Rationale and organization of the bibliography
A brief introduction to cognitive ethology can be found in the overview that
accompanies this bibliography. Given the amount of indeterminacy about the
boundaries of the field of cognitive ethology (discussed in the overview)
there is corresponding indeterminacy about the scope of this annotated
bibliography. With a few exceptions, I have decided to limit the entries to
works in the philosophy of cognitive ethology, a nascent subspecialty
straddling the borders of philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and
philosophy of science.
This is not to say that all the listed works are authored by professional
philosophers - far from it - but works by professional scientists are
generally limited to those that deal with methodological issues facing
attempts to study animal cognition in natural conditions. Thus, in general, I
have not included scientific papers whose primary contribution is empirical
rather than theoretical, nor have I included pieces on the controversies
surrounding ape language or `theory of mind' in primates which although of
evolutionary interest have not generally been conducted in naturalistic
settings. (Those looking for references into the broader scientific literature
are referred to this unannotated bibliography.)
Entries are arranged primarily in chronological rather than alphabetical
order, except where it seemed natural to group works that form a single
corpus, or to group critical articles with the items that prompted them.
Some of the references in this bibliography do not have their own headings.
Such items are generally not specifically about cognitive ethology, but are
important background reading for the pieces under whose heading they
- Griffin, D. R. 1976. The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary
Continuity of Mental Experience. Rockefeller University Press (second
- ----- 1984. Animal Thinking. Harvard University Press
- ----- 1992. Animal Minds. University of Chicago Press.
Griffin's first book launched a discipline. Widely reviewed, and the focus of
a 1978 article, with peer commentary and author's response in the journal
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Griffin, D. R. 1978. "Prospects for a
cognitive ethology." BBS 4: 527-538). It was republished in a revised edition
in 1981. In an effort to convince scientists that animal intelligence is closer
to human intelligence than typically supposed, Griffin provides numerous
examples of animals behaving in an apparently clever fashion, particularly
focusing on naturally observed behaviors.
Griffin's subsequent books extend the number of examples that he believed
indicative of animal intelligence while responding to criticism that his
approach was merely "anecdotal" by attempting to refine the theoretical
justification for his claims that animals are conscious, and arguing that
consciousness has a biological function.
Some critical reviews of Griffin's books:
- Griffin, D. R. 1982. Animal mind-Human mind. Berlin: Dahlem
Proceedings of a workshop organized by Donald Griffin. Contains individual
articles by the various scientists and philosophers present, and a summary
report written by Robert Seyfarth.
- Dennett, D. C. 1983. "Intentional systems in cognitive ethology: The
"Panglossian paradigm" defended." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6:
Dennett argues that his "intentional stance" can be used to generate
testable hypotheses about animal cognition. Introduces a Gricean hierarchy
of intentional states from "zero-order" (non-intentional, stimulus-response)
to "first-order" (beliefs and desires about non-intentional states of the world)
to "second-order" (beliefs about first-order states) and on up. Features
work described subsequently in Cheney & Seyfarth (1990) and Ristau
(1991). The paper was reprinted in Dennett's 1987 The Intentional Stance
(MIT Press) along with a field report of the difficulties involved in taking his
ideas to Kenya.
- Asquith, T. J. (1984). "The inevitability and utility of anthropomorphism in
description of primate behaviour." In R. Harré & V.Reynolds (Eds.), The
meaning of primate signals. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp.
Argues that use of "anthropomorphism" as a term of criticism is not justified.
Contrasts attitudes to anthropomorphism in Anglo-American primatology
and Japanese primatology and argues that anthropomorphic description
serves a valuable heuristic function.
- Burghardt, G.M. 1985. "Animal awareness: perceptions and historical
perspective." American Psychologist 40: 905-919.
A very useful historical overview of attempts to understand the mental
capacities of animals within an evolutionary framework, linking the "new"
work of Griffin to the earlier endeavors of Charles Darwin and his follower
- Heyes, C. 1987. "Contrasting approaches to the legitimation of intentional
language within comparative psychology." Behaviorism 15: 41-50.
Cecilia Heyes is one of Griffin's strongest critics. In this article she
compares and constrasts Griffin's and Dennett's fieldwork-based
approaches to cognitive ethology to her preferred approach based on
- Cheney, D. L., and Seyfarth, R. M. 1990. How Monkeys See the World:
Inside the Mind of Another Species. University of Chicago Press.
A classic of cognitive ethology that acknowledges a debt to Griffin's urgings
that scientists should pay more attention to animal minds. This book
summarizes more than a decade of field work on vervet monkeys in Kenya's
Amboseli National Park, including attempts to probe monkeys'
understanding of their social relations, predators, and cause-effect
relationships. Of particular methodological importance is the use of
recorded playbacks of vervet vocalizations to provoke responses under
relatively controlled conditions. The book was the subject of a target article
and peer commentary in BBS (Cheney, D. L., and Seyfarth, R. M. 1992.
Précis of How Monkeys See the World. BBS 15: 135-182).
- Heyes, C., and Dickinson, A. 1990. "The intentionality of animal action."
Mind and Language 5: 87-104.
- Allen, C., and Bekoff, M. 1995. "Cognitive ethology and the intentionality of
animal behavior." Mind and Language 10: 313-328.
- Heyes, C., and Dickinson, A. 1995. "Folk psychology won´t go away:
Response to Allen and Bekoff." Mind and Language 10: 329-332.
Heyes and Dickinson argue that laboratory studies show that even such a
basic behavior as approaching food is not an intentional action by
Dennettian criteria, and argue that only lab studies provide the necessary
controls to critically assess intentional hypotheses.
Allen & Bekoff critique the argument showing that it depends on a number of
unsubstantiated assumptions about the experimental situation; published
with a response by Heyes and Dickinson.
- Rosenberg, A. 1990. "Is there an evolutionary biology of play?" In
Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of Animal Behavior, Vol. 1,
Interpretation, Intentionality, and Communication ed. M. Bekoff & D.
Jamieson. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 180-196.
- Allen, C. & Bekoff, M. 1994. "Intentionality, social play, and definition."
Biology and Philosophy 9:63-74.
- [Both articles are reprinted in Bekoff & Jamieson 1996.]
Rosenberg argues that the definition of play is essentially functional and
essentially involves higher-order intentionality (in the sense of Dennett
1983). Each of these claims is sufficient to entail, on his view, that there can
be no evolutionary biology of play. His argument against an evolutionary
biology of functional categories is based on their heterogeneity of cause
and effect. His argument against an evolutionary biology of intentionality is
based on worries similar to those in Dennett 1969 and Stich 1983.
In their critique of Rosenberg's article, Allen & Bekoff agree that social play
is naturally characterized in intentional terms but maintain that intentionally
and functionally characterized phenotypes are a proper domain for
- Ristau, C. A. (ed.) 1991. Cognitive Ethology, The Minds of Other Animals.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
A useful collection of essays in honor of Donald Griffin on the foundations of
cognitive ethology. Articles include (partial list):
- Allen, C., and Hauser, M. D. 1991. "Concept attribution in nonhuman
animals: Theoretical and methodological problems in ascribing complex
mental processes." Philosophy of Science 58: 221-240
A discussion of ways in which observations of animal behavior might lend
support for attributing specific concepts to them, on the basis of a couple of
thought experiments; one involving naturalistic observation, and the other
involving experimental manipulation in a controlled setting. (Reprinted in
Bekoff & Jamieson 1996.)
- Williams, G. C. 1992. Natural selection: Domains, levels, and challenges.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Material around page 4 deals critically with Griffin.
- Beer, C. 1992. "Conceptual issues in cognitive ethology." Advances in the
Study of Behavior 21:69-109.
A sympathetic survey of problems and issues facing Griffin's program by
pre-eminent ethologist Colin Beer.
- Allen, C. 1992a. "Mental content." British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science 43: 537-553
Daniel Dennett (1969, Content and Consciousness, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul) and Stephen Stich (1983. From Folk Psychology to Cognitive
Science: The case against belief MIT Press) independently but similarly,
argued that the contents of mental states cannot be specified precisely
enough for the purposes of scientific prediction and explanation. Dennett
takes this to support his view that the proper role for mentalistic terms in
science is heuristic. Stich takes it to support his view that cognitive science
should be done without reference to mental content at all. Allen defends a
realist understanding of mental content against these attacks by Dennett
and Stich, arguing that they both mistake the difficulty of making content
ascriptions precise for the impossibility of doing so.
- Allen, C. 1992b. "Mental content and evolutionary explanation." Biology and
Philosophy 7: 1-12.
Argues that a realist construal of intentional content is more suitable to the
explanatory purposes of cognitive ethology than Stephen Stich's syntactic
theory of mind (Stich 1983). Illustrates the point using work by Cheney &
- Bekoff, M., and Allen, C. 1992. "Intentional icons: Towards an evolutionary
cognitive ethology." Ethology 91: 1-16.
Argues for the application of Millikan's notion of an intentional icon (Millikan,
R. G. 1984. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. MIT
Press.) to the understanding of play signals in canids.
- Jamieson, D., and Bekoff, M. 1993. On aims and methods of cognitive
ethology. Philosophy of Science Association 2: 110-124.
- Allen, C., and Hauser, M. D. 1993. Communication and cognition: Is
information the connection? Philosophy of Science Association 2: 81-91.
These articles are the product of a symposium at the 1992 PSA meetings
organized by Dale Jamieson. Jamieson & Bekoff recapitulate Tinbergen's
famous article outlining the research program of classical ethology
(Tinbergen, N. 1963. "On aims and methods of ethology". Zeitschrift für
Tierpsychologie 20: 410-433). Allen & Hauser take as their starting point
Griffin's suggestive metaphor that communication might provide a window
on animal minds. They survey different conceptions of information
(Shannon/Weaver, Dretske, Millikan) in order to see which might best
relates communication to cognition in the sense of information processing.
- Roitblat, H. L., and J.-A. Meyer, eds. 1995. Comparative Approaches to
Cognitive Science. MIT Press.
This volume contains proceedings of two weeks of meetings held in
Aix-en-Provence in the summer of 1993. Several chapters relate to
cognitive ethology, including:
- Allen, C. "Intentionality: Natural and artificial."
Explains Brentano's notion of intentionality and various attempts to
naturalize it, arguing that science can proceed to investigate
empirical consequences of the different positions without resolution
of the philosophical arguments.
- Bekoff, M. "Cognitive ethology and the explanation of nonhuman
- Dennett, D.C. "Do animals have beliefs?"
- Evans, C., and Marler, P. 1995. "Language and animal
communication: Parallels and contrasts."
Describes interesting work on the alarm calls of chickens.
- Toates, F. "Animal motivation and cognition."
- Blumberg, M.S. and E.A. Wasserman 1995. "Animal mind and the argument
from design." Am. Psychologist 50: 133-144.
A strong condemnation of Griffin's attempts to reintroduce the subject of
consciousness, argued from a staunchly behavioristic perspective to the
effect that consciousness is strictly unobservable and therefore untenable in
science. Argues that the logic of mentalistic explanation is as circular as
religious arguments for creation by design. As well as targetting Griffin, the
authors dismiss several of the other items listed in this bibliography.
- Bekoff, M. , & D. Jamieson (eds.) 1996. Readings in Animal cognition. MIT
A volume containing reprinted articles, many but not all of which were
selected from an earlier two-volume set by the same editors (Bekoff, M.,
and Jamieson, D., eds. 1990. Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of
Animal Behavior, volume 1: Interpretation, Intentionality, and
Communication, volume 2: Explanation, Evolution, and Adaptation.
Westview). John Fisher's article titled "The myth of anthropomorphism" is
particularly recommended for readers interested in that topic.
- Bekoff, M., and Allen, C. 1997. "Cognitive ethology: Slayers, skeptics, and
proponents." In Anthropomorphism, Anecdote, and Animals, ed. Mitchell,
R. W. , N. S. Thompson & H. L. Miles. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
- Surveys published reviews of Donald Griffin's books, and other sources, to
try to classify some of the more common responses to Griffin's program.
- Burghardt, G.M. 1997. Amending Tinbergen: A fifth aim for ethology. Ch. 20
(pp. 354-76) in Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes and Animals. eds. R. W.
Mitchell, N. S. Thompson & H. L. Miles. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
- Like Jamieson & Bekoff (1993), another article attempting to extend
Tinbergen's 1963 framework for ethology to provide support to cognitive
- Allen, C., & M. Bekoff 1997. Species of Mind, The philosophy and biology
of cognitive ethology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Surveys the history of cognitive ethology, the challenge from behaviorism,
and the application of contemporary ideas from the philosophy of mind to
the methodological problems facing cognitive ethologists.
- Balda, R.P., Pepperberg, I.M., and Kamil, A.C. (eds.) 1998. Animal
Cognition in Nature: The Convergence of Psychology and Biology in
Laboratory and Field
A collection of essays describing a variety of approaches to the study of
animal cognition in an evolutionary and ecological context, while trying to
stay clear of the controversies engendered by Griffin's attention to
consciousness and other folk-psychological notions.
- Cummins, D., and Allen, C., eds. 1998. The Evolution of Mind. Oxford
- A collection of papers on the evolution of animal and human mind. Papers
drawing upon or relevant to cognitive ethology include:
- Cummins, D. "Social norms and other minds: the evolutionary roots
of higher cognition"
- Hauser, M. D., and Carey, S. "Building a cognitive creature from a
set of primitives: evolutionary and developmental insights."
Lays out a strong program for applying experimental techniques
from cognitive developmental psychology to the study of animal
- Allen, C. and Saidel, E. "The evolution of reference"
Argues for evolutionary homology between animal communcation
and human language.
- Bekoff, M. "Playing with play: What can we learn about cognition,
negotiation, and evolution?"
Argues that the interactions in social play are a good area for
uncovering features of animal minds.
- Sober, E. "Morgan's canon."
Places Morgan's famous canon in the context of evolutionary
Allen, C. 1998. "The discovery of animal consciousness: an optimistic
assessment." Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
Draws a distinction between knowing what it is like to be a member of
another species and knowing that it is like something to be a member of
another species, and argues that even if the former topic is not scientifically
tractable, the latter topic may be.
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