Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals
People commonly think that animals are psychologically like themselves (anthropomorphism), and describe what animals do in narratives (anecdotes) that support these psychological interpretations. This is the first book to evaluate the significance and usefulness of the practices of anthropomorphism and anecdotalism for understanding animals. Diverse perspectives are presented in thoughtful, critical essays by historians, philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists, behaviorists, biologists,...
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People commonly think that animals are psychologically like themselves (anthropomorphism), and describe what animals do in narratives (anecdotes) that support these psychological interpretations. This is the first book to evaluate the significance and usefulness of the practices of anthropomorphism and anecdotalism for understanding animals. Diverse perspectives are presented in thoughtful, critical essays by historians, philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists, behaviorists, biologists, primatologists, and ethologists. The nature of anthropomorphism and anecdotal analysis is examined; social, cultural, and historical attitudes toward them are presented; and scientific attitudes are appraised. Authors provide fascinating in-depth descriptions and analyses of diverse species of animals, including octopi, great apes, monkeys, dogs, sea lions, and, of course, human beings. Concerns about, and proposals for, evaluations of a variety of psychological aspects of animals are discussed, including mental state attribution, intentionality, cognition, consciousness, self-consciousness, and language.
List of IllustrationsForewordAcknowledgments1Taking Anthropomorphism and Anecdotes Seriously32Dogs, Darwinism, and English Sensibilities123Why Anthropomorphism Is Not Metaphor: Crossing Concepts and Cultures in Animal Behavior Studies224Amorphism, Mechanomorphism, and Anthropomorphism375Anthropomorphism: A Definition and a Theory506Why Anthropomorhize? Folk Psychology and Other Stories597Anthropomorphism and the Evolution of Social Intelligence: A Comparative Approach778Panmorphism929Anthropomorphism and Scientific Evidence for Animal Mental States10410Anthropomorphism in Mother-Infant Interaction: Cultural Imperative or Scientific Acumen?11611Anecdote, Anthropomorphism, and Animal Behavior12512What's the Use of Anecdotes? Distinguishing Psychological Mechanisms in Primate Tactical Deception13413Anthropomorphic Anecdotalism As Method15114A Pragmatic Approach to the Inference of Animal Mind17015Varieties of Purposive Behavior18916Expressions of Mind in Animal Behavior19817Self-Awareness, with Specific References to Coleoid Cephalopods21318Silent Partners? Observations on Some Systematic Relations among Observer Perspective, Theory, and Behavior22019Common Sense and the Mental Lives of Animals: An Empirical Approach23720Amending Tinbergen: A Fifth Aim for Ethology25421A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of Nonhuman Animals27722Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Mirrors29623Cognitive Ethology: Slayers, Skeptics, and Proponents31324Animal Cognition Versus Animal Thinking: The Anthropomorphic Error33525Anthropomorphism Is the Null Hypothesis and Recapitulationism Is the Bogeyman in Comparative Developmental Evolutionary Studies34826Anthropocentrism and the Study of Animal Language36527Pinnipeds, Porpoises, and Parsimony: Animal Language Research Viewed from a Bottom-up Perspective37028Anthropomorphism, Apes, and Language38329Anthropomorphism and Anecdotes: A Guide for the Perplexed407List of Contributors429References435Indexes499
