animal intelligence Archive

  • In C. L. Wrenn‘s wonderful book The English Language (1949), I found this amazingly anthropocentric quotation. “The theory of the evolution of man as known to scientists, then, must find a place for the emergence of man as a possessor of language as distinct from the so-called ‘highest’ species of anthropoid apes whose varied cries are not language (which implies thought) but only very fully developed conditioned reflexes. The gap between the highest anthropoid ape and the most ‘primitive’ man has not yet been bridged from this point of view of the emergence of language in what may be called ‘homo loquens,’ which is really the same thing as the familiar ‘homo sapiens.’ The hypothesis of some kind of creative act, therefore, may still be tenable in default of a better considering the origin of language.” – Wrenn, p.6 There’s an instructive piece of circular logic here.

    Animal Brains and Ockham’s Razor

    Posted on 23 July, 2010 | No Comments
    In C. L. Wrenn‘s wonderful book The English Language (1949), I found this amazingly anthropocentric quotation. “The theory of the evolution of man as known to scientists, then, must find a place for the emergence of man as a possessor of language as distinct from the so-called ‘highest’ species of anthropoid apes whose varied cries are not language (which implies thought) but only very fully developed conditioned reflexes. The gap between the highest anthropoid ape and the most ‘primitive’ man has not yet been bridged from this point of view of the emergence of language in what may be called ‘homo loquens,’ which is really the same thing as the familiar ‘homo sapiens.’ The hypothesis of some kind of creative act, therefore, may still be tenable in default of a better considering the origin of language.” – Wrenn, p.6 There’s an instructive piece of circular logic here.

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