The question of animal minds asks whether it is necessary, or possible, to describe a non-human animal as having a mind. The mind is the term most commonly used to describe the higher functions of the human brain, particularly those of which humans are subjectivel // holaMedia:Example. ...

Discussion of this subject is frequently confused by the fact that some schools of philosophy and psychology would question whether we need to, or should, ascribe mind to any human being other than ourselves (or even to ourselves). Such an approach (for example radical behaviorism) would naturally deny the existence of animal minds as well. These five broad types of question are not the only subjects of philosophical inquiry, and there are many overlaps between the categories which are subsumed within the discipline under the four major headings of Logic, Ontology, Epistemology, and Axiology. ... Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos/-ology = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind and human behavior. ... Radical behaviorism is a philosophy that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology, developed by B. F. Skinner. ...

However, if we accept that it is essential to talk about the minds of other humans, it remains an open question whether we can talk about animal minds in the same way. The answer obviously depends partly on how we define mind. In practice the debate focuses on a few questions within the field of animal cognition, particularly the questions of consciousness, self-concept, theory of mind and tactical deception in animals. Animal cognition is the title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of animals. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise such key features as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... A persons self image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, nature of external genitalia, I.Q. score, is this person double-jointed, etc. ... The phrase theory of mind is used in several related ways. ...

See: The Mind of an Ape In the field of animal cognition, the premise of David Premacks and Ann James Premacks 1983 book, The Mind of an Ape ISBN 0-393-01581-5 is that It is possible to teach language to an ape. ...