Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story

by Josephine Donovan

Overview

It’s no secret that animals are considered objects in the fields of law, commerce, and science, characterized as property and commodities. Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story challenges this ascription and establishes that animals are living subjects, who have minds and opinions of their own and care about what happens to them. Donovan contends that animals’ voices or standpoints should be part of any human decisions concerning their ethical treatment. Elaborating on feminist care theory and critical animal standpoint theory, the author provides compelling evidence for animal subjectivity, exploring in the process the nature of subjectivity and consciousness while drawing from recent developments in quantum and emergence theories that point away from the dominant ontology of Cartesian objectivism. Through these explorations, Donovan proposes that a new narrative is emerging in the arts and sciences—an inside story that re-subjectifies natural life and leaves behind the deadening Midas touch of Cartesian objectivism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611864373
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2022
Series:	The Animal Turn
Pages:	148
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

JOSEPHINE DONOVAN is professor emerita of English at the University of Maine. She is the author or editor of sixteen books including The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America, which was a finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Awards, as well as over fifty articles in animal ethics, feminist critical theory, and literary
history, plus a few short stories.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 Caring to Heed the Voice of Animals 1

Chapter 2 Interspecies Dialogue 9

Chapter 3 The Inside Story 21

Chapter 4 Subjectivity, Telos, and Ethical Meaning 39

Chapter 5 Animal Dignity 51

Chapter 6 Radical Natural Law 61

Chapter 7 The New Materialism and the Question of Subjectivity 67

Chapter 8 Panpsychism, Participatory Epistemology, and Cosmic Sympathy 77

Chapter 9 Ethical Mimesis and Emergence Aesthetics 87

Conclusion 97

Acknowledgments 99

Notes 101

Works Cited 105

Index 119

Editorial Reviews

Josephine Donovan is a leader in the field whose work has inspired a generation of scholars; however, this is her finest work to date. Donovan convincingly argues that we can and must listen to what animals are trying to tell us, which is, above all else, the simple fact that they do not wish to die. I cannot recommend this text highly enough.”
—VASILE STĂNESCU, associate professor and chair, Department of Communication Studies and Theatre Arts, Mercer University

From the Publisher