Overview

Ancient Greeks endeavored to define the human being vis-à-vis other animal species by isolating capacities and endowments which they considered to be unique to humans. This approach toward defining the human being still appears with surprising frequency, in modern philosophical treatises, in modern animal behavioral studies, and in animal rights literature, to argue both for and against the position that human beings are special and unique because of one or another attribute or skill that they are believed to possess. Some of the claims of man’s unique endowments have in recent years become the subject of intensive investigation by cognitive ethologists carried out in non-laboratory contexts. The debate is as lively now as in classical times, and, what is of particular note, the examples and methods of argumentation used to prove one or another position on any issue relating to the unique status of human beings that one encounters in contemporary philosophical or ethological literature frequently recall ancient precedents. This is the first book-length study of the ‘man alone of animals’ topos in classical literature, not restricting its analysis to Greco-Roman claims of man’s intellectual uniqueness, but including classical assertions of man’s physiological and emotional uniqueness. It supplements this analysis of ancient manifestations with an examination of how the commonplace survives and has been restated, transformed, and extended in contemporary ethological literature and in the literature of the animal rights and animal welfare movements. Author Stephen T. Newmyer demonstrates that the anthropocentrism detected in Greek applications of the ‘man alone of animals’ topos is not only alive and well in many facets of the current debate on human-animal relations, but that combating its negative effects is a stated aim of some modern philosophers and activists.

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Reviews

What makes the human animal exceptional? Do other animals have reason? Language? Emotions? Can they be moral or just? In this thought-provoking book, Newmyer examines both the various ways in which Greek and Roman authors confirmed or challenged the idea of human exceptionalism, and how anthropocentrism is a central component of current debates on human-animal relations. Suitable for a wide audience, the book helpfully presents the complexity of ancient and contemporary thinking on the human-animal divide. - Dr Daniella Widdows, Hampden-Sydney College, USA

'In this broad and multidisciplinary study, Stephen Newmyer brilliantly calls into question the case for human exceptionalism.' - Mark Beck, University of South Carolina, USA 'Professor Newmyer's latest book will be a welcome addition to my Animals in Antiquity course. His detailed historical examination of the concept of human exceptionalism compellingly links the past and the present and encourages us to re-evaluate what we mean by animal and human. ' - Daniella Widdows, Hampden-Sydney College, USA

"What makes the human animal exceptional? Do other animals have reason? Language? Emotions? Can they be moral or just? In this thought-provoking book, Newmyer examines both the various ways in which Greek and Roman authors confirmed or challenged the idea of human exceptionalism, and how anthropocentrism is a central component of current debates on human-animal relations. Suitable for a wide audience, the book helpfully presents the complexity of ancient and contemporary thinking on the human-animal divide. - Dr Daniella Widdows, Hampden-Sydney College, USA ""This book is about the topos of ""Man alone of animals"" created in the classical Greek World. ... The works concludes with a reflection on ancient science anthropocentrism and its survival through history."" - Touwaide, Byzantinische Zeitschrift issue 110 (= 2017/4)."

Author Information

Stephen T. Newmyer is Professor of Classics at Duquesne University, USA. He is author of several books and articles, most recently Animals, Rights, and Reason in Plutarch and Modern Ethics (Routledge, 2006) and Animals in Greek and Roman Thought: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2011).

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