In this paper, I describe grounds for dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the sciences of animal cognition and argue that a turn toward mathematical modeling of animal cognition is warranted. I consider some objections to this call and argue that the implications of such a turn are not as drastic for ordinary, commonsense understanding of animal minds as they might seem.

Some philosophers argue that all concepts cannot have the same representational structure, because no single kind of representation has been successful in accounting for the phenomena related to the formation and application of concepts. Here, I argue against this “appeal to cognitive science” by demonstrating that different theories of the kind concept cohere with different interpretations of the argument. To circumvent the threat of relativism, I argue that theories of concept should be understood as working hypotheses, which are provisionally accepted (...) to facilitate the investigation and explanation of the mind/brain. From this perspective, theories of concept are to be evaluated as part of a comparative analysis of the different kinds of cognitive science they inspire. (shrink)

The relation between conceptual analysis and empirical observations when ascribing or denying concepts and beliefs to non-human animals is not straightforward. In order to reflect on this relation, I focus on two theoretical proposals and one empirical case, the three of which are permanently discussed and considered in the literature on animal cognition. First, I review briefly Davidson’s arguments for denying thought to non-linguistic animals. Second, I review Allen’s criteria for ascribing concepts to creatures capable of correcting their discriminatory powers (...) by taking into account their previous errors. Allen affirms that this is an empirical proposal which offers good reasons, but not necessary or sufficient conditions, for concept attribution. Against Allen, I argue that his important proposal is not an empirical, but a conceptual one. Third, I resort to vervet monkeys to show that Allen’s criteria, and not Davidson’s, are very relevant for ascribing first-order and denying second-order beliefs to this species and thus make sense of the idea of animal cognition. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze and reject two versions of the content‐argument against animal beliefs, namely, the ontological argument from Davidson and the epistemological argument from Stich. One of the main defects of the strongest version of the argument is that it over‐intellectualizes belief ascriptions in humans and thus sets the comparative bar for belief ascriptions in animals too high. In the second part of the article, we develop a gradualist notion of belief which captures basic beliefs as well as (...) Davidsonian linguistic beliefs, and we specify the conditions under which belief ascriptions to nonlinguistic animals are justified. (shrink)

The contents of representations in non-human animals, human core cognition, and perception cannot precisely be characterized by sentences of a natural language. However, this fact does not stop us from giving imprecise characterizations of these contents through natural language. In this paper, I develop an account of the precision of content characterizations by appealing to possible-world semantics combined with set and measurement theory.

Entry for the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy.