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Evolution and the Kantian Worldview
Author(s) -
Risjord Mark
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2006.tb00031.x
Subject(s) - epistemology , sentience , inference , transitive relation , mental representation , representation (politics) , philosophy , hegelianism , intentionality , consciousness , cognition , psychology , cognitive science , politics , mathematics , combinatorics , neuroscience , political science , law
Nonhuman animals seem to make inferences and have mental representations. Brandom articulates a Kantian (and Hegelian) account of representation that seems to make nonhuman mental content impossible: animals are merely sentient, not sapient. His position is problematic because it makes it impossible to understand how our cognitive capacities evolved. This essay discusses experimental and ethological work on transitive inference. It argues that to fit such evidence within the Kantian framework, there must be degrees of normativity. This invites us to understand the distinction between sapience and sentience as endpoints of a continuum, not as a dichotomy.