Chapter 4 Can Animals without language have beliefs?

  1. What are the characteristics of a language (MacIntyre’s rough and ready definition)
    1. A vocabulary
    2. Syntax—a set of rules that combine expressions to form sentences
    3. Semantics
  1. Types of expressions that include:
    1. Names
    2. Definite descriptions
    3. Predicates
    4. Quantifiers
    5. Indexical
    6. Logical operators
  2. Semantics also includes some conception of how language makes reference to “things”.
    1. The ability to perform speech acts—actions that are themselves speech, e.g. questioning, commanding etc.
    2. The ability to use language to serve an intelligible purpose (all purpose here is socially embedded)
  2. Two important features that MacIntyre notes about his account
    1. On his account all language is socially embedded in praxis, therefore understanding a language also requires understanding the practices of a culture
  1. Often this practical element is unnoticed, similar cultures might have similar practices and so transferring over from one practice to another is unnoticed
    1. However there are times when mistakes in language translation occur because of a lack of parallel practices e.g. how Europeans misunderstand notions of gift-giving in India
  1. These mistakes are significant for M’s account because the same kind of communication in social practice underlies both human and animal practices
    1. Disclaimer—MacIntyre realizes that this account of language is general and has a “rough and ready” nature.
  2. Four arguments which purport to claim that animals don’t have beliefs because they don’t have language.
    1. Malcolm’s argument—for convenience I’ll call it the prepositional argument.
  1. When we say the dog waits for the cat in the tree, we use ‘thought’ loosely.
  2. We do not mean that the dog formulated a proposition.
  • Since dogs don’t formulate propositions, they don’t have thoughts.
    1. MacIntyre notes that the conclusion of this argument is limited to prepositional thought. So we could say that the dog would not have any thought, unless we also say that all thoughts must be prepositional.  MacIntyre will claim that all thought need not be prepositional—i.e. translatable into some utterance.
    2. MacIntyre further notes that on Malcolm’s view the question of what dogs believe cannot even be raised.
    3. Further on Malcolm’s account questions about how dog beliefs give adequate reasons for action cannot be asked either.
    1. Davidson’s argument (stage 1)
  1. The indeterminacy of ascription of belief argument
    1. One action can have many possible meanings. (E.g. a person may choose an apple when offered either an animal or a pear, but we can’t be sure he chose the apple or rather whatever is in the right hand, whatever is alphabetically prior etc.)
    2. The only way to be sure in interpreting the action is to know that the other person is interpreting similarly and this requires language.
    3. With beings who don’t have a language this impossible, therefore we can’t assign them beliefs. (In other words, behavior alone is insufficient to determine belief.)
      1. Note here that Davidson’s criteria for having thoughts is the ability to be an interpreter of speech.
    1. Davidson’s argument stage 2—A creature can’t have a belief unless the creature also has a conception of belief.
  1. To have a belief is also to have the idea that they may possibly be mistaken.
  2. This requires that someone must understand that there is a difference between true belief and false belief.
  • Only interpreters of language have such a belief, therefore only creatures with language have beliefs.
    1. Stich’s argument—for convenience I’ll call it the argument from semantic indeterminacy
  1. For a dog to believe that a squirrel is in a tree, it must distinguish between squirrels and non-squirrels, and possibly to have beliefs about trees.
  2. Dogs do not make these distinctions.
  • Therefore they don’t have beliefs—or at least we can’t characterize our beliefs into dog belief.
    1. MacIntyre notes that the conclusion Stich makes is very different from Davidson, because Stich says that in some contexts it is proper to ascribe beliefs to dogs (e.g. those contexts in which dog belief doesn’t have a full blown meaning of squirrels and trees, and other contexts where it is wrong to ascribe beliefs.
    1. An argument presented (but not endorsed by) by John Searle
  1. In order to believe one must distinguish between hypothesizing, supposing and guessing etc.
  2. These distinctions apply only to those who can use this distinction.
  • Animals without language can’t understand these distinctions; therefore it is a mistake to ascribe beliefs to them.
  1. MacIntyre’s reply
    1. To Davidson
  1. Davidson is half right
    1. It is correct that only language enables us to reflect on the truth and falsity of our belief.
    2. However there is a primal and elementary sense of truth, in addition to our more refined notions. For this elementary notion we need not possess a language.
    3. Humans have this sense (before they gain a language)—MacIntyre names it the pre-linguistic notion of truth and notes that animals may also have this notion.
    4. Some of the more intelligent animals may be pre-linguistic rather than non-linguistic.
    1. What three of the arguments have in common—some of the arguments rely on the claim that because we can’t distinguish among varieties of belief we ought to refrain from ascribing beliefs to them.
  1. These arguments are all more about what we can properly ascribe than about specific abilities that animals may or may not have.
    1. Do these arguments show that non-language-users can’t possess beliefs?  MacIntyre argues that they do not show this for two different reasons.
  1. First—animal observation shows that cats can learn to distinguish between shrews and mice and this implies some rudimentary notion of belief.
    1. The cat’s beliefs are indeterminate in some ways, however not in others say with regard to the edibility of shrews
  2. Second—many of our own human beliefs are indeterminate and hence like animal beliefs
    1. We can map animal beliefs on to our own where we share common practices, recognitions, responses and classifications.
    2. We can do the same with a pre-linguistic child.
    3. However once the child becomes linguistic, this primal sense does not suddenly evaporate into language—this sense remains and grounds our sense of language use.
    1. Stepping up the argument
  1. The examples considered so far do not look at the social practices of animals pursuing complex goals. They are relatively threadbare as examples.  Greater specificity is called for.
    1. For example the example of the dolphin study in which there is a claim that dolphins have syntax.
    1. There are other arguments to be considered as well against animal beliefs—we turn to these in the next chapter to look at the continental philosophers.