‘One is All, and All is One’: The Great Chain of Being in Berkeley’s Siris

Bradatan, Costica

doi:10.1057/9780230518889_3

Cited by 2 publications

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“…13 The particular details of Morgan's account of cognitive architecture were driven by empirical research into animal behavior (which involved curating anecdotes from other naturalists, in addition to his own observational and experimental studies). However, it is difficult to read Morgan's reports of that empirical research-and his interpretation of it as yielding a three-tiered cognitive hierarchy-without getting the impression that the research itself was driven by a prior metaphysical commitment to cognitive hierarchy: to a Berkeleyian conception of the Great Chain of Being (Bradatan 2006) and to a Darwinian version of Aristotle's posit of a three-tiered cognitive hierarchy of vegetative, sensitive, and rational souls. The latter match up neatly with Morgan's mechanical, intelligent, and rational levels of mentation; I don't know of textual confirmation that Morgan was inspired by Aristotle (or the Aristotelian tradition) in this respect, but I would speculate that the convergence with Aristotle isn't merely coincidental.…”

Section: Morgan Wrote Thatmentioning

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: Morgan Wrote Thatmentioning

confidence: 99%