Animals, concepts and contents
Keywords:
concepts, propositional contents, animal cognitionAbstract
Nowadays, there is a growing number of philosophers and scientists defending the attribution of intentional mental states to different species of non-human animals. Additionally, these philosophers have usually claimed that, in many cases, those mental sates have propositional contents that represent particular things as being in a certain way. Some of them add to this that, in order to be able to think these contents, it is necessary to have two kinds of concepts: concepts of particulars and concepts of properties. With these ideas in mind, in this paper I will try to answer two questions: What kind of behaviours would provide good evidence that certain non-human animals have concepts of particulars and concepts of properties? And, do we have this kind of evidence? In order to answer these questions, I will firstly examine which cognitive abilities are involved in the possession of concepts of particulars and concepts of properties. Secondly, I will identify several reliable behavioural indicators that an animal has the cognitive capacities required to attribute concepts of particulars and of properties to them. Finally, I will present some empirical examples – the caching strategies of blue-jays and the post-conflict behaviour of chimpanzees— and I will argue that these animals – amongst many others— have both concepts of particulars and of properties. If this is the case, it can be concluded that we also have some reasons to think that there are non-human animals that have mental states with propositional contents, at least in a modest sense.
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