The Animal Mind by Andrews Kristin;

Author:Andrews, Kristin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1829328
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

The first-order interpretation would make the monkey’s vocalization non-meaningful and hence non-communicative on this view. But even the second-order interpretation, as richly mentalistic as it is, wouldn’t suffice as a meaningful utterance. In order to make it meaningful on this account we would have to add that the monkey wanted the other monkeys to believe that he uttered the eagle alarm cry in order to give them a reason to run into the bushes.

So, in order to communicate, an animal would need third-order intentionality—the ability to think about the beliefs others have about one’s own belief. The Gricean theory of communication, according to some interpretations, sets a very high standard. The interaction between Anne and Cecep wouldn’t be classified as communication, because Cecep almost certainly lacks third-order intentionality. Individuals who lack a theory of mind—which some think includes white middle class Westerners younger than four (Wellman et al. 2001), Tainae from Papua New Guinea younger than 14 years (Vinden 1999), some people on the autistic spectrum, and perhaps all nonhuman animals—would not count as communicators. Babies may coo while looking in your eyes, they may call out “Mama” and “Dada”, and they may point and yell out,”ba! ba!” every time they see a ball. But on the strong Gricean view, these babies mean nothing at all. And even once toddlers start stringing words together, they almost certainly lack the third-order intentionality the strong Gricean view requires for communication, so having a language isn’t sufficient for communicating on his view. Such a counterintuitive consequence should lead us to question the strong Gricean account of communication.

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