Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Observations of Animal Minds

Erkenntnis, 1999

Often, the behavior of animals can be better explained and predicted, it seems, if we ascribe the capacity to have beliefs, intentions, and concepts to them. Whether we really can do so, however, is a debated issue. Particularly, Donald Davidson maintains that there is no basis in fact for ascribing propositional attitudes or concepts to animals. I will consider his and rival views, such as Colin Allen's three-part approach, for determining whether animals possess concepts. To avoid pure theoretical debate, however, I will test these criteria using characteristic examples from ethology that depict a broad range of animal behavior. This will allow us to detect a series of gradations in animals' capacities, in the course of which we can think over what would count for or against an attribution of concepts and propositional attitudes to them in each single case.

Philosophical Psychology, 2007

Relations

Biology and Philosophy, 2004

2016

Research concerning animal cognition explores the abilities and capacity of animals to perceive, think and conceive. As an extension of this, researchers have tried to ascertain the concept of animal minds. The field has been a matter of great debate as it has brought into question the uniqueness of the human mind. This dissertation will review the various areas of research that have contributed to our understanding of animal minds, with a specific focus on non-human primates. The term ‘theory of mind ’ was originally proposed by Premack and Woodruff in 1978. The ability entails a recognition and understanding of another’s mental states. Recently, this term has included the cognition of seeing. Throughout this article, the important distinction between theory of mind capabilities and complex behavioural analysis is emphasized. It is important to consider how various primates represent entities in their environment, including their own image. In particular reference to this latter po...

2003

Empirical studies on the cognitive abilities of nonhuman primates and their underlying mechanisms developed primarily because we assume that their intelligence and, if one may use the term, minds are most like our own. Through our understanding of them, we would possibly one day understand what it is like to be essentially human. However, this view that they are most like us also coexists in our minds with the equally pervasive idea that nonhuman primates differ fundamentally from us because they lack sophisticated language, and may, thus, also lack some of the capacities necessary for reasoning and abstract thought. Given the recent developments in our understanding of the cognitive abilities of many primates, including the possible existence of rudimentary semantic communication in some species, nevertheless, comparative studies on primate taxa may yet throw light on the nature and evolution of different human cognitive abilities, including that holy grail of current cognitive res...

Bioscience Horizons, 2010

Research concerning animal cognition explores the abilities and capacity of animals to perceive, think and conceive. As an extension of this, researchers have tried to ascertain the concept of animal minds. The field has been a matter of great debate as it has brought into question the uniqueness of the human mind. This dissertation will review the various areas of research that have contributed to our understanding of animal minds, with a specific focus on non-human primates. The term 'theory of mind' was originally proposed by Premack and Woodruff in 1978. The ability entails a recognition and understanding of another's mental states. Recently, this term has included the cognition of seeing. Throughout this article, the important distinction between theory of mind capabilities and complex behavioural analysis is emphasized. It is important to consider how various primates represent entities in their environment, including their own image. In particular reference to this latter point, self-recognition could act as a first step towards understanding others. With this ability, other individuals may then be understood and manipulated through deception, imitation and teaching. In addition to deception, pretend play and external representation are proposed as another dimension of understanding false representations. Decisions about the evolutionary point at which theory of mind may have developed will depend on interpretations of the evidence for these abilities in non-human primates and whether indeed theory of mind is underlying them. Since the conception of the term 'theory of mind', the issue may have evolved beyond whether or not there is theory of mind in non-human primates to a more sophisticated appreciation that the concept of mind has many facets and some of these may exist in non-human primates while others may not.

Cognitive Science, 2000

Studies of the conceptual abilities of nonhuman primates demonstrate the substantial range of these abilities as well as their limitations. Such abilities range from categorization on the basis of shared physical attributes, associative relations and functions to abstract concepts as reflected in analogical reasoning about relations between relations. The pattern of results from these studies point to a fundamental distinction between monkeys and apes in both their implicit and explicit conceptual capacities. Monkeys, but not apes, might be best regarded as "paleo-logicans" in the sense that they form common class concepts of identity on the basis of identical predicates (i.e., shared features). The discrimination of presumably more abstract relations commonly involves relatively simple procedural strategies mediated by associative processes likely shared by all mammals. There is no evidence that monkeys can perceive, let alone judge, relations-between-relations. This analogical conceptual capacity is found only in chimpanzees and humans. Interestingly, the "analogical ape," like the child, can make its analogical knowledge explicit only if it is first provided with a symbol system by which propositional representations can be encoded and manipulated

Journal of Social Issues, 1993

Subjects were asked to indicate the likelihood that each of 30 animals (chosen as exemplars of the major phylogenetic classes) could engage in three complex cognitive tasks. Subjects were also asked to rate the extent to which they felt each animal was similar to themselves and whether they felt the animal experienced the world in a manner similar to the way they experienced it. The results showed that in all cases the perceived similarity and inferred cognitive abilities of animals proceeded from lesser to greater in the following order : invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals (excluding dogs, cats, and primates). For pets (dogs and cats) and primates, there was a marked increase in perceived similarity and in the tendency to make attributions about complex cognitive characteristics. The data are discussed in the context of viewing anthropomorphism as a derivative ofour ability to infer the mental states of conspecifics-an ability that evolved as a consequence of the need to take into account the experience and intentions of other humans. Although we routinely generalize this capacity to species other than our own, the evidence that the effects are reciprocal is extremely limited.