According to Cartesian tradition, animals never think, never feel, and never have a language. Modern science proves that this is not true, at least for some species of intelligent animals. Our understanding of the mind and feeling of non-humans has been redefined through the advancement of science. However, the Cartesian tradition of thought still applies to language. It is symptomatic that animals’ lack of language is one of the reasons given not to grant subjectivity to non-humans and to exclude them from the moral community.
This article compares the views of Descartes and La Mettrie expressed in Man a Machine. According to Descartes, the use of a language is a category alienating man and justifying the exclusion of non-humans from the moral community. La Mettrie, who died 101 years after Descartes and formulated his views towards him, assumes that language is not a specifically human property. La Mettrie integrates into the moral community only those who use it, but this has completely different consequences than in the case of Descartes. It is noteworthy that in the Enlightenment tension between the conviction about the uniqueness of man in the world and the intellectual consequences of progressive secularization was revealed. These tensions continue to the present day. The text discusses the role that language plays in this area.
