Iterated and Ground-Floor Cognition, KK and K¬K Arguments and Empirical Studies

A distinction between Cartesian knowers (who are capable of all forms of metacognition) and ground-floor cognizers are drawn. B.B., a virtual ground-floor cognizer, is extensively described: what it knows, what it doesn’t know, and what concepts can be attributed to it. The fragmented nature of iterated cognitions is described. That deduction need not require metacognitions of any sort is described: in successfully deducing q from p, an agent need not recognize or appreciate that she is using propositions, that she is using a rule (modus ponens), or that she is justified. A psychological study of deduction is described, and how it fails to illustrate metacognition is illustrated. The apparent ineffability of metacognition in nonhuman animals is discussed. A single anecdotal case of metacognition in chimpanzees is given, and an implicit knowledge generalization is attributed to the animals on the basis of this case. The use of Morgan’s canon is rejected.

Minimal Mindreading and Animal Cognition

Human and non-human animals are social beings, both have social interactions. The ability to anticipate behavior of others is a fundamental requirement of social interactions. However, there are several ways of how agents can succeed in this. Two modes of anticipation, namely mindreading and behavior-reading, shape the animal mindreading debate. As a matter of fact, no position has yet convincingly ruled out the other. This paper suggests a strategy of how to argue for a mentalistic interpretation as opposed to a behavioral interpretation. The first step suggests considering a pluralistic approach in order to allow for shortcomings such as not having a natural language. Second, a critical examination of the principle called Morgan’s Canon will show that this principle cannot be used as a final argument to rule out mentalistic approaches. Finally, the author argues that the setting of current experiments is responsible for the indistinguishability of mindreading versus behavior-reading and she suggests alternative experimental designs.

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.

Morgan's canon is not evidence

Mahr & Csibra's (M&C's) account of the communicative function of episodic memory relies more heavily on the case against episodic memory in nonhumans than their description suggests. Although the communicative function of episodic memory may be accurate as it pertains to human behaviour, we question whether Morgan's canon is a suitable foundation on which to build theories of supposedly human-specific traits.