Do Animals Think?

I strongly believe that animals do not think. And here follows the explanation why.
To reflect on the question “Do animals think?” at first it is necessary to consider what animals are and what thinking is, because it may define the answer to the question.
Before asking the question what animals are, one should ask if they exist at all, if they are real, and that leads to the question “What is real?” Since the Age of Enlightenment the Western civilisation has agreed that only those things are real which can be scientifically proven or which can be seen or touched. (I will not touch upon the beliefs existing prior to the Enlightenment, because a) the wise men (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, etc.) of that time agreed that animals are not capable of thinking or reasoning (which confirms my opinion), b) I believe that an average Christian living before the Enlightenment would consider the time spent on questions such as animal intelligence to be useless and slothful wasting of time.) I will return to the beliefs of Western civilisation later.…