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Articles

Talking to the Animals

Patrick Phillips asks: Is It Incredible?

“A dog cannot relate its autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest though poor.”
Bertrand Russell
Human Knowledge: Its Scope And Limits

“A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe that his master will come the day after tomorrow?…How am I supposed to answer this?”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophical Investigations

Can we talk with the animals? I am assuming in this article that ‘talking to the animals’ would require, at least, that the animals in question possessed a language capacity, however basic. Otherwise any conversation one undertook would be one-sided.

In any search for non-human conversational partners, perhaps the most likely choice would be the apes.

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