use their limbs so easily, and we have no greater proof that they come into life armed with knowledge than the fact that no animal is clumsy in the use of its own self.

Someone objects, “The constitution, as you would argue, is the governing princi-ple of the soul which has a particular relationship with the body. How does an infant understand this very complex and subtle notion that can scarcely be explained to you? All animals would have to be born capable of understanding logic to be able to comprehend this definition which is difficult for the vast majority of citizens.” What you object would be true if I claimed that the definition of the constitution was understood by animals, rather than the constitution itself. Nature is more readily understood than explained. Thus an infant does not understand what a “constitution” is, but he under-stands his own constitution. He does not know what an animal is, but senses that he is an animal. We know that we have a soul, but we do not know what it is, or where it resides, or what its nature is, or whence it arises. Just as consciousness of our soul passes to us, though we do not know its nature or location, so is there a conscious-ness of their constitution in all animals. It is necessary that they should be conscious of that through which they are conscious of other things as well, and that they have a consciousness of that which they obey and by which they are governed. There is no human who does not know that there is something that excites his impulses, but he is ignorant as to what that is. Thus both infants and animals possess a consciousness of their primary element which is not too clearly distinct or exact.

(Moral Letters 121. 7–13)

Plutarch

In the passage from On the Cleverness of Animals translated below, Plutarch offers a somewhat different take on the innate capacity of animals to distinguish those things that are akin to them from those that are foreign to them, arguing that this capacity is not, as the Stoics maintained, a mere function of the operation of instinct (horme¯), but rather evidence of a degree of rationality. He alludes to Aristotelian teleology when his mouthpiece Autobulus commends the philosopher’s position that nothing happens in nature without some end, so that there would be no pur-pose in creating sentient creatures if they were not designed to exercise that sen-tience toward some useful end, in this case, toward self-preservation ensured by recognition of the kindred (oikeio¯n) and the foreign (allotrio¯n).

Plutarch further elaborates his conception of the components of animal sen-tience by listing such capacities as recollection, memory and expectation. Slightly earlier (On the Cleverness of Animals 961B), Plutarch had argued that their rational

faculty allows animals to elaborate on their basic ability to distinguish the harmful from the useful through their capacity for memory, which enables them to recall over time what constitutes their prey and their predators and in what sorts of lairs and dens they are likely to be encountered. This long-term recollection of one’s proper prey proves, Autobulus argues (961D), that animals after all possess what the Stoics termed “conceptions” (ennoiai) which animals put into action when they hunt and need to present before their minds the picture of their proper prey.

The passage below is incorporated, almost without alterations, into the third book of Porphyry’s defense of vegetarianism, in the course of the author’s argu-ment for rationality in animals in consequence of which, he maintains, human beings owe a debt of justice to animals.

Rationality Helps Animals to Distinguish the Useful from the Harmful

AUTOBULUS: Nature, which [Aristotle and Theophrastus] correctly say does everything for some reason and toward some end, did not create any sentient creature just so that it could sense that it was experiencing something. But since there exist many things that are akin (oikeio¯n) to it and many that are foreign to it, a creature could not survive for a moment if it had not learned against which things it should guard and with which it should associate. Sensation provides each creature the recognition of both. Among those creatures that were not born to reason (logizesthai) and judge and remember and attend, there could exist no instance of pursuing and seizing of things recognized to be useful, or any escape or flight from those things that were dangerous and painful.

Among those creatures that you would deprive of expectation, recollection, intention, preparation, hope, fear, inclination and sadness, there would be no need for eyes or ears though they do possess them. It would be preferable to remove all sensation and imagination devoid of usefulness, than to suffer and feel pain and be distressed, if there exists no means with which these experiences may be cast off.

(On the Cleverness of Animals 960E–F = Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Flesh III. 21. 5–7)

Suggestions for Further Reading Philo of Alexandria

Terian, Philonis Alexandrini de Animalibus 154–156. In his commentary on On Animals 44, Terian offers a useful survey of Greek pronouncements on the importance of pleasure and pain in the lives of animals, including humans.

Seneca

Dierauer, Tier und Mensch 207–211. Dierauer analyzes Seneca’s argument that an animal’s innate ability to use its limbs is a reflection of its self-awareness.

Reydams-Schils, Gretchen, “Human Bonding and Oikeio¯sis in Roman Stoicism,” OSAPh 22 (2002) 221–251. The author examines the appearance of the doctrine of oikeio¯sis in Roman thinkers including Cicero and Seneca.

Plutarch

Caballero, Raúl, “ΟΙΚΕΙΩΣΙΣ in Plutarco,” in A. Pérez Jiménez, J. García Lopez and R.

Ma. Aguilar, eds, Plutarco, Platón y Aristoteles. Actas del V Congreso Internacional de la I. P. S.

(Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 1999) 549–566. Caballero calls attention to Plutarch’s debt to Aristotle’s conception of animal recollection and perception, and notes that Plutarch almost completely rejects an instinctual element in animal behavior.