Attributing Psychological Predicates to Non-human Animals: Literalism and its Limits

Abstract

In this essay, I deal with the problem of the attribution of psychological predicates to non-human animals. The first section illustrates three research topics where it has become scientifically legitimate to explain the conduct of non-human animals by means of the attribution of psychological predicates (mind-reading in apes, episodic memory in rats, and the feeling of regret in rats and mice). The second section discusses several philosophical objections to the legitimacy of such attributions provided by central thinkers from the last decades (like Malcolm, Stich, Davidson, Dummett, McDowell, and Brandom). I try to show that these objections —which are related among other questions to the holism of the mental, the indeterminacy of the attributions, and the strangeness of animal concepts— can be alleviated. In the third section, I propose to adopt a literalist view of the attributions in the sense articulated by Figdor (2018). At the same time, I argue that one must draw limits to the conceptual change forwarded by her literalist view, taking into account holistic considerations and the fact that the psychological concepts must retain their core notes.