Animal Minds Argumentative Analysis

Analogical argument for animal minds is weaker, since the strength of the argument is a function of the degree of similarity between the reference class and the target class. Humans are probably more similar to one another than they are to members of another species. While some researchers working with great apes have expressed concern about the argument from analogy (Povinelli et al. 2000; Povinelli 2000), it has been pointed out that those concerns do not accurately target analogical arguments for the existence of animal minds (Allen 2002). Furthermore, recent uses of analogical argument to defend animal consciousness have been based on careful investigation into the causal powers of the reference property (Varner 2012).
Cognitive processes