Single Idea 1875

[catalogued under 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 7. Animal Minds]

Full Idea

A dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without pausing to smell.

Gist of Idea

Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination

Source

report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.69

Book Reference

Sextus Empiricus: 'Outlines of Pyrrhonism', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Prometheus 1990], p.36


A Reaction

As we might say: either A or B or C; not A; not B; therefore C. I wouldn't want to trust this observation without a lot of analysis of slow-motion photography of dogs as crossroads. Even so, it is a nice challenge to Descartes' view of animals.

Related Idea

Idea 20791 Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]