Existence of an Ontological gulf between 'Man' and 'the Animal'.?

Question

In response to the question of the relation between human being and non-human animals, an alternative to the above asserts that there is a continuum without any radical break.

Is either valid; or is another 'solution' required ?

(Philosophical context, if you please.)

Answer 1

The best-known position on the question is that of Descartes, who thought that because animals did not reason, they didn't experience true cogitation and that, as far as he was concerned, they were machines.
Language philosophy, however, such as that of Wittgenstein, also clearly draws a gulf between man and animal. Man being the only animal capable of language as we know it, it places man in a class completely apart. Foucault would probably say the animal is simply out of the discourse, just as the insane and the criminals are, although I don't recall ever seeing Foucault had discussed the question of animals specifically.
However, I do believe we have to step outside of philosophy and into the natural sciences for the correct answer to this question. Biologists now assert certain animals have a previously-unsuspected capacity for language and learning: dogs, cats, dolphins, and even certian birds have shown this ability to a certain degree. There is a scientific debate ongoing as to how much an animal can understand and how much of it is based on learned rote behaviour based on reward/punishment.
The second Wittgenstein would also probably lean towards the idea of a gradual scale of language capacity for animals and thus, capacity for discourse. The second Wittgenstein thought of language as a game. If you know the rules of the game, you know what to do with language. So certain animals, who exhibit the ability for responding to language, could be seen as participating in language, insofar as they know what to do with it. Man, of course, is at the top of the scale, but certain chimpanzees, lemurs, etc... have also shown amazing capacities for responding to language.

Answer 2

Descartes being all right, I prefer to ponder on my own.

I see all life as a continuum without beginning or end. If God creates all, then what created God? And if there is no god, how was anything created? If God exists & is all powerful, God exists. And if God exists, then creation is still alive, & thus has not ended. As there was life before humanity, does it not stand to reason there will be life after humanity is history? And knowing the commnonality of all life, how can we say there is a void between any 2 examples of it? If any of the above is true, Mankind must be part of a continuing process of creation, and not the end all or be all. Perhaps even God is only a temporary part of the continuing reality. But we are not to know, for nothing can behold all that is God.