On the Origin of “Sentient”
The first published use of the word "sentient," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1603 by Philemon Holland in Plutarch’s Philosophie, commonlie called, the Morals (you can buy the first complete edition in English for USD 11,000 or EUR 7,414 here).
Intelligence is the motion of the intelligence about that which is stable..: but opinion is the mansion of the sentient about that which moveth.
That doesn’t help much, but in 1632 (in the second edition of John Guillim’s A Display of Heraldrie, if you must know), we get a bit more help.
Forasmuch as God would that the faculties both intelligent and sentient should predominate in the head [etc.].
"Sentient" was considered a faculty that God put in our head (or brain, depending on which reference you look at). It is other-than intelligence, and shall prove, through about 1879, to be an adjective consistently have something to do with the capacity to feel.
1. That feels or is capable of feeling; having the power or function of sensation or of perception by the senses.
Beginning in 1815, however, a change in direction displayed itself, with Robert Southey, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and others using it to mean:
Conscious or percipient of something.
(Mrs. Browning wrote: The poet’s sight grew sentient Of a strange company around in 1844, for instance.)
In 1839, "sentience" came on the scene in Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher:
This opinion [of Usher’s], in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.
Yes, vegetables. "Sentience," too, at the beginning, was used strictly to mean the capacity to sense.
"Sentient" briefly progressed from conscious (as in awareness), to a hint of a larger, less elementary conception of consciousness. In 1886, Frederic W. H. Myers wrote:
The insentient has awoke..into sentiency; the sentient into the fuller consciousness of human minds.
Since then, "sentient" has been moving closer to "consciously perceiving," to which now we would add (at least) "pleasure and pain."
"Sentience" has toyed with evolving into something more complex involving consciousness, and only time will tell what will occur. Consciousness is probably the endgame of most discussions of states of being, and we are likely to never find the answer, or agree to, what it is, where it is, who has it and to what degree, and whether or not it should matter in discussions of sentience, suffering and rights.
As a decidedly non-vegan, it seems to me that the definition of the word is immaterial. While the definitions of many words change over time, your beliefs as a vegan would seem to be separate from that (but may also change over time).
Aside from that, though, I'm glad to read your thoughts on the word "sentience," because I'm still striving to understand your (the collective "your," meaning "vegans'") beliefs.
Sentience, the way I see it, can come in degrees, but at its fullest, which includes vertibrates with complex central nervous systems (which includes all farmed animals), it includes a very strong experience of self.
I talked about sentience and its relevance to rights last week:
http://unpopularveganessays.blogspot.com/2007/12/sentience-morally-relevant.html
It is meaningful to contrast sentience with sapience. Sapience is a form of cognitive intelligence which allows the organism to make complex judgments. Millions of sentient humans are not sapient. Sentience suffices for a basic right to physical security. Read more in the above link if you're curious.
Okay, what I failed miserably at was the backstory. Someone from the forum at http://www.animalsuffering.com wrote me asking specifically about the earliest references to sentient (and I added sentience for good measure). What I think about sentience in 2007 isn't really the point here.
As a linguist, I find it fascinating how so many words change in meaning, over time. One can easily make an argument that "animal rights" (through the stages of co-opting) now means animal welfare to some people. I wait for the day that vegan means: one who eats meat.
Vegan: one who eats meat. LOL. It may take a few years, but it wouldn't surprise me at all, especially with all of the cooperation between vegans and the meat industry.
Meat industry: "Hey activists (PETA, HSUS, et al), why don't we sell 'vegan meat'! It will be real flesh from real nonhuman beings, but of course it will be from chickens, cows and pigs who were treated humanely under the strictest welfare standards."
New Welfarists: "Wow! How come we never thought of that! Eventually, everyone can say they're vegan! It will be a vegan world just like we always wanted!"
Dan, you left out the next comment regarding nice shoes, belt, purse, jacket, etc. 🙂