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Full Idea
A dog's curiosity about the movements of his master or a strange object only extends as far as the point of what is going to happen next.
Gist of Idea
Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next
Source
William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.31)
Book Ref
James,William: 'Selected Writings of William James', ed/tr. Bird,Graham [Everyman 1995], p.31
A Reaction
Good. A nice corrective to people like myself who are tempted to inflate animal rationality, in order to emphasise human evolutionary continuity with them. It is hard to disagree with his observation. But dogs do make judgements! True/false!
| 20916 | Animals have a share of reason [Democritus, by Porphyry] |
| 1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
| 17204 | Animals are often observed to be wiser than people [Spinoza] |
| 12483 | Unlike humans, animals cannot entertain general ideas [Locke] |
| 5061 | Animals are semi-rational because they connect facts, but they don't see causes [Leibniz] |
| 5054 | Animal thought is a shadow of reasoning, connecting sequences of images by imagination [Leibniz] |
| 5032 | It seems probable that animals have souls, but not consciousness [Leibniz] |
| 6713 | If animals have ideas, and are not machines, they must have some reason [Berkeley] |
| 19220 | We may think animals reason very little, but they hardly ever make mistakes! [Peirce] |
| 22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
| 4908 | No one knows if animals are conscious [Carter,R] |