The Animal Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Animal Cognition

243 Pages·2014·1.49 MB·English

by  Kristin Andrews

The Animal Mind
The study of animal cognition raises profound questions about the minds of animals and
philosophy of mind itself. Aristotle argued that humans are the only animal to laugh, but recent
experiments suggest that rats laugh too. In other experiments, dogs have been shown to
respond appropriately to over 200 words in human language.
In this introduction to the philosophy of animal minds Kristin Andrews introduces and
assesses the essential topics, problems, and debates as they cut across animal cognition and
philosophy of mind. She addresses the following key topics:
•
what is cognition, and what is it to have a mind? What questions should we ask to determine
whether behavior has a cognitive basis?
•
the science of animal minds explained: Classical ethology, behaviorist psychology, and
cognitive ethology
•
rationality in animals
•
animal consciousness: what does research into pain and the emotions reveal? What can
empirical evidence about animal behavior tell us about philosophical theories of
consciousness?
•
does animal cognition involve belief and concepts; do animals have a “Language of
Thought”?
•
animal communication
•
other minds: do animals attribute “mindedness” to other creatures?
•
moral reasoning and ethical behaviour in animals
•
animal cognition and m emory
Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is made throughout the book. These
include Cheney and Seyfarth’s vervet monkey research, Thorndike’s cat puzzle boxes, Jensen’s
research into humans and chimpanzees and the ultimatum game, Pankseep and Burgdorf’s
research on rat laughter, and Clayton and Emery’s research on memory in scrub jays.
Additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary
make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind and animal
cognition. It will also be an excellent resource for those in fi elds such as ethology, biology, animal
studies, and psychology.
Kristin Andrews is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Director of the
Cognitive Science Program at York University, Canada. She is the author of Do Apes Read
Minds? Toward a New Folk Psychology (2012), and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge
Handbook of Animal Cognition.
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The Animal Mind
An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Animal Cognition
Kristin Andrews
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Kristin Andrews
The right of Kristin Andrews to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by
her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Andrews, Kristin, 1971-
The animal mind : an introduction to the philosophy of animal cognition / Kristin Andrews.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Cognition in animals. 2. Animal behavior. 3. Cognition--Philosophy. I. Title.
QL785.A69 2015
591.5’13--dc23
2014021202
ISBN13: 978-0-415-80957-3 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-80960-3 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-315-77189-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Franklin Gothic
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Getting to know other minds 4
1.1 Mind and cognition 5
1.2 Historical views 7
1.3 Arguments for other animal minds 8
1.3.1 Arguments from analogy 9
1.3.2 Arguments from evolutionary parsimony 10
1.3.3 Inference to the best explanation arguments 11
1.3.4 Direct perception arguments 14
1.4 The calibration method 15
1.4.1 Describing behaviors 16
1.4.2 Explaining behaviors 17
1.5 A case: explaining monkey alarm calls 19
1.6 Chapter summary 22
Notes 22
Further reading 22
VI CONTENTS
2 The science of other minds 23
2.1 Anecdotal anthropomorphism 25
2.1.1 Problems with the fi rst step in anecdotal anthropomorphism 27
2.1.2 Problems with the second step in anecdotal anthropomorphism 29
2.2 The rise of animal psychology as a science: Morgan’s Canon 31
2.3 Learning principles: associations and insight 34
2.4 Anthropomorphism and Morgan’s Canon revisited 39
2.5 The rise of ethology and kinds of explanation 44
2.6 New directions in animal cognition research 48
2.7 Chapter summary 50
Note 50
Further reading 50
3 Consciousness 51
3.1 What is consciousness? 51
3.2 Are other animals conscious? 54
3.3 Non-inferential arguments for animal consciousness 55
3.4 Inferential arguments for animal consciousness 56
3.5 A representationalist challenge to animal consciousness 58
3.6 Neural correlates of consciousness arguments for animal minds 62
3.6.1 Fish pain 63
3.6.2 Evaluating animal pain 65
3.6.3 Other analogical features 67
3.6.4 Learning and consciousness revisited 68
3.7 Self-consciousness 70
3.7.1 Mirror self-recognition 70
3.7.2 Mental monitoring 73
3.7.3 Episodic memory 75
3.8 Chapter summary 78
Notes 79
Further reading 79
4 Thinking: belief, concepts, and rationality 80
4.1 What is belief? 81
4.1.1 Representational views 82
4.1.2 Non-representational views 83
4.1.3 Eliminativist views 84
4.2 Requirements for having beliefs 85
4.2.1 Attributing content and concepts 85
4.2.2 Having concepts 90
4.2.3 Systematicity in propositional thought 96
4.2.4 Logical reasoning and rationality 99
4.2.5 Metacognitive capacities 105
CONTENTS VII
4.2.6 Animal logic 107
4.3 Chapter summary 109
Further reading 109
5 Communication 110
5.1 What is communication? 112
5.1.1 Biological accounts 112
5.1.2 Information-based accounts 113
5.1.3 Intentional accounts 115
5.2 Meaning in intentional communication 123
5.2.1 Reference 124
5.2.2 Expressivism 126
5.2.3 Content vs. attention-getting signals 128
5.3 Evolution of language 129
5.3.1 What is language? 129
5.3.2 Gestural origins of language evolution 131
5.3.3 Teaching animals language 135
5.4 Chapter summary 138
Further reading 138
6 Knowing minds 139
6.1 Mindreading (or theory of mind) 140
6.1.1 Is nonhuman mindreading empirically tractable? 142
6.1.2 The “logical problem” 145
6.1.3 Do we need to solve the logical problem? 149
6.1.4 Benefi ts of mindreading 150
6.2 Understanding intentional agency 153
6.3 Understanding others’ emotions 155
6.4 Understanding perceptions and attributing personality traits 158
6.4.1 Research on perceptual mindreading in animals 161
6.4.2 Research on personality understanding in animals 163
6.5 Chapter summary 163
Further reading 164
7 Moral minds 165
7.1 Moral status 165
7.1.1 Utilitarian accounts of moral status 167
7.1.2 Rights-based accounts of moral status 168
7.1.3 Social accounts of moral status 169
7.2 Moral subjects and near-persons 170
7.3 Moral agency 173
7.4 Psychological properties and morality 177
7.5 Moral differences 181
VIII CONTENTS
7.6 Chapter summary 184
Further reading 185
Glossary 186
Bibliography 190
Index 219
Acknowledgments
I’ve been teaching the Philosophy of Animal Minds at York University for over ten years, and I’ve
learned much about how to present this material from all the students who have passed
through my classroom. Some of them read draft chapters of this book, some of them saw
slides that I turned into text, but they all helped shape the book you are looking at now. First
thanks to all of them.
I wasn’t planning on turning my class into a textbook but one day Tony Bruce from Routledge
showed up in my offi ce and asked me to write The Animal Mind. It sounded like a great idea.
During the next two years I was lucky enough to have lots of eyes on drafts. In particular, I’d
like to thank those who gave me comments on part or all of the manuscript: Laura Adams,
Jacob Beck, Rachel Brown, Devin Curry, Grant Goodrich, Bryce Huebner, Brian Huss, Imola
Ilyes, Georgia Mason, Irina Meketa, Edward Minar, Anne Russon, Sara Shettleworth, Elliott
Sober, Olivia Sultanescu, and anonymous reviewers for Routledge. I’d also like to thank
members of the GTA Animal Cognition Group for helpful discussions about many of these
issues. Olivia Sultanescu and Brian Huss deserve extra thanks for their work proofreading, and
thank you Olivia for drafting the glossary, and for cleaning up and putting together the pieces
that make up this book.
I am lucky to have had experiences working directly with animal cognition researchers. I have
to thank Adam Pack and Lou Herman of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory for
accepting my application to work with the dolphins as an intern back in 1992. More recently I
was given the opportunity to observe cognition research on rehabilitant orangutans by accepting
an invitation to visit Samboja Lestari Reintroduction Project by the Borneo Orangutan Survival
Foundation in Indonesia. I greatly thank BOS, and Anne Russon for facilitating the invitation.
Seeing the differences between lab and fi eld cognition research played an important part in how
I now think about the best way to study animal minds.