Apes, language, and the human mind
Current primate research has yielded stunning results that not only threaten our underlying assumptions about the cognitive and communicative abilities of nonhuman primates, but also bring into question what it means to be human. At the forefront of this research, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh recently has achieved a scientific breakthrough of impressive proportions. Her work with Kanzi, a laboratory-reared bonobo, has led to Kanzi's acquisition of linguistic and cognitive skills similar to those of a two and a half year-old human child. Apes, Language, and the Human Mind skillfully combines a fascinating narrative of the Kanzi research with incisive critical analysis of the research's broader linguistic, psychological, and anthropological implications. This new volume offers a radical revision of the sciences of language and mind, and will be important reading for all those working in the fields of primatology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive and developmental psychology
x, 244 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
9780195109863, 9780195147124, 0195109864, 019514712X
38566026
Part I - Entry into Language ; Chapter 1: Bringing up Kanzi ; Kanzi: The ape who crossed the line ; Would a bonobo learn language? ; Mother and child ; Kanzi had been keeping a secret ; Morning exploits ; Travels in the forest ; Evening tours ; Living with Kanzi ; Cognitive accomplishments ; Syntax grasped ; Part II - Theoretical and Philosophical Implications ; Chapter 2: Philosophical Preconceptions ; The Cartesian revolution ; Praedicet ergo est ; Cartesian bifurcationism versus mechanist continuity ; Moderate bifurcationism ; Becoming a person ; The 'charm' of the theory of mind thesis ; The Cartesian view of the mental ; The ascent of Pan ; 'The constitutional uncertainty of the mental' ; Chapter 3: Rhetorical Inclinations ; "Sure, but does he really understand what we say?" ; Evaluating metalinguistic claims: Logical prerequisites ; The commonsense picture of communication ; Animal research and the Scarlet Letter factor ; The epistemological conception and its methodological legacy ; Methodological reductivism ; Methodological operationalism ; Metalanguage as cultural technique ; Chapter 4: Beyond Speciesism ; Apes have language: So what? ; Our shared heritage ; Primal man ; Wholistic intelligence ; Hierarchical intelligence ; Language and mind ; Linguistics and the innateness conundrum ; The problem posed by Kanzi and alternative resolutions ; The issue of intentionality ; Social constructionism ; The perspectival shift ; Quine's dilemma and Locke's puzzle ; Why Kanzi could not be ignored ; The malliability of the nervous system ; The achievement of meaning - with language ; The emergence of the social contract ; The new lens ; References ; Index