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David Hume Notwithstanding, Abstract Thought in Animals Is a Myth

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Atheist mathematician Jeffrey Shallit:

There is… evidence for abstract thought in animals other than people. Evidence exists for dogs, baboons, and crows, to name just three examples. Of course, all these examples are debatable (although I find these and others pretty convincing), and will likely continue to be debated until we know more about how abstract concepts are represented and processed in brains. Nevertheless it is pretty obvious that this is a question that, at least in principle, is capable of being resolved empirically… I’ll conclude with the words of David Hume: “no truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as man. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant.”

Shallit (and Hume) are mistaken. Animals are incapable of abstract thought. Animals (and people) are capable of thought about particular things — objects in the real world. They are also capable of evaluating, comparing and distinguishing particular things, a capacity that scholastic philosophers called sensus communis. Sensus communis is the root of the modern term “common sense,” although as a term in philosophy of the mind it means the ability to evaluate particular things, without abstract thought.

dog and kitten.jpgAbstract thought is the contemplation of universals, abstracted from particulars. Abstract thought is about concepts: mathematics, ethics, philosophy, logic, and the like. Abstract thought is about things that cannot be instantiated in particulars, although abstract concepts can be represented in particulars. For example, the concept of “justice” can be represented on a computer screen (I’ve just done it), but justice (as a concept) can’t actually be on a computer screen.

Animals think about particulars, and only about particulars. They can’t think about universals. Contemplation of universals is an ability only of human beings, who have immaterial intellect and will, and are thus capable of contemplating immaterial concepts.

Let’s take a look at some of the examples Shallit cites to make his case that animals can think abstractly.

[Researcher] Vonk presented the apes with a touch-screen computer and got them to tap an image of an animal — for instance, a snake — on the screen. Then she showed each ape two side-by-side animal pictures: one from the same category as the animal in the original image and one from another — for example, images of a different reptile and a bird. When they correctly matched animal pairs, they received a treat such as nuts or dried fruit. When they got it wrong, they saw a black screen before beginning the next trial. After hundreds of such trials, Vonk found that all five apes could categorize other animals better than expected by chance (although some individuals were better at it than others). The researchers were impressed that the apes could learn to classify mammals of vastly different visual characteristics together — such as turtles and snakes — suggesting the apes had developed concepts for reptiles and other categories of animals based on something other than shared physical traits.

Note what the apes did: they were trained to evaluate, compare, and distinguish particular things. The apes were trained to exercise their sensus communis, which is the capacity to think about particulars without abstract thought. Nothing in this study demonstrated that the apes were able to abstract from particulars and contemplate the abstract concept without particular instantiation. Comparison of particular things is not abstract thought.

The attribution of abstract thought to animals trained in exercise of sensus communis is a crude error.

More:

Dogs, too, seem to have better than expected abstract-thinking abilities. They can reliably recognize pictures of other dogs, regardless of breed, as a study in the July 2013 Animal Cognition showed. The results surprised scientists not only because dog breeds vary so widely in appearance but also because it had been unclear whether dogs could routinely identify fellow canines without the advantage of smell and other senses. Other studies have found feats of categorization by chimpanzees, bears and pigeons, adding up to a spate of recent research that suggests the ability to sort things abstractly is far more widespread than previously thought.

Animals of all sorts are capable of exercising sensus communis, sometimes to a high degree. All sentient life evaluates particular things. Dogs choose bigger treats over tiny treats, cats cuddle on warm chairs rather than cold chairs. Even non-sentient life, like plants and bacteria, are capable of behavioral discrimination akin to sensus communis. Bacteria swim in the direction of salubrious chemical gradients, and plants bend toward brightest sunlight. None of this means that bacteria or plants or dogs or cats think abstractly. The evaluation of, comparison of, and distinction between particular things is tied to particular things, and has nothing to do with abstract thought.

If you look at animal studies that are claimed to show abstract animal thought, this is invariably what you find. The animal is trained to compare and distinguish particular things. Animals are trained to hone their sensus communis, which is their non-abstract capacity to think about particulars.

None of these studies demonstrate abstract thought in animals. Abstract thought means thought abstracted — removed — from particular things. Animals think about objects and can group them in what we call categories. But animals don’t think about categories abstracted from the particulars in them. Animals think about predators. They don’t think about predation. Animals can select animals that we would classify in a species. They don’t think about species as an abstract concept.

A diehard believer in animal abstraction might ask: How do you know that animals can’t think abstractly without particulars? I answer that there is not a shred of evidence for abstract thought in animals, when the clear distinction between sensus communis and abstract thought is recognized.

The inability of animals to think abstractly is demonstrable not only empirically, but logically. How could an animal think about universals, without particulars and without language? What would be the content of the animal’s abstract thought, if not particular things or words?

Abstract thought in animals is a myth. And I mean “myth” in its richest sense. Abstract thought in animals is a cultural myth at the heart of the Darwinian understanding of man, the predicate of which excludes any qualitative difference between man and beast.

Images: David Hume, by Allan Ramsay [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Dog and kitten © 2016 GraphicStock.com.

Michael Egnor

Senior Fellow, Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence
Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hydrocephalus Association in the United States and has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

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