Conwy Lloyd Morgan, Methodology, and the Origins of Comparative Psychology

Arnet, Evan

doi:10.1007/s10739-019-09577-2

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 71 publications

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“…Many commenters have pointed out that Morgan's talk of "higher" and "lower" psychological faculties relies on a misunderstanding of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. This common objection is well-founded (Arnet 2019), and I'll discuss how Morgan's naïvely hierarchical account of cognitive architecture got him into methodological trouble in §4.…”

Section: Introduction: Metaphysics and Methodology In Comparative Psy...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

Curry

2023

Philosophical Perspectives

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In this article, I explore how researchers’ metaphysical commitments can be conducive—or unconducive—to progress in animal cognition research. The methodological dictum known as Morgan's Canon exhorts comparative psychologists to countenance the least mentalistic fair interpretation of animal actions. This exhortation has frequently been misread as a blanket condemnation of mentalistic interpretations of animal behaviors that could be interpreted behavioristically. But Morgan meant to demand only that researchers refrain from accepting default interpretations of (apparent) actions until other fair interpretations have been duly considered. The Canon backfired largely because of Morgan's background metaphysical commitment to a univocal, hierarchical, and anthropocentric account of cognitive architecture. I make the case that, going forward, comparative psychologists would do well to pair judicious use of Morgan's Canon with an openness to the existence of non‐humanlike animal minds comprising phenomena belonging to distinct cognitive and folk psychological ontologies. And I argue that this case gives us pragmatic reason to reconcile deep—e.g., psychofunctionalist—and superficial—e.g., dispositionalist—approaches to the metaphysics of belief.

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Section: Introduction: Metaphysics and Methodology In Comparative Psy...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

Curry

2023

Philosophical Perspectives

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Controlling Away the Phenomenon: Maze Research and the Nature of Learning

Arnet

2024

Archimedes

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Following maze research in animal behavior studies through the twentieth century, I explore “control” as an extended historical process involving the successive stabilization or removal of bits and scraps of the world to arrive at the pure form of a phenomenon of interest. Early behaviorist investigation of maze learning aimed to strip environmental cues from maze design to study context-free learning. Exemplifying this tendency is the famous 1907 “Kerplunk” experiment of Watson and Carr, in which they concluded that rats could ultimately learn a maze as one long bodily response unspooling in a successive series of actions, rather than basing their movement through the maze on external sensory stimuli. Supporting this context-free research program was a conceptual understanding of learning as something singular and general. With later, more ecological, accounts of animal behavior, however, it was argued that these early control practices had nullified the rich interrelation between organism and environment that makes advanced learning possible. The result was a deflated and distorted understanding of animal learning. Researchers had, in short, controlled away the phenomenon. This case highlights the tension between the object of inquiry and the object of control, and illustrates how novelty emerges in reinterpreting as central to the phenomenon of interest that which was previously merely interference.

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Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 2021

2021

Isis

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Conwy Lloyd Morgan, Methodology, and the Origins of Comparative Psychology

Cited by 5 publications

References 71 publications

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

Controlling Away the Phenomenon: Maze Research and the Nature of Learning

Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 2021

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