How can you be an animal, and yet not be one? The idea is that there is a sense of the verb to be in which something can "be" an animal without being identical with any animal. Each of us "is" an animal in the sense of being "constituted" by one. That means roughly that you are in the same place and made of the same matter as an animal.

Animalism hallmark claim is that each of us is identical to a human animal. Moreover the assumption that human animals are essentially and most fundamentally animals.