Morgan’s Canon

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Steward
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Psychological Scale ◽  
Morgan’S Canon

The rule called “Morgan’s Canon,” introduced by the ethologist Conwy Lloyd Morgan at the end of the nineteenth century, states, “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.” It has since been subjected to repeated criticism and is now considered more or less discredited as a scientific rule. This chapter returns to the Canon to ask whether there is anything to be said for Morgan’s proposal, correcting certain misapprehensions about the original intent of the Canon and arguing that it may point toward a salutary “cautious agnosticism” with respect to animal minds.

scholarly journals Simple minds: a qualified defence of associative learning

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1603) ◽  
pp. 2695-2703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Animal Behaviour ◽  
Methodological Principle ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Complex Behaviour ◽  
Common View ◽  
Sufficient Detail ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Morgan’S Canon

Using cooperation in chimpanzees as a case study, this article argues that research on animal minds needs to steer a course between ‘association-blindness’—the failure to consider associative learning as a candidate explanation for complex behaviour—and ‘simple-mindedness’—the assumption that associative explanations trump more cognitive hypotheses. Association-blindness is challenged by the evidence that associative learning occurs in a wide range of taxa and functional contexts, and is a major force guiding the development of complex human behaviour. Furthermore, contrary to a common view, association-blindness is not entailed by the rejection of behaviourism. Simple-mindedness is founded on Morgan's canon, a methodological principle recommending ‘lower’ over ‘higher’ explanations for animal behaviour. Studies in the history and philosophy of science show that Morgan failed to offer an adequate justification for his canon, and subsequent attempts to justify the canon using evolutionary arguments and appeals to simplicity have not been successful. The weaknesses of association-blindness and simple-mindedness imply that there are no short-cuts to finding out about animal minds. To decide between associative and yet more cognitive explanations for animal behaviour, we have to spell them out in sufficient detail to allow differential predictions, and to test these predictions through observation and experiment.

scholarly journals Morgan's canon, Garner's phonograph, and the evolutionary origins of language and reason

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREGORY RADICK
Keyword(s):  
Animal Behaviour ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Experimental Proof ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Max Müller ◽  
American Naturalist ◽  
Morgan’S Canon

‘Morgan's canon’ is a rule for making inferences from animal behaviour about animal minds, proposed in 1892 by the Bristol geologist and zoologist C. Lloyd Morgan, and celebrated for promoting scepticism about the reasoning powers of animals. Here I offer a new account of the origins and early career of the canon. Built into the canon, I argue, is the doctrine of the Oxford philologist F. Max Müller that animals, lacking language, necessarily lack reason. Restoring the Müllerian origins of the canon in turn illuminates a number of changes in Morgan's position between 1892 and 1894. I explain these changes as responses to the work of the American naturalist R. L. Garner. Where Morgan had a rule for interpreting experiments with animals, Garner had an instrument for doing them: the Edison cylinder phonograph. Using the phonograph, Garner claimed to provide experimental proof that animals indeed spoke and reasoned.

scholarly journals Stosowanie przepisów prawa spadkowego Code civil przez sądy Wolnego Miasta Krakowa – sprawa Sawiczewskich

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-330
Author(s):  
Piotr Michalik
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
University Professor ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Law Of Succession ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Code Civil

The Application of the Law of Succession of the Code civil by the Judiciary of the Free City of Kraków – the Sawiczewscy Case The aim of this paper is to present the in-depth study of the only one piece of the adjudication activity of the judiciary in the Free City of Cracow (1815–1846) – the Sawiczewscy case. Named after its subject, the division of the estate of well-known Cracow’s pharmacist and university professor Józef Sawiczewski, the case is the example of rich source of material for the researcher in the field of the application of the French law of succession in the Republic of Cracow. In its first part the article describes the case proceedings including written pleadings lodged by the parties, rulings of the Cracow’s courts: the Tribunal of First Instance, the Court of Appeal, the Court of Third Instance and also the opinion of the Professors and Doctors of the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University. Due to that detailed analysis, the process of the interpretation of the Code civil regulations by the Cracow’s lawyers can be fully understood and properly evaluated. The comparative base for that evaluation is presented in the second part of the paper, which outlined the nineteenth century French interpretation of institutions of the law of succession applied in the case, i.e. the restitutions (rapports) and the disposable proportion (quotité disponible). As regards this base the outcomes are unsatisfactory since the members of the judiciary of the Free City of Kraków failed to meet not only the original intent but also the contemporary French understanding of the law of succession of the Code civil.

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