One of Us

Can animals think or feel, experience joy or sadness? Can they know their own existence?

“Young Herdsmen with Cows” by Aelbert Cuyp via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of Benjamin Altman.

By John Jeremiah Sullivan

These are stimulating times for anyone interested in questions of animal consciousness. On what seems like a monthly basis, scientific teams announce the results of new experiments, adding to a preponderance of evidence that we’ve been…