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Intentional Explanations and Teleological Explanations of Animal Behaviour.Keywords: Intentional Stance , Teleological Stance , Animal Cognition , Intentional Attribution Abstract: This paper examines two philosophical proposals about the requirements which must be satisfied in order to legitimately apply intentional explanations to non-human animals. Firstly, I evaluate Daniel Dennett’s intentional stance approach, and I present a well-known critique against it: the risk of over-attribution of intentional states that it comports. Secondly, I turn to Mark Okrent’s attempt to refine Dennett’s original position, by distinguishing between an intentional stance and a teleological one. Even when this strategy seems useful to deal with the problem of over-attribution of intentionality, it faces its own problems. As I will try to show, there are behaviors of non-human animals that can be explained neither by the teleological stance, nor by the intentional stance. Finally, I will suggest that, in order to overcome this problem, Okrent’s requirements for the legitimate application of the intentional stance should be revised and mitigated.
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