The view more or less described by the article probably has its (most recent, at least) origin in Descartes. Cartesian metaphysics posits two kinds of things in

The view more or less described by the article probably has its (most recent, at least) origin in Descartes. Cartesian metaphysics posits two kinds of things in the universe, namely, mind and matter. Mind is associated with thought, desire, emotion, sensation, consciousness, etc. Matter, of course, is not. Of all life on earth, only man is a composite of mind and matter. Non-human animals are therefore mindless which is to say devoid of emotions, desires, sensations, consciousness, etc. This view, I claim, goes against common sense. Try telling anyone who owns a dog that Spot is merely a machine devoid of emotions, desires or consciousness. In the context of intellectual history, this Cartesian view is rather recent. Aristotle, for example, describes plants, animals and human beings quite differently in De Anima. In his analysis, human beings entail all faculties that are essentially proper to animals, and non-human animals entail all faculties that are essentially proper to plants; the entailment is transitive so that the faculties essentially proper to plants are entailed by human animals. For Aristotle, animals are living things that possess the faculties of locomotion. The only faculties that essentially differentiate human beings from other animals are the intellectual faculties. So in this sense, human beings are "exceptional" in the sense that among the animals, they alone are known to possess intellectual faculties, but it is not so extreme as the Cartesian position. Still, it is an important difference with important consequences.