Vera Shumilina
Independent Researcher
Following ideas of Ch. S. Peirce on continuity of mind (synechism) and universality of semiotic processes (pansemiotism) as well as development of the understanding of manipulative abduction in works of L. Magnani the thesis of possibility of abductive reasoning in non-human animal minds is defended. The relevance of the study is the suggestion to take a wider perspective on the nature of non-human minds, namely not only artificial, but rather biological.
The animal capacity to form explanatory hypotheses of various types (e.g. causal, structural and functional) is demonstrated by referring to the analysis of behavior of mammals and birds. The issue of priority of innate or acquired mechanisms of learning is embedded in the framework of the dichotomy of instinctive/inferential nature of abductive capacity. Two strategies of studying animal abductive potential are considered. The first one (beginning from Peirce) emphasizes the instinctive abduction in humans, the second one (originating from Magnani) focuses on active embodied inferential (in the broad sense of the term including images, feelings, schemes) learning in the environment of non-human animal agents. The other fault line in debates is the basis for mechanisms of explanation and understanding, namely either empathetic emotional understanding by analogy with own experience of the organism (so, the core of abductive capacity is capacity to understand others) or pattern grasping in reality that presupposes the perspective of survivor to predict, use and sometimes manipulate natural regularities making more coherent and unified representation of reality (referential view). The study also addresses the issues of the alleged role of language in forming explanations, the biosemiotic concept of information that is methodological necessity for talk on animal cognition, the hypotheses concerning common roots of signal systems (“protolanguage”).
Chair: Josef Kohlmaier
Time: September 8th, 11:20-11:50
Location: SR 1.007
SOPhiA 2026 