The Philosophy of Animal Minds by

Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780511632044
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2009-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

The frame-based approach gives a concrete example of the form that a routine-based approach to social understanding and social coordination might take. The key point is that, as stressed earlier, the parameters for the frame (what Minsky calls the terminals) need not be propositional attitude attributions. Social interactions that are sufficiently stereotypical to be modeled in terms of frames can proceed without propositional attitude mindreading. Where they do involve mindreading this can simply be perceptual mindreading.

Frames and routines provide a framework for interpreting some of the observational and ethological evidence often cited for propositional attitude mindreading in primates. An important part of the case (as reviewed, for example, in Tomasello and Call [1997], Pt. 2) comes from observation of behaviors in the wild that seem to involve tactical deception (Byrne and Whiten [1990]) and/or communication. Leaving aside the methodological issues raised by the analysis of what has seemed to some observers to be rather anecdotal observations, one issue to explore is whether the observed behaviors could not be viewed as stereotypical and patterned interactions where the parameter-setting does not involve one creature forming beliefs about the desires and beliefs of another creature.

Consider communicative behaviors, such as the much-discussed alarm calls of vervet monkeys (Cheney and Seyfarth [1990]). One of the key features of vervet monkey alarm calls is that they use different types of alarm call in response to the presence of different types of predator – and that monkeys hearing the alarm call respond in different ways to each type of call. This seems to fit very closely the frame model just outlined, with relatively fixed responses (the calls and the behaviors to which they give rise) triggered by different perceptual experiences (playing the role of the terminals in Minsky's frames). This interpretation of the vervet alarm calls is consistent with many of the claims that have been made about the degree of cognitive sophistication that they reflect. So, for example, it is consistent with the vervet alarm calls carrying information about events in the environment (as opposed to being expressions of the monkey's state of arousal).3 And yet it does not involve bringing into play the machinery of propositional attitude mindreading. The routine does not involve one monkey intending to bring it about that the other monkeys believe that a predator is nearby – or that the other monkeys recognize the first monkey's intention to bring it about that they form this belief.

Tactical deception has been less systematically and longitudinally studied than vervet monkey alarm calls. It is certainly possible that what have been interpreted as episodes of primates intentionally manipulating (or attempting to manipulate) the propositional attitudes of conspecifics will turn out to be complex and sophisticated routines of the type analyzed by Minsky. It is plausible that the parameter-setting will involve a degree of mindreading, but the default assumption (particularly in the light of the considerations that will emerge in the next section) should be that this will be perceptual mindreading. Certainly, many of the reported

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