Alkis Gounaris (Editor)

Abstract: The edited volume Cognition and Consciousness in Animals presents research conducted by students and faculty in the postgraduate programme “Animals: Ethics, Law, Welfare” during 2020–2025. It comprises 13 chapters written by 25 authors. The volume transcends the boundaries of the authors’ diverse disciplines and contributes to the development of new knowledge and theoretical perspectives that, on the one hand, are interdisciplinary in scope and, on the other, place applied philosophy at the core of scientific inquiry. The aim of the volume is to introduce the non-specialist reader to the complex and multilayered field of animal cognition and consciousness, and to demonstrate how philosophy can contribute, in practical terms, to conceptual clarification and precision, the identification of obstacles to research, logical analysis, the development of theoretical models, and the formation of an integrated framework of inquiry, even where different starting assumptions and perspectives shape the interpretation, understanding, and evaluation of research questions.

Keywords: animal minds; cognition; intelligence; affordances; consciousness; embodied cognition; animal language; theory-ladenness; problem of other minds; affective neuroscience; subjective experience; evolutionary theory of mind; philosophy of biology; agential realism

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/aprlp.266

Gounaris, A. (ed.). (2026). Cognition and Consciousness in Animals. NKUA Applied Philosophy Research Lab Press. https://doi.org/10.12681/aprlp.266

Read full text in Greek: Noisi kai Syneidisi sta Zoa [Cognition and Consciousness in Animals]