Abstract
This essay discusses the relation between philosophical and scientific aspects of the topic of animal mentality. It defends the method of conceptual analysis both in general and with respect to the topic of animal minds (Sections 6.1–6.4). But it also argues for a type of conceptual analysis that is non-reductive and impure (Sections 6.5–6.6). This approach distinguishes the conceptual issues of philosophy from the factual issues of science, while being sensitive to the way in which these interact in specific questions, arguments, theories and research programmes. Philosophy is distinct from science, yet the two cannot proceed in isolation with respect to topics like that of animal minds, which pose both scientific and philosophical problems. A more specific reason for favouring impure conceptual analysis in the philosophy of psychology, but especially with respect to animal minds, is the importance of methodological issues which are neither straight-forwardly conceptual nor straightforwardly factual (Sections 6.7–6.8). Section 6.9 dwells on the connection between the proper analysis of mental concepts and our practice of applying many of them to animals.
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© 2013 Hans-Johann Glock
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Glock, HJ. (2013). Animal Minds: Philosophical and Scientific Aspects. In: Racine, T.P., Slaney, K.L. (eds) A Wittgensteinian Perspective on the Use of Conceptual Analysis in Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384287_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384287_8
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