Sound Research WIKINDX
Sound Research WIKINDX |
|
 |
|
Penn, D. C., & Povinelli, D. J. (2007). On the lack of evidence that non-human animals possess anything remotely resembling a ‘theory of mind’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1480), 731–744. Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (3/2/25, 6:21 AM) Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (3/2/25, 11:11 AM) |
 |
| Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2006.2023 BibTeX citation key: Penn2007 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: Embodied Cognition, General Keywords: Other-presence, Theory of mind Creators: Penn, Povinelli Collection: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Views: 83/83
|
| Abstract |
|
"After decades of effort by some of our brightest human and non-human minds, there is still little consensus on whether or not non-human animals understand anything about the unobservable mental states of other animals or even what it would mean for a non-verbal animal to understand the concept of a ‘mental state’. In the present paper, we confront four related and contentious questions head-on: (i) What exactly would it mean for a non-verbal organism to have an ‘understanding’ or a ‘representation’ of another animal's mental state? (ii) What should (and should not) count as compelling empirical evidence that a non-verbal cognitive agent has a system for understanding or forming representations about mental states in a functionally adaptive manner? (iii) Why have the kind of experimental protocols that are currently in vogue failed to produce compelling evidence that non-human animals possess anything even remotely resembling a theory of mind? (iv) What kind of experiments could, at least in principle, provide compelling evidence for such a system in a non-verbal organism?"
|