Philosophy Research Seminar series
Comparative Cognition: Unlucky for Some?
Abstract:
A prominent strand of comparative cognition research investigates whether animals have what Cecilia Heyes (Cognitive Gadgets, OUP 2018) calls ‘big special’ capacities. Big special capacities are cognitive capacities generally thought to be especially sophisticated or complex, and perhaps uniquely human. The topic of this paper is pessimism about this branch of comparative cognition: the view that it is unlikely to generate knowledge about the distribution of big special capacities in nonhuman animals. In the paper, I do two things. First, I show that a case for pessimism about comparative cognition can be made which closely parallels the case for pessimism about historical science, as reconstructed by Adrian Currie (Rock, Bone and Ruin, MIT Press 2018). Like historical scientists, I argue, comparative cognitive scientists rely on trace evidence in epistemically unlucky circumstances. This might reasonably lead us to doubt that their inquiries are likely to produce knowledge. Second, I consider what can be said on behalf of the optimist. I argue that comparative cognitive scientists are ‘methodological omnivores’, not limited to trace evidence, and that they have the resources to change their epistemic luck. Combining these claims suggests a reply not only to pessimism but also to a species of methodological conservatism prominent in comparative cognition.