Aping Logic Albert the Great on Animal Mind and Action

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Aping logic? Albert the Great on animal mind and action

(Final draft – do not cite)

Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp1

1. Introduction

Since Antiquity philosophers have been puzzled by the apparent intelligent behaviour

of animals.2 In the philosophical literature the perhaps most famous example can be

found in Sextus Empiricus’ Outline of Pyrrhonism I, 69. There, in the context of

Chrysippus’ account of what arguments are, it is said that a dog in setting after its prey

arrives at a triple fork. Now it has to decide and in doing so “concludes” that the prey

has to have chosen the third way without even having to sniff its scent:

According to Chrysippus (that arch-enemy of irrational animals!) the dog even shares in their legendary ‘dialectic’. At any rate, this man says that the dog applies himself to a multiple ‘fifth indemonstrable’ when he comes to a triple fork in the path, and, after sniffing the two paths which his quarry did not take, sets off at once down the third without even sniffing it. For, the ancient philosopher says, the dog is in effect reasoning: ‘Either my quarry went this way, or this way, or this way. But neither this way, nor this way. Therefore this way’.3

This sort of animal “reasoning” and the ensuing deliberate action strikingly resembles

human reasoning and choice. This is very intriguing indeed, because it is commonly

agreed that reasoning follows the rules of logic, which in turn presupposes holding

relevant beliefs regarding the validity of premises and a conclusion. Would it therefore

be necessary for the dog to hold certain basic beliefs about disjunctive propositions? 1 Departamento de Filosofía Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Mexico City [email protected] 2 For an historic overview see Sorabji (1993), 7-104. 3 Long, Sedley (1987) 216. See also Roling (2011), 223. For a recent attempt to interpret Chrysippus’ example of the dog’s inferential capacities see Rescorla (2009), 52-70.

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However it seems to be true that dogs generally speaking do not possess the abilities to

utter propositions that would show us whether they in fact hold a particular belief. Yet

the downside of prima facie excluding animals as entertaining beliefs has to be

compensated with the contradicting evidence that animals, at least some species act

the way they do, because they have certain mental representations regarding the states

of affairs relevant to them, so that it might not be outlandish to exclude the idea that

animals do in fact have some primitive sort of belief regarding the object they perceive

and how to react to it. In other words: even if we are not certain we should treat

animals as if they had a mind which produces mental representations that are needed

to produce a reaction.

In the Latin Middle Ages those very issues were discussed in the context of the theories

of cognition, intentionality, logic and physiology. And the one author who springs to

mind is the Dominican Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280). As opposed to his famed

student, Thomas Aquinas, Albert went to lengths to understand how animals are

constituted pursuing an understanding of the theoretical and empirical bases of the

function and structure of their organic complexion and their various activities. Such

was his interest in this topic that he dedicated explicitly at least four works to a general

theory of animal life: Liber vicesimus de animalibus, De principiis motus processivi,

Quaestiones super libris de animalibus and the monumental De animalibus libri XXVI. Also

do we find discussions related to animal action and cognition in his commentary to De

anima and his early theological treatise De homine, but also in minor commentaries and

treatises.4 It is those last three works that this article will primarily deal with.

Yet before going about analysing Albert’s point of view regarding the relation between

animal knowledge, thought and action, it seems to be in order to identify some of the

principles his theory is based upon. Most of them are derived from his understanding

4 The full bibliographical details of the works mentioned are listed at the end of the article.

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of Aristotle’s theory of the soul and its powers, which also shows his keen grasp of the

Arabic tradition. Each of the points explicated below will come into play in due course.

a) In the first place it has to be taken for granted that animal life is defined by

having the sense of touch. This implies that all animal species have a cognitive

access to the material world, even though it might be very rudimentary such as

in seashells.

b) Various degrees of sense cognition have to be distinguished, since different

animal species display different forms of organic complexity. Some possess

only the sense of touch, while others have also sight and hearing. The cognitive

range increases with the number of external senses. Therefore it can be said

that, for instance, a sea cucumber knows less than a spider.

c) The cognitive complexity increases additionally due to the fact that certain

animals have mental capacities by which they process information. The so-

called inner senses (common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation and

memory) transform the sensory impulses (sensibilia per se) into meaningful

information regarding the objects perceived.

d) Albert calls this meaningful information intentio which points not at what a

given thing or state of affairs is essentially or accidentally, but what it means to

a given perceiving subject. Hence for the sheep the wolf is relevant not so much

as it is grey, but because it is dangerous.

e) This information is not apprehended as if it was “out there”, but the inner

senses rather produce something similar to a belief or rather a proto-belief

about its meaning.5 The sheep grasps that this wolf is dangerous and that it has

to flee from it. In some animals cognizing intentional features is done by

instinct, in others it can known through learning or experience.

5 The idea of animals having proto-beliefs or proto-thoughts will be elaborated below; see note 9.

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f) When Albert says that animals are able to learn – they are disciplinabiles – he

seems to imply that it is done on the basis of intentiones and hence in relation

with some basic forms of belief. What he also points at is that learning is the

ability to grasp states of affairs and meaning that were previously unknown to

the animal. This means that in reaching them, the animal accomplishes

something similar to a syllogistic conclusion.

Points a), b) and c) require an outline of the organic conditions for animal sense

knowledge and the ensuing action. Points d) to f) will be introduced in a rather

contracted fashion. It will be shown that the most complex form of animal life, i.e.

primates (simia), holds the key for an understanding of how processes analogous to

syllogistic inference can take place without having to posit the use of concepts and

second-order beliefs. It will be argued that Albert hints at the idea that primates

effectively use an equivalent to the Aristotelian enthymeme or incomplete syllogism,

replacing the universal terms of the major premise with the image of a particular

intention provided by phantasy and estimation. Hence the primate may reach

practical conclusions that were not provided by sensation alone.

2. What seems to be the problem?

Discussing animal minds and actions from a philosophical point of view always seems

to lead to tough choices. It is often said that animal minds are not modelled the same

way human minds are unless we were willing to attribute to Chrysippus’ dog genuine

intelligence in the sense of holding conscious beliefs, using concepts and inferring

conclusions from them. Furthermore in a Cartesian line of thought it is assumed that

animals are soulless although complex machines. This assumption, however, flies in

the face of empirical observation that shows that many animal species display some

sort of structured and seemingly intelligent behaviour. The Cartesian is left with a

problem: if the assumption of apparent practical intelligence of animals was accurate,

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and if animals were nothing but elaborate machines, then we should be willing to say

that rational animals, i.e. humans are machines as well. Drawing a line that

distinguishes intelligent human beings, endowed with the ability to hold conscious

beliefs, and machinelike, unconscious animals would seem to be arbitrary if we did not

recur, for instance, to the Aristotelian theory that human rational capacities are not

essentially dependent on organic conditions. Indicative of this independence is that

the immaterial intellect is able to grasp universals, while animals, which only rely on

their organic senses, are just capable of apprehending particulars.

On the face of it a Cartesian theory not only posits a sharp hiatus between animal and

human cognition but also between animal and human action. With respect to action

we are stuck with two opposing views. First, according to an intellectualistic line of

thought it is mistaken to speak of animal action, because animals do not have any

sense of purpose and even though the proud owner of a dog might be convinced of its

intelligence, there is really no point in trying to find out what its train of thought

leading to a particular action, e.g. fetching a bone, might have been. The argument

points out that animals are deficient from the cognitive point of view.6 Even though

many animals perform complex cognitive processes, they cannot be thought of as

perceiving sensu stricto the material world they act upon, because they lack the concepts

and the language that would allow to form a belief about what it is they are perceiving.

Second, it would be impossible to understand animal behaviour if no implicit goal-

driven attitude was attributed to the animal. Almost all animal species deploy some

sort of goal-driven behaviour, and this seems to presuppose the existence of the

appropriate physiological and psychological mechanisms that allow for such

behaviour. In other words, animals may have reasons to act even though they

themselves do not know what they are.

There are several aspects that lead us to think that animals are in fact agents. The

individuals of many animal species operate in a non-linear fashion; they go about

6 See McDowell (1994), 125.

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solving problems in flexible and novel ways. Primates are one example for this. The

point is that many animals learn from repeated observation and experience, they are

disciplinabiles as Albert the Great puts it. Barring some crude version of behaviourism,

we ought to assume that something is going on in the animal’s mind when it achieves

a particular goal. This is especially true of animals that make and use tools or seek

cooperation to achieve their goals. If in the past the principle of parsimony had been

applied to the explanation of animal behaviour in the sense that “in no case is an

animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes if it can be

fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of psychological

evolution and development”,7 in this article a different methodological stance will be

followed in that “we should only attribute higher mental capacities to a creature if this

is the best explanation of its behavioural capacities”.8

Even if we do not have a definitive answer as to what happens in the dog’s or primate’s

mind, it should be assumed that it has a mind and that it is structured very much like

human minds are, at least from the physiological point of view. If so, it can also be

assumed that many functions of the animal mind are analogous to those of the human

mind. Both contain and process mental content which Albert calls intentio. When a

sheep sees a wolf it is not only seeing a grey object, but at the same time it is

apprehending something dangerous. In its mind the wolf is dangerous, even though it

might not be aware that it is so.

That animal action is based on higher capacities, i.e. the ones that produce and operate

on mental content, does not entail that they are rational the same way humans are, it

rather means that they behave in such a way as to say that they have reasons to act. The

sheep has a reason to flee from the wolf: it does not wish to be eaten. This amounts to

saying that animal behaviour can be construed as being rational, despite the fact that

animals are not per se rational. This form of intrinsic rationality, which allows for the

7 Morgan (1903), 53. 8 Glock (2008), 236.

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preservation of the species and individual survival, has led in recent literature to the

use of the prefix proto, e.g. when talking about proto-causation, proto-negation, proto-

thought among others.9 That animals have mental content on which they operate does

not mean that they know what the case is and they do not have to have second order

thoughts, but it rather implies that they know how to do something.10 The content of

proto-thoughts and proto-beliefs is therefore practical.

3. Albert the Great: brains and minds

Let’s return to Albert the Great. His writings make it sufficiently clear that he thinks

that animals, at least higher ones such as mammals and birds, have minds. The

evidence for this is not only the observation of their behaviour, but also the similarities

their organisms bear to those of human beings. If human beings show certain mental

features (emotions, desires, but also thoughts), because they have a specific bodily

complexion, it can also be assumed that an animal with a similar complexion achieves

similar mental features.11

There are at least two issues that have to be highlighted regarding Albert’s theory of

cognition and action. The first is that higher, i.e. rational functions in the strict sense

(discursive reasoning, use of language, abstraction etc.) are exclusive of human beings,

9 See Bermúdez (2003), 42-46 or Michon (2001), 325-342. When using the prefix proto I wish to be saying that proto-belief or proto-logic are related to the proper notions of belief and logic procedurally, but that they lack some of their essential features, namely being conceptual, allowing for second-order beliefs, reports of conscious states etc. The procedural aspect of proto-beliefs and proto-logic means that they can be described in an analogous fashion, i.e. that they function very much like beliefs and logical procedures do, yet without the commitment to positing concepts and propositions. 10 I am thinking of Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between knowing that and knowing how; see Ryle (1949), 25-62. 11 It also to be borne in mind that although reason and intellect are essentially immaterial powers, in human beings they only manifest themselves insofar as they relate to bodily functions, such as those of the external and inner senses are presupposed.

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because reason and intellect are essentially independent from the body. The second is

that the cognitive and appetitive functions of the senses co-occur with bodily processes

so that, when an object is perceived a bodily process occurs as well. Albert uses this

quite traditional assumption of the co-dependency of physical and cognitive/appetitive

processes in a remarkable way: due to the basic similarities of the organic structure

across different animal species (all have more or less the same kind of nervous system,

inner organs, brain etc.), the species-specific differences are only of degree and

complexity and not of essence. This means, for instance, that the diminished cognitive

scope of a lizard, compared with that of a horse, is owed to the fact that horses have,

maybe, a more complex cognitive apparatus that nevertheless resembles structurally

that of lizards.

Non-essential differences between animal species thus construed do not seem to be

problematic, but within Albert’s theoretical framework it is another question if the

distinction between human beings and non-rational animals is non-essential as well.

Albert is emphatic in stating that the human being is essentially rational and that there

must be an essential distinction between those beings that are defined by their

rational nature and those that are not. However, although the human species is

defined by its perfecting rationality, as “the most perfect of animals”12 it generically

shares most of the organic mechanisms of sensation and desire.13 This leads to a

perplexing solution: although “man as man is the intellect alone” regarding his species,

he also belongs to the genus “animal”, and therefore he shares with other animals most

of the organic and cognitive functions.14 And this means that regarding the genus

“animal” the human being is not different from other animals. Evidently the most

striking feature of the similarity between rational beings and other animals is that they

12 Albertus Magnus (1955), 103, 56-57. See also Albertus Magnus (1920), 1323. 13 Albertus Magnus (1968), 2, 18-33. 14 Anzulewicz (2013), 330. See also 345s: “The designation of man as animal nobilissimum merely denotes his superior rank within the genus of sensitive beings, without defining his essence”.

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possess sensory powers and functions that are able to grasp sensory information and

that they operate on it in a meaningful way. I shall return to the relation between the

sensory powers and the meaningful information they produce shortly.

Based on his reading of Costa ben Luca’s De spiritu et anima and Avicenna’s De anima

Albert states that the human and non-human brain has three ventricles.15 In total there

are five inner senses (sensus communis, imaginatio, phantasia, virtus aestimativa and

memorativa), which are located in those ventricles. The common sense is in the frontal

part of the brain where the nerves proceeding from the five senses come together in a

“fibered and moist place”.16 Physiologically the imagination is located behind the

common sense and it has a harder and drier complexion. By contrast, the central

ventricle of the brain is warm, because there the flow of spiritus is abundant. This is the

place where the estimative faculty actively produces intentions as will be shown below.

In the centre of the same ventricle is the fantasy, which operates on the basis of forms

and intentions. Finally, the posterior ventricle contains the memorative faculty, which

is dry and shares this property with the nerves of movement (nervos motivos).17

That what makes the inner senses so special with regard to the acquisition of sensible

knowledge is the way they grasp and transform sensory information. Albert

distinguishes two aspects when sensory information is processed within the sensitive

mind. One is the apprehension of sensible forms done by the imagination, the other is

the grasp of intentions brought about by fantasy and estimation. In his Commentary on

De anima he further elaborates on this distinction:

It also has to be noted that the form of a thing and the intention of a thing are different. Properly speaking the form is what informs giving actual being to the matter and to the composite of matter and form. An intention, in turn, is called what signifies a thing individually or universally according to the various degrees of abstraction. It does not give being neither to the sense power when it

15 Albertus Magnus (2008), 291, 1-2. 16 Albertus Magnus (1968), 158, 10-13. 17 More on this in Tellkamp (2012), 305-324; see also Anzulewicz (2002), 199-238.

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is in it, nor to the intellect, when it is in it, but it produces a sign and knowledge of the thing (signum facit de re et notitiam). Therefore the intention, unlike the form, is not a part of the thing, but it is the species of the knowledge of the whole thing. Hence the intention, because it is abstracted from the whole and because it is a signification of the whole (significatio totius), is predicated of the thing (de re praedicatur) […].18

The difference between forms apprehended, which Albert also calls images (imagines),

and intentions produced is decisive for it not only accounts for the distinction between

imagination on the one side and fantasy and the estimative power on the other, but it

also explains that the inner senses are capable of producing meaningful mental

content based on the previous grasp of sensible forms. The inner senses, mainly the

estimative power and fantasy, are representational powers in that they lead to a grasp

of particular objects under different degrees of complexity (temporal, non-temporal,

cognitive, practical, etc.). In order to bring about intentiones there has to be a causal

relationship of the accidental forms of the material object grasped and the sensible

forms (imagines) retained by the imagination. But the forms apprehended do not yet

constitute meaningful knowledge, they only warrant that the perceiving subject is

aware of its act of sensation. The intentiones produced by the estimative power signify

the material thing as a whole, while forms do not.

That the intentiones are brought about (elicitur) by the estimative power is of paramount

importance, because it indicates that the meaning associated with the grasp of

sensible features of the material world is not just “out there”; it rather essentially

depends on the minds of the animals to produce and possess it. This also puts into

question the general Aristotelian thesis that perceptual processes have to be thought of

as passive. This is indeed a significant departure from the tradition in virtue of the

tacit need to specify what intentiones amount to ontologically. If they are features of the

material world, the aestimativa would clearly apprehend them passively. Yet Albert

seems to think that intentiones have no existence independent from the mind and that

18 Albertus Magnus (1968), 102, 28-39.

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they have to be brought about by an active power that relates itself to the sensible

information grasped by the senses:

Since we experience in ourselves that cognition is of intentions extracted from sensible forms, it is necessary that something exists that extracts and makes (eliciat et agat) those intentions; this regarding there would exist an almost active power which produces those intentions from the sensibles […]. […] They [the Peripatetics] said that estimation is the active and productive [power] of intentions.19

Although Albert accepts the Avicennian supposition that intentiones are not sensed (non

sensatae) by outer or inner senses, he reinterprets it in the sense that the estimative

power as well as fantasy actively endow with meaning the raw information passively

received by the external senses. As such a wolf is merely a so-and-so-shaped object with

certain accidental features. That it is dangerous for sheep can only be apprehended by

the sheep itself, which has the instinctive ability to associate the raw information

(colour, shape etc.) with a dispositional practical knowledge regarding the dangerous

nature of wolves.

4. Logic, desire and belief: human and otherwise

So far it has been shown, according to Albert the Great, that many animal species not

only display a seemingly intelligent behaviour directing themselves in a non-linear

fashion at goals; it also has been argued that this is only possible under the assumption

that such a complex behaviour is based upon the fact that many animal species have

minds that are able to grasp basic sensory information and that they are also able to

process it in such a way as to produce and apprehend meaningful information, i.e.

intentiones. It also has been argued that Albert holds a fundamental similarity between

the cognitive apparatus of humans and animals which warrants the similarity of

cognitive processes that lead to the apprehension of those intentiones.

19 Albertus Magnus (1968), 157, 48-64.

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By means of their rational capacities human beings use the sensory information

acquired to direct themselves at goals. Typically the rational reflexion on means and

ends is formalised as a practical syllogism that contains a major premise which is

universal and a minor premise which is particular. The conclusion has to be a

particular action. Albert’s example, which is in fact Aristotle’s, is the following20:

Major – Everything sweet generates desire

Minor – This wine is sweet

Conclusion – There is an actual desire and action directed towards the wine

Although the action regarding the particular instance of desiring the wine follows

some basic rules of logic it is interesting to note that Albert thinks that some animals,

mostly primates (simia), operate in a similar fashion for he states that they arrive at

practical conclusions in a way that is very similar to a practical syllogism.21 At first

glance this seems to be simple affair: All fruit are delicious; this banana is a fruit; hence

there is a desire and action directed towards the banana.

But there is a major drawback to that picture, because it has yet to be shown if a

primate understands the major and minor premises, which Albert explicitly sees in

close connexion with opinion. It seems that having the ability to entertain opinions

necessarily presupposes rational faculties, such as the apprehension of universals, the

capacity for speech and consciously reflecting on the content of opinions. Albert,

however, denies all of this when characterizing animal minds and action: they do not

have the capacity for speech nor can they consciously reflect on the content of

whatever they grasp. Proceeding according to basic rules of logic, under the

assumption that it is necessary to have a conscious grasp of the content of the

20 Albertus Magnus (1987), 535, 48-59. 21 Albert the Great (1920), 1331. See also Roling (2011), 229-233. Albert is not very explicit about the species of simia he has in mind. Since modern taxonomy distinguishes different kinds (apes, simians, prosimians etc.), I will simply use the generic term primate.

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premises, seems to be out of their reach. There is, then, a conflict between the

observation of the apparently intelligent behaviour of some animal species, primates

in this case, and the denial that they fulfil the fundamental requirement for

accomplishing higher mental processes: they have neither language and concepts nor

the capacity for higher order conscious reflection on their mental contents. But is

there truly such a conflict? Should we deny that animals such as primates accomplish

procedures similar to that of a practical syllogism on account of their inability to grasp

concepts and having opinions? Albert seems to think that we should not jump to

conclusions. In order to highlight his stance regarding animal cognitive and practical

competences, we should first lay out the broader context regarding logic and belief.

Logic is certainly not Albert’s strong suit for it has been shown that his Commentary on

the Prior Analytics is a clear case of medieval plagiarism, since most of it is based on

Robert Kilwardby’s own Commentary on the Prior Analytics. Therefore already

contemporaries contended that Albert has only been aping Kilwardby’s work and that

his view on logic is shallow at best.22 I shall not be bothered by this issue, because for

the present purpose, and under the assumption that Albert had a basic grasp of the

Aristotelian logic, it will be enough to highlight its relation with mental content and,

ultimately, with the question regarding animal action.

The question as to what logic amounts to has a fairly straightforward answer. It

belongs to philosophy inasmuch as it determines the truth of arguments in its

branches such as ethics, physics or metaphysics. 23 It does so by progressing

syllogistically from the known to the unknown.24 Only a complete and valid syllogism

accounts for a perfect argumentation. That what makes it valid is the fact that it uses a

major universal premise, which might be applicable in the various special sciences.

22 Thom (2007), 5: “True it is that Albert’s views on the Prior Analytics have little independent value, and largely ape Robert’s”. 23 Albertus Magnus (2004), 2-4 24 Albertus Magnus (2004), 6, 31-43. See also Tkacz (2013), 509ss.

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Logic as scientia sermocinalis engages in the formulation of syllogistic argumentations

using universal or particular terms thus being not a proper science but the modus

sciendi nobilissimus.25

Even if this seems to exclude any form of animal reasoning, there are two aspects that

are indirectly relevant. The first is the accidental relation between language and the

subject of logic.26 The second is the conventional nature of the speech (sermo) in

relation to the object signified.27 I take it that the first point allows for the possibility to

say that even if no actual use of language occurs, inferential processes can take place

nonetheless. The second point, however, puts a special emphasis on the role of mental

processes in order to establish the meaning of a concept.

The preceding remarks make it clear that a living being without the ability to grasp

universals is ultimately incapable of reasoning syllogistically and that animals should

be excluded as properly reasoning beings, because the meaning of a concept only

refers to an object when it is in intellectu instituentis, i.e., when the immaterial intellect

has produced and grasped it. But the active component of instituting the meaning of

concepts anticipates and mirrors the way animals relate sensible intentiones to the

observed reality. The fact that Albert identifies the intentiones brought about by

estimation and fantasy with what signifies an object clearly indicates that he thinks of

meaning and logic in terms of mental content regardless of whether it is conceptual or

not.

But this seems to put into question the traditional assumption that it is necessary to

have a conceptual belief in order to speak of mental content. In fact it is not, for

instance, enough to see a white powder, it is also necessary to know that it is baking

soda and that it helps baking cookies; this knowledge seems to presuppose the

possession of concepts and knowledge of its meaning. Albert is emphatic in stating

25 Albertus Magnus (1890), 2b. 26 Tkacz (2013), 511. 27 Albertus Magnus (2004), 7, 1-6.

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that rationality is the conditio sine qua non for having concepts, but non-human animals

are not rational and hence they do not have or use concepts. But since beliefs are

dependent on concepts, it would seem that animals do not have beliefs as well. From

this it might be concluded that they do not know what they are doing.

Although this might be granted – since knowing how is more important than knowing

that – the problem as to the apparent intelligent behaviour of animals persists. As

mentioned above, Albert thinks that the sensory apparatus is similar across different

animal species, but he also thinks that it varies in degrees of complexity. The cognitive

content resulting from the activity of the senses, primarily of the inner senses, are

intentiones which, insofar as they signify the whole of an object, are similar across

different animal species yet with varying degrees of complexity; some are instinctive,

others are acquired, while yet others, in humans, come about under the influence of

reason. As seen above one criterion for stating that non-human animals and humans

grasp sensory information and act on it in a similar fashion is based on the

observation of goal-driven behaviour; therefore if non-human animals display such

goal-driven behaviour, they can be thought of as having intentional knowledge of

complex states of affairs in practical contexts even if they do not entertain an actual

belief about the content of their knowledge. This is, of course, only partly true, because

Albert regards primates as the perfect candidate for an animal that actively reflects of

the content of perception.

There are two aspects that need to be highlighted when approaching animal

apprehension of intentiones. The first is that it has only practical relevance, i.e.

intentiones are meaningful inasmuch as they lead to an action or passion. The second is

that Albert acknowledges that the intentional content brought about by the animal

mind is either true or false. The sheep’s intentio of a wolf’s dangerousness is true

whenever it actually sees a wolf and it is false when what it sees is not a wolf, but, say, a

statue of wolf. Note that characterizing animal cognitive content according to truth or

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falsehood is analogous to the characteristics of logical argumentations. But let’s take a

closer look at the broader context in which Albert explores this peculiar idea:

[…] In establishing [what] phantasy [is] we say that it is a power that composes images with intentions and intentions with images and images with images and intentions with intentions with regard to a twofold purpose, which is to be found in particular things. One purpose (finis) is the better knowledge of particulars that the sensible soul can obtain and its end is a thought (sententia) that this is this and that that is different. This is so with regard to everything of which a thought is produced in the mode of affirmation or negation. The second purpose is an action (opus) which is aimed at those particular objects […]. And since such a cognition explicitly manifests itself in many animals, because we see that they choose some things and reject others, thought and decision (decretum) is a prerequisite for choice (electio) or rejection; therefore many [authors] said that phantasy is something that belongs to reason. We do not mean to say that there is true choice in the sensible soul, but we manifestly see in some animals something resembling choice, in some more in others less […].28

In this text Albert says that animals grasp or rather produce intentiones as opposed to

just apprehending images or forms. It also said that they entertain something similar

to a thought regarding their content and that they choose based on that thought. Like

in human cognition and choice, the content is either true or false. Since animals do not

possess concepts, Albert does not relate truth and falsehood to propositions, but rather

to intentiones produced by fantasy. 29 This makes truth and falsehood, affirmation and

negation analogous to truth and falsehood as used in the realm of propositional logic.

Albert explicitly states that some animals proto-choose and that what they grasp is

relevant in a practical sense, but he also says that the content they grasp is either true

or false very much like arguments that are true or false. Trivially the sensory content of

X is true when X is a matter of fact. Hence the sheep grasping the intentional content

of a wolf being dangerous is true, because it is a matter of fact that wolves are

dangerous for sheep; it is, so to speak, objectively true that wolves devour sheep. In this

respect truth or falsehood does not depend on the capacity of having concepts, which

28 Albertus Magnus (1968), 168, 27-47. 29 Albertus Magnus (2008), 289, 72-77.

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enable rational animals to reflect upon their intentional content, but only on the

capacity to grasp what is the case in a practical sense.

In some animals, in primates for instance, the capacity to grasp the meaningful

content associated with the sensation of a material object is malleable in the sense that

they can acquire a set of previously unknown meanings and relate them to the solution

of practical problems. The term Albert uses to elucidate the capacity of adapting to

practical challenges is disciplina. And among the animal species that are able to acquire

a set of structured pieces of meaningful information about those challenges primates

stand out as the most sophisticated ones. Although Albert thinks that disciplina falls

strictly speaking into the realm of human cognition30, he seems also to think that this

term can be applied – perhaps by analogy – to animal cognition and behaviour. The

main reason is that there is enough evidence to think that animals acquire intentional

sense knowledge that is not solely based on instinctive reaction, but by learning and

experience.

On the upper scale of animal life Albert finds that human beings are – obviously – the

most perfect animals, because they can arrive at universal conclusions from

experience. As we have seen, the scientia sermocinalis achieves exactly this. One step

further down the hierarchy of animal life are pygmies who Albert deems to be less than

humans, not because they do not have the ability to think, but because they do so only

regarding practical issues.31 Primates are also able to acquire a structured set of

practical knowledge, but it does not lead to the build-up of scientific knowledge based

on experience (experimentum).32 Yet primates possess certain mental capacities that

allow them to actively engage in that sort of non-linear behaviour that resembles

human choice and action. Based on the make-up of their inner senses primates do not

30 Albertus Magnus (1968), 154. 31 Köhler (2008), 419-443. 32 Albertus Magnus (1920), 1331.

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only discern between what is becoming and unbecoming, they also appear to consider

alternative means and goals.33 Albert says in De animalibus:

But in all this [i.e. the primate searching for food, mating etc.] it is only moved by phantasms. And therefore it frequently errs such as other animals do; as we have said before, when phantasy is not conjoined with the intellect, error is frequent. In such animals there is no practical syllogism, but an imperfect argumentation. And such as in the contemplative [sciences] enthymemes and examples are imperfect arguments, the imperfection of which is eliminated by being reduced to a syllogism, so do those animals have imperfect practical syllogisms, which they have only because of phantasy’s estimation (fantastica aestimatio) of what is practical and desirable together with the desire that brings about the impulse towards the action. But here there is a difference in that the enthymeme proceeds from what stands under a universal insofar as it is in many or in all.34

We have previously seen that animals, at least some species, produce intentiones that

are relevant in a practical sense. It has been shown that those intentiones can be either

true or false and that they mirror, on procedural grounds, the way argumentations

work generally. In De animalibus Albert takes the similarity between animal proto-logic

and human logic one step further. Primates, he says, do not have intellect, yet they can

engage in argumentationes imperfectae arriving at conclusions that are, however, prone

to error. The imperfect argumentations of primates are analogous to exempla and

enthymemes. This is relevant because an exemplum is an argument that proceeds from

an incomplete induction, e.g. when from a particular and unproven premise a general

conclusion is derived. Inductio and exemplum are related insofar as they begin with a

particular, sensible instance and arrive at a more general conclusion; yet they tend to

be incomplete as long as there is no set of samples large enough as to allow for a

definitive conclusion based on experience. Therefore exempla are likely to be faulty in

the same way imperfect argumentations are faulty.35 And because primates do not

have proper experimentum, their starting point has to be a particular instance grasped

33 Albertus Magnus (1920), 1331. 34 Albertus Magnus (1920), 1331. 35 Albertus Magnus (1987), 491.

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by imagination, and when they apply certain rules of association, granted by

estimation, they arrive at conclusions that might be true or false.

Given that human logic and animal proto-logic are analogous, Albert thinks that it has

to occur in a particular place of the organic mind: fantasy or estimation.36 It makes

sure that the primate does in fact reach conclusions even if it cannot perfectly, i.e.

conceptually know what the premises and the conclusions are. The process of learning

ultimately manifests itself in the action the animal realises. It should also be

underlined that not only is the primate’s imperfect argumentation prone to error, but

that also humans tend to get things wrong. In other words, the conclusion of a

practical, yet incomplete syllogism is anything but clear-cut, not even for humans.37

5. Conclusion

I hope to have shown that Albert the Great expands the horizon of cognitive

psychology arguing that animals, especially primates, have the ability to bring about

intentiones and to act on them in a quasi syllogistic way. In order to show that this is

even possible he recurs to the idea that, from a physiological point of view, humans

and higher animals have strong structural similarities, which entail a similarity

regarding their capacities to process sensible information and transform it into

meaningful content (intentiones). He notably exploits that similarity trying to show that

the mechanisms of processing mental content follow the basic rules of syllogistic

inference. This means that while human reason can consciously hold beliefs about the

truth of the terms of a premise, animals, mostly primates, operate on intentiones

36 On the relation between fantasy and estimation see Tellkamp (2012), 314. It should be said that Albert adjusts slightly his notions of fantasy and estimation. While in his earlier works, such as De homine, estimation is basically practical in nature, in his Commentary on the anima he attributes it cognitive functions that were previously absent. 37 Albertus Magnus (1968), 241.

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produced by fantasy or estimation, which, as the mental representations of particular

instances, lead to imperfect argumentations. Since this process is primarily concerned

with practical issues, the conclusion is a particular action.

That proto-thoughts of primates mirror imperfectly human reasoning depends on the

metaphysical hypothesis that humans and animals share in the same genus and that

they are not, in this respect, essentially distinct. Humans and animals have all relevant

sensible cognitive capacities, i.e. external and inner senses with differing degrees of

complexity and perfection. Hence, if human beings can infer a conclusion from

particular and universal premises, it can also be held that some animals, primates, can

do something analogous with only particular premises. In moving away from a

conceptualistic interpretation of syllogistic inference, which depends on language and

second-order beliefs, Albert shows a promising path towards the inclusion of animal

life into a broader interpretation of a purposeful and ultimately intelligent living

reality.

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Aping Logic Albert the Great on Animal Mind and Action

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