From the Tree to the Labyrinth (32 page)

The Latin Aristotle makes a distinction between mere
sound (sonus)
and
voice (vox)
or utterance, and in
De anima
(II, 429b) he says that a sound can be defined as a “voice” when it is emitted by an animated being and is significant
(semantikos).
In any case, animal sounds are not emitted according to convention (they are not symbols, but
manifestations
of something at a symptomatic level) and they are
agrammatoi,
that is, not articulate (see, for instance,
De interpretatione
[
On Interpretation
] 16a and
Poetics
1456b).

We will return to these distinctions later, because they will become central in the medieval debate. Aristotle asserts in his
Politics
that man is the only animal to possess the faculty of language, but this tells us nothing yet about the animals, because, as we will see, ever since antiquity there have been three recurring problems that crop up in this regard: (i) whether animals have a soul, or at least some form of intelligence; (ii) whether they communicate in some way among themselves and with us; and (iii) whether we should respect their dignity by abstaining from killing them and eating their flesh.

The Aristotelian texts that discuss point (i) are the subject of widespread debate, because, though Aristotle, in defining the soul as “the first actuality of a natural body possessed of organs” (
De anima
[
On the Soul
] II, i, 412b), could not deny a soul to animals, it is often unclear what kind of intelligence he means to attribute to them, given that not only was he clear about the distinction between the sensitive and the rational souls, but he drew distinctions among the intellective qualities of different animal species, without reaching any definitive conclusions (
De anima
II, 413b–414a).

What is certain is that the
Historia animalium
(
History of Animals
) (VIII and IX), for example, claims that many animals exhibit traces of psychic qualities (though these may be merely
analogous
to those of humans), inasmuch as certain beasts display kindness and courage, timidity, fear, and cunning, and quite often something approaching sagacity—so that at times these virtues appear to differ from those possessed by human beings only in degree. Aristotle even seems to suggest an evolutionary progress (from plant to animal and from animal to man), in which it is not easy to draw lines of demarcation. Some animals do not confine themselves to procreating in a specific season, and, while many devote themselves to providing food for their offspring only to abandon them later, others are endowed with memory and live longer in the company of their young, establishing forms of social collaboration. Still others are capable of giving or receiving instructions, both in their intraspecies relationships as well as with humans, whose commands they appear to understand. The
Metaphysics
(A, 1) states that animals are naturally endowed with sensation, but the more intelligent ones are those in which sensation gives rise to memory, and it is they who are more apt to learn than those without the ability to remember (and this is where the dog comes in). All animals unable to hear sounds (the bee, for instance) may be intelligent, but they lack the ability to learn, while those that possess, in addition to memory, the sense of hearing (see also the
Posterior Analytics
II, 19) are able to learn. Finally, in the
Nicomachean Ethics
(VI, 7, 1141a), Aristotle declares that, since it can remember the past, the superior animal is capable of foreseeing its future needs.

In the
Dictionary of the History of Ideas
entry on “Theriophily” by George Boas (1973–1974), the citations range from Anaxagoras to Diogenes, from Democritus to Xenophon, from Philemon to Menander and Aristophanes, not to mention Theophrastus. But it is the notion of love or admiration for the animal world that is too sweeping.

Among Stoics, Academicians, and Epicureans, a debate had arisen about the possibility of an animal
logos,
for which the Stoic fragments offer plenty of evidence, though it is often contradictory (for a synthesis, see Pohlenz 1948–1955: I and II). The Stoics distinguish between a
logos endiathetos,
internally configured, that is, and a
logos prophorikos,
capable of manifesting itself externally. Now, whereas for Epicurus the difference between an animal voice (
vox
) and a human voice was simply one of degree, for the Stoics names are imposed by an explicit decision on the part of a rational mind, and therefore the various abilities attributable to animals are merely the consequence of an innate instinct of self-preservation. Along the same lines, Seneca (
Ad Lucilium epistulae morales,
III, cxxi) will remind us that animals are conscious of their own makeup, which explains their various abilities, and they have innate knowledge, but they are not endowed with reason.
³
The adherents of the New Academy on the other hand professed more indulgent opinions with regard to the intellectual capacities of animals.

But it is precisely in the context of the Stoic debate that an argument comes to the fore, unanimously attributed to Chrysippus, and destined for great popularity. We will cite two versions of it.
⁴
The one that is more famous today and more frequently quoted is that in Sextus Empiricus’s
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
(I, 69):

And according to Chrysippus, who shows special interest in irrational animals, the dog even shares in the far-famed “Dialectic.” This person, at any rate, declares that the dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, on arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at the two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without stopping to smell. For, says the old writer, the dog implicitly reasons thus: “The creature went either by this road, or by that, or by the other: but it did not go by this road or by that: therefore it went by the other.”
⁵

Sextus assumes, with respect to Chrysippus’s argument, a position closer to that of the Academicians (as will Porphyry in his
De Abstinentia
[
On Abstinence from Killing Animals
], in open polemic with the Stoics). Sextus reminds us in fact (again in his
Outlines of Pyrrhonism,
I, 65–77) that, through its behavior, the dog displays further aptitude for reflection and comprehension: it is able to choose between foods that are good for it and foods that are harmful; it is able to procure its food by hunting; it recognizes people’s merits by wagging its tail when it sees those with whom it is familiar and darting at strangers (it can therefore distinguish between right and wrong); it often shows prudence; and, finally, since it is capable of understanding its own passions and of mitigating them, it is able to remove its own splinters and clean its wounds, it knows it must keep the wounded limb immobile, and it can identify the herbs that will alleviate its pain. Thus, it shows that it possesses a
logos.
It is true that we do not understand the words of the animals, but then, we don’t understand the words of the barbarians either, who can assuredly speak; and therefore it is not absurd to believe that animals speak. And dogs certainly make different sounds in different circumstances.

But the information provided by Sextus does not appear till the second and third century
A.D.
, while the discussion goes back somewhat earlier. It appears, for example, in the first century
A.D.
in the dialogue
De animalibus (On Animals)
of Philo of Alexandria. Philo’s brother Alexander speaks in favor of animal intelligence, citing in fact the classical example:

A hound was in pursuit of a beast. When it came to a deep [ditch] which had two trails beside it—one to the right and the other to the left,
and
having but a short distance yet to go, it deliberated which way would be worth taking. Going to the right and finding no trace, it returned and took the other. Since there was no clearly perceptible mark
there
either, with no further scenting it jumped into the [ditch] to track down hastily. This was not achieved by chance but rather by deliberation of the mind. The logicians call this thoughtful reckoning “the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism”: for the beast might have escaped either to the right or to the left or else may have leaped. (
De animalibus
45)
⁶

In point of fact, for Chrysippus all the argument proved was that the instinctive behavior of animals
prefigured
a logical behavior, and in the dialogue Philo follows the Stoic line, polemically responding to Alexander:

Even the assertion of those who think that hounds track by making use of the fifth mode of syllogism is to be dismissed. The same could be said of those who gather clams or any other thing which moves. That they seem to follow a definite pattern is
only
logical speculation on the part of those who have no sense of philosophy, not even in dreams. Then one has to say that all who are in search of something are making use of the fifth mode of syllogism! These and other similar
assertions
are delusive fantasies of those more accustomed to the plausibility and sophistry of matters than to the discipline of examining the truth.

We agree that there are some decent and good qualities which are applicable to animals and many other functions which help preserve and maintain their courage; these are observed by sight. There is certainty in everything perceived
or
discerned in all the various species. But surely
animals
have no share of reasoning ability, for reasoning ability extends itself to a multiplicity of abstract concepts in the mind’s
perception
of God, the universe, laws, provincial practices, the state, state affairs, and numerous other things, none of which animals understand. (
De animalibus,
84–85)
⁷

One of the fundamental texts in the polemic has got to be Plutarch’s
De sollertia animalium (On the Intelligence of Animals),
which appeared at an unspecified date between 70 and 90
A.D.
Plutarch’s position is decidedly anti-Stoical and—like Porphyry’s
De abstinentia
—is concerned not just with animal intelligence but with the respect we owe animals. Though the original Greek title translates as “Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer,” and the Latin
sollertia
is weaker than the Greek
phronesis
(and tends to suggest a practical intelligence guided by experience), there can be no doubt that Plutarch is endorsing the thesis of animal rationality and polemizing against the doctrines of those who would deny it. Of course animal rationality is imperfect compared with that of humans but—the argument is common throughout the polemic—similar differences also exist among humans. All living beings share sensitivity and imagination and are capable of perception. But we cannot perceive without the participation of reason, because the data perceived may escape our attention unless an intelligent behavior intervenes to highlight and interpret it (what we experience with our eyes and ears does not result in sensations without the involvement of our rational faculties). (This argument is still extremely current in contemporary cognitivism.) If this were not the case, Plutarch argues, it would be impossible to explain why animals not only perceive but also recall their perceptions and deduce from them notions they commit to memory by which to plan actions useful to their survival.
⁸

This is the opening ploy in a polemic aimed ultimately at Aristotle and in general at all those who hold, as do the Stoics, that the behavior of animals is
as if
it were rational behavior. That would be like saying, argues Plutarch, that it is
as if
the swallow were to build its nest,
as if
the lion felt anger,
as if
deer were timorous—or, worse still,
as if
animals could see,
as if
they emitted sounds,
as if
they were alive.

Different capacities certainly exist, and they exist among animals just as they exist among humans, admits Plutarch, but to say that some beings have weaker rational faculties than others does not mean that they don’t have them at all: “Let us rather say that they possess an infirm and murky intellect, like an eye afflicted with feeble and blurred vision.” He is no doubt referring to the Academicians when he affirms that animals have a share in reason because their behavior proves that they have intentions, preparation, memory, emotions, care for their offspring, gratitude for benefits received, resentment toward those who have caused them suffering, courage, sociability, temperance, and magnanimity.

There follows a plethora of examples drawn from the observation of animal behavior and finally (969 B) Chrysippus’s argument appears. Indeed, it is preceded by the example of the fox, used by some peoples to test the solidity of the ice: the fox edges slowly forward with its ear cocked listening for the flow of the current beneath the surface of the ice and, if it hears it, concludes that it has reached a layer of thin ice and stops. Chrysippus’s dog behaves in the same way.

True, at this point Plutarch tries to attenuate the force of the proof: it is perception itself, through the scent left by its quarry, that guides the dog, not a syllogism. But the undermining of Chrysippus’s argument does not impugn his final conclusion: we must oppose those who would deny reason and intelligence to animals.

In another dialogue,
Bruta animalia ratione uti
(“Beasts are Rational”), to those who object that it is an exaggeration to attribute reason to beings without an innate notion of the divinity, Plutarch replies by recalling the atheism of Sisyphus. Hence his rejection of a carnivorous diet, and his concession—though through gritted teeth—that we may put down noxious animals.