In his book “A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness,” Walter Veit attempts to provide a philosophical foundation for the science of animal consciousness, especially focusing on hedonic evaluation. While he highlights an important aspect of phenomenal consciousness, several conceptual issues warrant further examination. The first one is the role of evaluation. Veit argues that...
Abstract Feinberg and Mallatt, in their presentation of neurobiological naturalism, have suggested that visual consciousness was acquired by early vertebrates and inherited by a wide range of descendants, and that its neural basis has shifted to nonhomologous nervous structures during evolution. However, their evolutionary scenario of visual consciousness relies on the assumption that visual...
Jawless fishes were the first vertebrates to evolve. It is thus important to investigate them to determine whether consciousness was acquired in the common ancestor of all vertebrates. Most jawless fish lineages are extinct, and cyclostomes (lampreys and hagfish) are the sole survivors. Here, I review the empirical knowledge on the neurobiology of cyclostomes with special reference to recently...