Do nonhuman animals (hereafter “animals”) possess empathy and if so to which degree? Can we develop a conceptual framework that allows us to characterize similarities and differences between implementations of empathy in humans and animals? We aim to answer these questions in two steps. First, we develop a new conceptual framework by distinguishing different levels of empathy starting with paradigmatic cases of human empathy developing in human ontogeny. Second, we describe in detail which of these levels of empathy can be found in other species based on animal studies. This approach allows a detailed characterization of the relation of empathy in humans and other animals.

Traditional conceptions of inference emphasize explicit following of logical rules, often tied to the possession of natural language, thereby implying that non-human animals cannot make inferences. However, comparative research shows extensive evidence of the success of several species of non-human animals in nonverbal reasoning tasks, putting pressure on the traditional view. We deny two traditional assumptions about inference: the lingualism of thought, and the requirement of explicit rule following. We suggest instead a multidimensional model of inference illustrated through several case studies. Thereby, we categorize informational transfers across three dimensions by marking the degree of context-independence, the format of representation, and the type of perspectivity involved. By allowing for a more nuanced interpretation of empirical data than the traditional view, our framework is able to accommodate inferential behaviors of both linguistic and non-linguistic agents, and shed light on varied manifestations of inference across species and developmental stages.

We propose a new account of concepts as specifically structured and handled mental files. We argue that concepts consist of two components, (a) an associative network of integrated information used for property based categorization and recognition; and (b) a handling system that organizes and sorts through this associative network. A certain type of concept is determined by the package of associated information integrated in a mental file and the specific structure of this information including the specific way this information is handled. With this framework, we can account for the large variety of concepts including everyday concepts of individual objects and properties, scientific concepts, natural kind concepts and phenomenal concepts.

Do some species of nonhuman animals (hereafter “animals”) enjoy consciousness and to which degree? This is a notoriously difficult question for at least two reasons, namely first we need a sufficiently clear concept of consciousness and second it remains difficult to characterize convincing strategies of access to conscious experiences in other species since we then have to rely on third-person access and mostly on behavioral data. Lacking a communicative access to animal minds, it is difficult to justify an analogy argument. Let us characterize central open question guiding the symposium: (1) Concerning the scientific access: How can we develop a nonverbal access to conscious experiences in animals? (2) Are there behavioral markers of consciousness in animals? (3) What is the main functional role of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective? (4) Can we offer a conceptual framework which allows us to adequately characterize evolutionary old basic forms of consciousness and its relation to standard consciousness experiences in humans? The symposium is arranged with four talks which together aim at outlining answers to these questions.