Consciousness. Explaining the nature of consciousness is one of the most important and perplexing areas of philosophy, but the concept is notoriously ambiguous. 1. What is Animal Cognition? Animal cognition is constituted by the processes used to generate adaptive or flexible behavior in animal species. People with online papers in philosophy Compiled by David Chalmers N.B. This page is no longer regularly updated. Its function has been taken over by the list of. Rocco J. Gennaro Consciousness and Concepts An Introductory Essay 1. The Central Problem Much has been written over the past few decades on the nature of con-.