Philosophy 101 Unit 1

Essentially my aim is to examine which of Aristotle’s virtues of (human) thought can be applied to animals (maybe we’re not such a unique species after all?).  I seek also to raise debate in the comments to questions like:

• To what extent can an animal think?
• To what extent are an animal’s actions instinct?  choice?  emotionally influenced?
• Is the animal making a thoughtful choice, or is he genetically predispositioned to respond in this way?

1.) Scientific Knowledge (Episteme): Unfortunately this is the one I probably have the least to say about. Of course animals don’t write down formulas and write textbooks.  The one example I have is a dog’s apparently instinctual sense of the most efficient path to take (a human would have to do calculus to find it).  I have no evidence either way, however.  Check out the article here.

2.) Craft Knowledge (Techne): This is the one absolute stance I am willing to take: that animals can and do use craft knowledge. Unfortunately the more scientific footage I wanted to post here is not available online, so this will have to suffice (please ignore obnoxious commentary).  In all cases, these animals manipulate and use tools (tool being defined as something that does no good in itself, it’s simply a means to an end).  In all cases, the animal has a goal which he uses the tool to accomplish.  The dog moves (manipulates) the chair to reach his goal of eating the food off the counter.  The bird COULD eat that bread as an end itself, but uses it to fish, gaining a bigger reward — not even all humans can delay gratification that long (tangent article here if you’re interested).  The badger manipulates objects in his enclosure to create a simple machine (ramp) and escape.

3.) Intelligence (Phronesis): While animals certainly do not have intelligence to the extent that humans do, animals are capable of problem solving.  Aristotle would say intelligence is “a state grasping the truth, involving reason” and also “concerned with action about what is good” (pg 14 course packet).  Here is an example of elephants who have grasped the truth about a simple situation (truth: the baby elephant is drowning).  They attempt to save the baby, which is an action concerned with what they feel is “good” (not letting it die).  They also use reason: the first attempts to just pull do not work, so one gets in to push while the other pulls (skip ahead in the video.. it’s long!).  Once they discover that this won’t work either, they move the baby through the water to a less steep incline, which they can maneuver the baby out of more easily.  Perhaps the elephants do not “know” that it’s not working because the incline is too steep, I can’t prove otherwise; nevertheless they find an shallower incline that does work. Based on Aristotle’s definitions, I feel that this problem solving is a facet of intelligence.

4.) Understanding (Nous): It is incredibly difficult to find a video to demonstrate this, because “either you have understanding or you don’t” to quote from class.  This one’s open for debate.  Do you think animals have an understanding of their actions?  Can you argue that they are simply mimicking learned behaviors?

One example I would like to bring up for debate is chimpanzee wars over territory, as documented by Jane Goodall (the same scientist that first documented chimps using tools). Goodall commented in her bibliography about the family groups in the Gombe region of her research: “I didn’t see aggression to start with. There’s no question that chimpanzees become more aggressive as a result of crowding, as a result of competition for food.” (J. Goodall).  The motivation for the battles was clear, and the group efforts involved (again, animals using team work) makes this phenomenon more than just a fight.  Do you think chimp groups have the same understanding of attacking, displacing, killing and the consequences?  Might they feel the same emotions?  (More here)

5.) Wisdom (Sophia): Check out Lihy’s view on this in her post!  I’ll comment there with my thoughts as well.

I hope one of my many links interests you.  I’d appreciate it if you even just watched/read one and gave me your thoughts.  Let’s get some good debate going!