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The dominant post-Enlightenment Western view of animals has seen them as some kind of machine, objects of no true moral significance, which it is permissible to subject to a range of treatments that would never be tolerated if practised on humans. In reality, defenders of animals, rather than being sentimentalists or somehow insufficiently attached to their own species, are far more in accord with scientific evidence and with the best interests of humanity itself. Animals are fundamentally makers and interpreters of meaning. The rejection of anthropomorphism and anecdote, and the illusion of the invisible observer, are the weapons of an ethnocentric positivism that should be rejected in favour of a strong heuristic position regarding the emotions, consciousness and abilities of animals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To the three classic wounds to human narcissism – that of Copernicus (man does not live in a geocentric universe), Darwin (man is an animal), and Freud (man is not the master of his unconscious) – there must be appended a fourth wound: man is not the only subject in the universe. While most philoso- phers are unwilling to accept it, ethological research shows that animals are also subjects; indeed, in human/animal hybrid communities, certain animals can become individuals or even persons. Through animal biography, anec- dotes, and other often disqualified but nonethe- less empirical forms of knowledge, we can come to know these singular animals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]