Huss - Planet of the apes and philosophy : great apes think alike

KRISTIN ANDREWS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Program at York University, in Toronto. She is the author of Do Apes Read Minds? Toward a New Folk Psychology (2012) and has done extensive research into the minds of dolphins, human children, and orangutans, including investigations of the pantomime behavior of orangutans and Charlton Heston.

JONAS-SBASTIEN BEAUDRY is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, where he served as a treasurer for the Oxford Animal Ethics Society. His work and research focus on the rights of women, poor and indigenous people, and the mentally disabled. He has worked at the Supreme Court of Canada, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice and the Ape City Tribunal.

ANDREW BRENNAN is chair of philosophy and pro vice-chancellor for graduate research at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He and Norva Lo have collaborated on a range of books and papers on environmental philosophy, forgiveness, and the puzzle of whether humans can aspire to any kind of simian dignity.

JASON DAVIS works at Macquarie University in Sydney. He has written chapters for several books in Open Courts Popular Culture and Philosophy Series, including Dexter and Philosophy: Mind over Spatter, Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder, and Manga and Philosophy: Fullmetal Metaphysician. When he fails to complete tests, its because he loathes bananas.

DON FALLIS is Professor of Information Resources and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He has written articles on lying and deception, including What is Lying? in the Journal of Philosophy and The Most Terrific Liar You Ever Saw in Your Life in The Catcher in the Rye and Philosophy: A Book for Bastards, Morons, and Madmen. In 1991, he was a PhD student in philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, where the Conquest of the Planet of the Apes occurred. But for the life of him, he cant remember a mob of angry apes trying to burn down the campus.

LESLIE DALE FELDMAN is Professor of Political Science at Hofstra University and author of Spaceships and Politics: The Political Theory of Rod Serling (2010). Her parents are great science fiction fans, and her former babysitter always said, when Planet of the Apes was on TV, Les, the Apes are on!

LORI GRUEN teaches at Wesleyan University and writes about animals and ethics. She has documented the history of the first one hundred chimpanzees in the US and is currently working on a book that draws lessons from the lives of the chimpanzees she has come to know, respect, and love.

EUGENE HALTON is a harmonica player and guerilla philosopher who teaches in the sociology department of the University of Notre Dame. His books include The Meaning of Things (co-authored, 1981), Meaning and Modernity (1986), Bereft of Reason (1995), and The Great Brain Suck (2008). He has just completed a book on pragmatism in the twentieth-first century. Hopefully it will still provide useful guidance after the Great Ape Revolution.

JOHN HUSS is a songwriter and philosopher who teaches at The University of Akron. His other works include Lipchitz (co-authored with the John Huss Moderate Combo), Johnny Cash and Philosophy: The Burning Ring of Truth (co-edited with David Werther), and Use Your Head (co-authored with Loch Phillipps and Lee Skaife). He still can feel the shock of seeing the Statue of Liberty waist deep in sand on the TV in Ricky Lessers basement. See? The revolution did happen on television.

GREG LITTMANN has written on evolutionary epistemology, philosophy of logic, The Big Bang Theory, Breaking Bad, Doctor Who, Dune, Enders Game, A Game of Thrones, Ridley Scott, Terminator, and The Walking Dead. Hes a member of the community of tall, shaved chimpanzees with big noses, also known as Homo sapiens, and teaches philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

NORVA Y.S. LO is a senior lecturer in Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, who has written on ethics, environmental philosophy, and the philosophy of David Hume. She is particularly interested in movies that explore the dark side of human nature but equally those that inspire cross-species friendships (see this books front cover).

SHAUN MAY lives in London where hes currently finishing a PhD applying Heideggers philosophy to humor. Hes also a theater director and producer who specializes in doing odd shows in weird spaceshis most critically acclaimed show being an opera in an Ikea store. Like Caesar, hes much better at solving the Lucas Tower than you would expect from looking at him.

TOM MCBRIDE has taught at Beloit College for nearly forty percent of a century. He is Professor of English and Keefer Professor of Humanities. Along with Ron Nief hes the co-creator of The Annual Beloit College Mindset List and co-author of The Mindset Lists of American History (2011). Hes written on Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, Raymond Carver, and Saul Bellow. When asked, he denies that Dr. Zaius reminds him of college deans he has known.

WILLIAM L. MCGINNEY teaches Music History at the University of North Texas. He has written on the film music of Aaron Copland, the music of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and science-fiction movie scores. Although he has never met a talking ape, as a child he dreamed of growing up to be a scholar and scientist like Dr. Cornelius.

DAVID L. MORGAN received his PhD in theoretical particle physics from William and Mary, and his research has appeared in Physical Review and the Astrophysical Journal. He is the recipient of a Sloane/EST commission for the play The Osiander Preface. When not devoting time to thinking about space he devotes space to thinking about time.

MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI is an evolutionary biologist and a philosopher of science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His latest cogitations can be found in Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to A More Meaningful Life (2012). As a biologist he has worked on plants, not apes, but as a member of the Order Primates, he feels qualified to pontificate about them anyway.

BERNARD E. ROLLIN is the author of eighteen books including The Frankenstein Syndrome (1995) and Animal Rights and Human Morality (1992), and co-editor of Harley Davidson and Philosophy: Full Throttle Aristotle (2006). He is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, where he is also University Bioethicist. His areas of research include animal ethics, animal pain, and animal consciousness. Having testified before Congress on animal research, he knows what its like to be Taylor on trial.

MICHAEL RUSE teaches philosophy and film at Florida State University, and is founding editor of the journal Biology and Philosophy. Although he has written a number of books on philosophy and evolution, including Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry (1988), Darwinism and Its Discontents (2008), and Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science (2010), deep down he would rather like to be a bonobo.

RALPH SHAIN teaches philosophy at Missouri State University and wrote his dissertation on the philosophy of time. He specializes in Continental philosophy and contributed a chapter to Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will Be Revealed (2009) on the struggle for recognition called Your Time Is Gonna Come. When not devoting space to thinking about time he devotes time to thinking about space.