ABSTRACT
This chapter examines philosophical theories and scientific evidence relating to animal thinking. The psychologist Edward Tolman was perhaps the first to suggest that animals use cognitive maps, a mental representation of the geometrical relationship between elements in the environment. One proposed nonconceptual representation that animals have are analog magnitude states, which are postulated to explain animals’ and young children’s capacities with quantities. Experiments suggest that many animals are able to discriminate between different numbers of objects. A well-known argument against animal belief based on animals’ lack of language comes from Donald Davidson. Davidson thinks that an understanding of error can be arrived at only by acquiring a language, and offers what is known as the triangulation argument to defend this view. Davidson’s arguments also raise questions about the development of language, communication, and belief in human children. The claim that belief requires language is often presented as a solution to the problem of indeterminacy of belief.
