Attributes of animalist thinking

pp. 89-129

in: Donald Wesling, Animal perception and literary language, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

In Chapter 3, Donald Wesling explains four modes of thought that are shared by all eight of the example-figures that he brings forward in Chapter 4. These attributes of animalist thinking are: Creativity, or the idea that the senses continually bring in new materials for cognizing, feeling, and saying; Embodied Mind, or the idea that the body, as part of nature, participates in the showing of things; Dialogism, or the idea that ordinary thinking is a continual performance of the many betweens, including me-other, perceiver-perceived, feedback-calibration; and Amplification of Affect, or the premise that in living beings change is everything, and involves a series of interruptions, which are discontinuities in perceiving. Wesling concludes Chapter 3 by analyzing Annie Dillard's essay on being startled by a wild weasel.