J ens J ohansson interpretation, though, the truth of animalism follows in a more indirect way – namely, via the additional and not implausible premise that if a view of someone’s nature is true, then she can have reason to believe in it.16 In any case, critics of animalism, and particularly friends of the psychologicalcontinuity view, have suggested various solutions to these problems For instance, Shoemaker (1999) has appealed to his functionalist theory of mental properties in order to show that human animals not have mental features Hence there is only one thinker and only one person in my chair: me According to another line of response (Noonan 2003, 211), the animal in my chair does think – and so there really are more than one thinker where I am – but because it does not have psychological persistence conditions, it is not a person and does not refer to itself with the first-person singular pronoun When I think, “I am a person, not an animal,” the animal does not think, incorrectly, that it is a person, not an animal; instead, it thinks, correctly, that I am a person, not an animal So the animal is not mistaken after all These proposed solutions are ingenious – perhaps even more so than they are plausible (Olson 2007, 29–39) Yet another line of response does not amount to a solution, but points out that animalism faces an analogous challenge (Zimmerman 2008; see also Olson 2007, 215–216) Consider my brain, for instance First, if the animal in my chair thinks, why does not my brain so as well? The fact that the animal has parts that the brain lacks – legs, arms, etc – and whose job is not to give rise to thought, can hardly indicate that the brain does not think Secondly, since the brain is psychologically indistinguishable from a person, it seems to be a person as well Thirdly, how could I ever have any reason to believe that I am the animal and not the brain? Moreover, the argument continues, any reason to deny that the brain thinks as I do would presumably also be a reason to deny that the animal thinks as I do (for example, the view that no material thing can think would rule out both thinking brains and thinking animals), leaving the animalist with no advantage over its rivals with respect to this sort of challenge While we cannot go into detail here, the standard reply from animalists appeals to a certain view of composition, according to which there are no composite objects except those that are alive: for any non-overlapping objects, there is something they compose just in case their activities constitute a biological life (van Inwagen 1990; cf Olson 2007, 226–228) There are chairmen, but no chairs – only particles “arranged chair-wise”; there are dogs, but no doghouses – only particles “arranged doghouse-wise.” Although this is of course a highly controversial doctrine, it does have considerable independent support; for instance, it is one of few principled ways of avoiding the perhaps overly extreme views “mereological nihilism” (no objects compose anything) and “mereological universalism” (for any non-overlapping objects, there is something they compose; see sect 10) In any event, this more moderate view of composition would straightforwardly solve the thinking brain problem Because the activities of particles “arranged brainwise” not constitute a biological life – although they are of course among the 140