From drawing comparisons to examining bonds: philosophy of science and animals
I. Then and Now
When I was in graduate school in a philosophy department, talking about the cognitive capabilities of animals meant risking being suspected of being unphilosophical -- unscientific, even! It depended upon the context and company, of course. An indication of the depth of the rift that existed in my department was the exchange that occurred when, at my mock interview, one faculty member asked me a question involving animal belief and another faculty member advised me (in an authoritative tone) that if an interviewer ever asks about animal cognition, rather than try to answer it, my response should be to change the topic immediately!
But I soon learned there were philosophers working on the topic, and quite seriously, too. Many were women in philosophy of science. Not too long after that exchange, I got to hear Kristin Andrews speak on something involving dolphins and mirror recognition. Her papers exhibit all the rigor of the most careful work in analytic philosophy, while venturing into the muddy territory of experimental research on animal cognitive abilities. [A good example is her recent "Chimpanzee Mind Reading: Don't Stop Believing" in Philosophy Compass. ] I say muddy territory metaphorically, in that the research questions and methods in animal cognition were often not as precise as was needed to answer the philosophical question she had formulated. But it's possible it fits literally, too, as she sometimes actually works with animals herself, making her own observations firsthand. Soon I ran across others: Colin Allen co-edited The Cognitive Animal.' Sandy Mitchell argued that anthropomorphism was "not necessarily nonscientific" in an anthology devoted to the topic, Thinking With Animals, edited by the historian of science Lorraine Daston. Frans de Waal showed up in philosophy venues more and more, and was invited to give the Tanner Lectures in 2003, and gave one with the subtitle "Continuity with the Other Primates." And, Kristin Andrews went on to make a career out of her interest in the topic, publishing Do Apes Read Minds? which put forth a novel account of how to think about attributing beliefs to apes. Far from being rejected as not philosophical by the profession, the Canadian Philosophical Association awarded it the 2013 Biennial Book prize. She has since published The Animal Mind: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Animal Cognition, which some are using as a textbook. A sign of the acceptance of animal mind in philosophy is the mammoth Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Animal Minds, which just appeared on the scene a few months ago, which she co-edited.
That odd exchange at the mock interview took place over fifteen years ago. Things feel very different now. Philosophy of science on animal cognition gets funded now, too. Philosophers are becoming ever more adventurous about the kind of projects they are proposing.
II. "How close to us?" -- two senses
Much of the work -- at least the early work -- on animal cognition was occasioned by questions involving comparisons of the cognitive abilities of humans (often human children) and animals. This is asking how close animals are to us in the sense of comparing their abilities with ours. Here mirror self-recognition and counting are two iconic examples. Animal cognitive abilities are sometimes even labeled using developmental milestones originally designed for human children.
People who work with animals, though, are aware not just of animal cognitive development, but of the significance of the quality of the bond between animals and whom they learn from and interact with, whether those others are animals or humans. Pets -- or companion animals, as they're usually called in academic settings -- are of course a special case of the animal-human bond (as opposed to animals raised in herds for their wool, say), but why should studying them in their role as pets be any less scientific? It should be okay to ask "How close are they?" in this sense, too.
It's not unscientific to study animals in their natural habitat, and a dogs' natural habitat often is co-habitation with someone of the human species. The canine-human bond is certainly not thought to be unnatural, in fact, some find it to be one of the most amazing things natural selection has wrought. Some dogs seem able to detect more about their human's emotional and cognitive state than humanly possible. That's worthy of study in and of itself. But, then how is the canine-human bond involved in training them?
III. Philosophers as Explorers
This brings us to an unusual project by philosopher of science Carla Fehr that is an investigation into an intriguing meld of canine cognition, the canine-human bond, scientific consensus, and scientific method. Her investigation, though not devoid of all sorts of fun pet ownership aspects, means to find answers to some serious questions, and will be chronicled at a blog devoted to the project, called ontheroadwithmilo.com I am reminded of travel narratives of eighteenth and nineteenth century explorers like Humboldt, Wallace and Darwin, though the territory explored with be different; something more like an exploration of an unprobed landscape in science studies than a land Europeans have yet to study and map. Here are some excerpts from the site:
"This project is a chance to look more closely at the social, political, and scientific research on the dogs who share our lives, and to do so from the perspective of my relationship with Milo the AwesomeDog. https://ontheroadwithmilo.com/about/
"My goal.
I want to learn about dog-human relationships from expert handlers and trainers, from scientists working on this topic, and from my own relationship with Milo. I’ll explore the connections among these different kinds of knowledge to help answer a bunch of questions. [see blog for these questions]"
"The journey.
Milo and I will visit Canadian veterinary schools, and talk to veterinary and other scientists doing research on dogs. I’ll take Milo to obedience trials across the country, compete with him, and talk with people who have practical expertise training and handling dogs. I want to know these scientists’ and practical experts’ thoughts about how we generate and use knowledge about dog minds and relationships."
By now there are a number of posts up. Several concern a critique of the literature on the effectiveness of clicker training. I think this is a fascinating project, with an unusual and insightful conclusion about how the scientific method is used in invoking evidence for dog training methods. Here's a post on that: https://ontheroadwithmilo.com/2017/06/07/my-method-is-scientific-3-the-trouble-with-clicker-training/
Some knowledge comes from observation in naturalistic settings, such as this one about Milo watching action films -- or is it about Milo's reactions to the philosopher in the room viewing an action film? Good question, right? Right. https://ontheroadwithmilo.com/2017/06/06/on-watching-action-movies-with-sensitive-dogs/
And, I realized, the two posts are related. The one about observing Milo in his natural habitat of his human's living room provides background knowledge that's valuable in investigating the question about scientific method. The human-animal bond is part of the picture that is being investigated, which enriches the picture and helps open up new possibilities to consider regarding what is going on. The question "How close are they?" in the sense of bonds with humans is not unrelated to investigating "How close are they?" in the sense of comparisons with humans.
The actual journey is about to start, if it hasn't already.
Those journeys by Humboldt and Wallace and Darwin provided a lot of material to British and European scientists in the nineteenth century, and well beyond. Who knows what will result from this journey? You can sign up to get notices of new posts to the blog at ontheroadwithmilo.com
--Susan Sterrett, Wichita State University
