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Why Animals Don't Talk
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
Extract
Why don't animal talk? Wittgenstein was more than usually enigmatic on this question, in § 25 of the Philosophical Investigations:
It is sometimes said that animals do not talk because they lack the mental capacity. And this means: “They do not think, and that is why they do not talk.” But — they simply do not talk. Or to put it better: they do not use language — if we except the most primitive forms of language. — Commanding, questioning, recounting, chatting are as much a part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing.
- Type
- Discussion/Note
- Information
- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 290 - 295
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1976
References
1 A point like this is made in Philosophical Investigations, § 183: ‘But here we must be on our guard against thinking that there is some totality of conditions corresponding to the nature of each case (e.g. for a person's walking) so that, as it were, he could not but walk if they were all fulfilled.’