When we praise them for doing something, we regard them as having a desire that, thanks to their training and initiative, "rightly" guides their actions.
This sort of praise is not entirely unlike that which we reserve for humans: is that because we anthropomorphize our pets? Or is it because we recognize animal desire as having its own excellence? Or does the reason lie somewhere between those two: i.e., because domesticated animals actually do participate somewhat in our own distinctively human modus vivendi?
No matter what the answer to this question is, it is clear that we regard these and other animals as motivated by desire. And there is something anti-reductive about this sort of regard.
I propose that it might be better to attack reductionism by pointing to this sort of desire rather than by talking as if humans were exceptions to what is found elsewhere in the natural world. For the latter approach can easily sound (or it may actually be) dualistic. Talk of doggie-desire therefore better illuminates the way to an alternative to both reductionism and to dualism.
Then again, the die-hard reductionist might dismiss this third way as an unwitting use of a dualistic folk psychology. But this dismissal may be more evidence of a quasi-religious commitment to materialism than critical thinking.
To goal of doggie talk is to show that there is a third way that is neither reductionist nor dualist. Put otherwise, both materialists and dualists may be barking up the wrong tree.
This sort of praise is not entirely unlike that which we reserve for humans: is that because we anthropomorphize our pets? Or is it because we recognize animal desire as having its own excellence? Or does the reason lie somewhere between those two: i.e., because domesticated animals actually do participate somewhat in our own distinctively human modus vivendi?
No matter what the answer to this question is, it is clear that we regard these and other animals as motivated by desire. And there is something anti-reductive about this sort of regard.
I propose that it might be better to attack reductionism by pointing to this sort of desire rather than by talking as if humans were exceptions to what is found elsewhere in the natural world. For the latter approach can easily sound (or it may actually be) dualistic. Talk of doggie-desire therefore better illuminates the way to an alternative to both reductionism and to dualism.
Then again, the die-hard reductionist might dismiss this third way as an unwitting use of a dualistic folk psychology. But this dismissal may be more evidence of a quasi-religious commitment to materialism than critical thinking.
To goal of doggie talk is to show that there is a third way that is neither reductionist nor dualist. Put otherwise, both materialists and dualists may be barking up the wrong tree.
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