I have a hunch that at the root of the, ahem, madness is a sort of 20th-century language fetishism. The idea that thinking must involve symbols and syntax.
--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW the late Donald Davidson, most recently or
> Berkeley, rightly regarded as one of the most
> distinguished analytical philosophers of mind and
> language of 20th century, and certainly one of the
> most influential, denied that they would think at
> all
> because they cannot talk. (I suppose he'd exempt
> chimps, gorillas, where there is demonstrable
> language
> use.) I don't think he'd deny that they could feel
> pain or pleasure, but I am not sure about that. I
> agree that this view is insane, and, btw, I never
> heard that Davidson was cruel to animals; in older
> days, when I did this sort of work, Davidson was a
> favorite stalking horse of mine.
>
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