The Quest for Symbolic Communication in Non-Human Animals
The Quest for Symbolic Communication in Non-Human Animals

Author: Ulrike Griebel

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2024-06-13

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 2832550339

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Human language is unique among animals. We assume that complex cognitive capacities in general and language in particular evolved gradually and thus are manifest in different kinds and/or degrees in other animals demonstrating social communication. This assumption is supported by the fact that we can train social species from very different groups of animals (e.g. great apes, dolphins, dogs, parrots) to understand and in several cases even use abstract symbols for communication with humans and conspecifics. Even simple grammatical rules for sequences of 2-3 symbols can be trained to be understood by several species (e.g. great apes, dogs, dolphins). Even though human language training in these species takes considerable time and effort, it convinces us that cognitive foundations for language are present in other species, and, given the relevant selection pressures, symbolic communication could evolve in other species.

Human-Horse Relations and the Ethics of Knowing
Human-Horse Relations and the Ethics of Knowing

Author: Rosalie Jones McVey

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-31

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1000853624

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This book explores how equestrians are highly invested in the idea of profound connection between horse and human and focuses on the ethical problem of knowing horses. In describing how ‘true’ connection with horses matters, Rosalie Jones McVey investigates what sort of thing comes to count as a ‘good relationship’ and how riders work to get there. Drawing on fieldwork in the British horse world, she illuminates the ways in which equestrian culture instils the idea that horse people should know their horses better. Using horsemanship as one exemplary instance where ‘truth’ holds ethical traction, the book demonstrates the importance of epistemology in late modern ethical life. It also raises the question of whether, and how, the concept of truth should matter to multispecies ethnographers in their ethnographic representations of animals.

The Imaginary of Animals
The Imaginary of Animals

Author: Annabelle Dufourcq

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-07-29

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1000414299

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This book explores the phenomenon of animal imagination and its profound power over the human imagination. It examines the structural and ethical role that the human imagination must play to provide an interface between humans’ subjectivity and the real cognitive capacities of animals. The book offers a systematic study of the increasing importance of the metaphors, the virtual, and figures in contemporary animal studies. It explores human-animal and real-imaginary dichotomies, revealing them to be the source of oppressive cultural structures. Through an analysis of creative, playful and theatric enactments and mimicry of animal behaviors and communication, the book establishes that human imagination is based on animal imagination. This helps redefine our traditional knowledge about animals and presents new practices and ethical concerns in regard to the animals. The book strongly contends that allowing imagination to play a role in our relation to animals will lead to the development of a more empathetic approach towards them. Drawing on works in phenomenology, contemporary animal philosophy, as well as ethological evidence and biosemiotics, this book is the first to rethink the traditional philosophical concepts of imagination, images, the imaginary, and reality in the light of a zoocentric perspective. It will appeal to philosophers, scholars and students in the field of animal studies, as well as anyone interested in human and non-human imaginations.

Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution
Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution

Author: Nathalie Gontier

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-02-01

Total Pages: 1185

ISBN-13: 0192543512

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The biological and neurological capacity to symbolize, and the products of behavioral, cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic, and technological uses of symbols (symbolism), are fundamental to every aspect of human life. The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution explores the origins of our characteristically human abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various areas of human life. The field is intrinsically interdisciplinary - considering findings from fossil studies, scientific research from primatology, developmental psychology, and of course linguistics. Written by world leading experts, thirty-eight topical chapters are grouped into six thematic parts that respectively focus on epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological, linguistic, and social-technological aspects of human symbolic evolution. The handbook presents an in-depth but comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the of the state of the art in the science of human symbolic evolution. This work will be of interest to academics and students active in all fields contributing to the study of human evolution.

Rhetorical Animals
Rhetorical Animals

Author: Kristian Bjørkdahl

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-11-30

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1498558461

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For this edited volume, the editors solicited chapters that investigate the place of nonhuman animals in the purview of rhetorical theory; what it would mean to communicate beyond the human community; how rhetoric reveals our "brute roots." In other words, this book investigates themes that enlighten us about likely or possible implications of the animal turn within rhetorical studies. The present book is unique in its focus on the call for nonanthropocentrism in rhetorical studies. Although there have been many hints in recent years that rhetoric is beginning to consider the implications of the animal turn, as yet no other anthology makes this its explicit starting point and sustained objective. Thus, the various contributions to this book promise to further the ongoing debate about what rhetoric might be after it sheds its long-standing humanistic bias.

Animals as Persons
Animals as Persons

Author: Gary Lawrence Francione

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0231139519

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Gary L. Francione explains our historical and contemporary attitudes about animals by distinguishing the issue of animal use from that of animal treatment. He then presents a theory of animal rights that focuses on the need to accord all sentient nonhumans the right not to be treated as property.

Animal Communication Theory
Animal Communication Theory

Author: Ulrich E. Stegmann

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-07-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781108464727

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The explanation of animal communication by means of concepts like information, meaning and reference is one of the central foundational issues in animal behaviour studies. This book explores these issues, revolving around questions such as: • What is the nature of information? • What theoretical roles does information play in animal communication studies? • Is it justified to employ these concepts in order to explain animal communication? • What is the relation between animal signals and human language? The book approaches the topic from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including ethology, animal cognition, theoretical biology and evolutionary biology, as well as philosophy of biology and mind. A comprehensive introduction familiarises non-specialists with the field and leads on to chapters ranging from philosophical and theoretical analyses to case studies involving primates, birds and insects. The resulting survey of new and established concepts and methodologies will guide future empirical and theoretical research.

Animal Thinking
Animal Thinking

Author: Randolf Menzel

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-03-19

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 0262551497

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Experts from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, ecology, and evolutionary biology assess the field of animal cognition. Do animals have cognitive maps? Do they possess knowledge? Do they plan for the future? Do they understand that others have mental lives of their own? This volume provides a state-of-the-art assessment of animal cognition, with experts from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, ecology, and evolutionary biology addressing these questions in an integrative fashion. It summarizes the latest research, identifies areas where consensus has been reached, and takes on current controversies. Over the last thirty years, the field has shifted from the collection of anecdotes and the pursuit of the subjective experience of animals to a rigorous, hypothesis-driven experimental approach. Taking a skeptical stance, this volume stresses the notion that in many cases relatively simple rules may account for rather complex and flexible behaviors. The book critically evaluates current concepts and puts a strong focus on the psychological mechanisms that underpin animal behavior. It offers comparative analyses that reveal common principles as well as adaptations that evolved in particular species in response to specific selective pressures. It assesses experimental approaches to the study of animal navigation, decision making, social cognition, and communication and suggests directions for future research. The book promotes a research program that seeks to understand animals' cognitive abilities and behavioral routines as individuals and as members of social groups.

Critical Animal and Media Studies
Critical Animal and Media Studies

Author: Núria Almiron

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-14

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1317552695

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This book aims to put the speciesism debate and the treatment of non-human animals on the agenda of critical media studies and to put media studies on the agenda of animal ethics researchers. Contributors examine the convergence of media and animal ethics from theoretical, philosophical, discursive, social constructionist, and political economic perspectives. The book is divided into three sections: foundations, representation, and responsibility, outlining the different disciplinary approaches’ application to media studies and covering how non-human animals, and the relationship between humans and non-humans, are represented by the mass media, concluding with suggestions for how the media, as a major producer of cultural norms and values related to non-human animals and how we treat them, might improve such representations.

Socio-Political Risk Management
Socio-Political Risk Management

Author: Kurt J. Engemann

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-04-27

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 3110731428

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Managing risk necessitates an understanding of both how to avoid detrimental outcomes and to reap beneficial results. Organizations are regularly confronted with complex decisions involving risk and the impending consequences of the negative impact of its manifestation. However, the positive aspects of embracing risk should also be sufficiently evaluated to obtain a full assessment of opportunities. Socio-Political Risk Management: Assessing and Managing Global Insecurity covers a range of viewpoints and issues which can be applied to various organizational agency structures. These perspectives examine how social and political risk can impact an agency, and what recommendations are made to adapt, mitigate, and strengthen the organization against political risk. Accessibility to personnel and agencies via social media, the internet and public exposure compounded with political and social societal shifts have led many agencies in a constant spin to assuage and sustain viability and relevance publicly. Socio-Political Risk Management: Assessing and Managing Global Insecurity serves the readers by raising awareness and the necessity to control social and political risks in their organizations. This volume explores pathways for those in differing organizational structures to find common threads pertaining to social and political risks. An important goal of the work is also to develop a framework for managing and exploiting risk that can be applied at the organizational level.