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In Descartes’s view, non-humans possess no consciousness, not thought and no feelings. Additionally, his view that human minds are disconnected from bodily experience led instinctively to his linguistic-based theory of cognition, namely that only language users think.

But as philosopher Paul Churchland aptly put it: ‘Among many other defects, if [the account that only humans think because thinking requires language] denies any theoretical understanding whatever to nonhuman animals, since they do not traffic in sentimental or propositional attitudes’.

Any view of cognition that ignores non-human animals ignores evolution. Whether we are talking about the nature of ineffable knowledge or any other kind of cognitive or physical capacity, our account must be informed by and by applicable to comparatively biology if it is to have any explanatory adequacy. Animal cognition helps understand the importance of evolutionary theory and comparative biology in the understanding of our own cognition. It also allows for tremendous insight into how the bodies of both humans and other animals are causally implicated in their cognition.

The main problem with disregarding animal cognition is that in doing so, we are essentially disregarding what cognition might have been like among our ancestors before they got language. Their pre-linguistic state was the cognitive foundation that language emerged from. If there is no cognition before language, a la Descartes and many others, the problem of understanding how language evolved becomes intractable. ~ Page 45

2 years ago. Edited 2 years ago.

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