Michele Merritt - Minding Dogs: Humans, Canine Companions, and a New Philosophy of Cognitive Science

In 1993 Don Smith, while shooting film for CBS News in St. Louis during the Great Flood of the Mississippi and its tributaries, saw a puppy clinging to life in the rushing waters. Smith and his crew were at a safe elevation but were close enough to capture the horrific scene as it unfolded. In the video the puppy, who appeared to be no more than eight weeks old, was trying to climb to higher ground but constantly getting washed away. The pup finally climbed onto a pallet and caught a brief respite, but the waters quickly rose again. Even cars and sheds were being carried away.

At one point Smith set his camera down and waded into the water to try to save the little dog. But a massive tree floated by, just missing him, and he had to retreat. When the water surged over the pallet, Smith saw that the dog was now heading toward a spot where he could make one last attempt at a rescue. Lunging along a flooded roadway, Smith almost miraculously reached the small dog and brought it to safety.

Watching this video, or any of the countless others like it, arouses all sorts of emotions, from fear and anxiety to relief and tears of joy. The internet has become a repository for such animal videos, and in turn, commentary on these vignettes provides a philosopher with countless examples of folk psychology gone wild. People find it irresistible to explain animal behavior in humanlike mentalistic termsa dog was relievedto see a human, a crow befriendeda little girl by giving her gifts, or the elephant grievedthe loss of its mother. Folk psychology, which can be thought of most simply as a common-sense approach to understanding cognition, is not necessarily unscientific. As Allen and Bekoff argue, the generalizations and theoretical terms of folk psychology may be suitably refined and incorporated into a fully scientific theory of mind and behavior applicable to both humans and nonhumans (1997, 66).