Apes, Language, and the Human Mind

'...the ape-language studies of Savage-Rumbaugh and others are, in their methods if not their conclusions, classically Cartesian. From them we have learned an extraordinary amount about the cognitive and communicative skills of apes immersed in human society.'

• Part I - Entry into Language ; Chapter 1: Bringing up Kanzi ; Kanzi: The ape who crossed the line ; Would a bonobo learn language? ; Mother and child ; Kanzi had been keeping a secret ; Morning exploits ; Travels in the forest ; Evening tours ; Living with Kanzi ; Cognitive accomplishments ; Syntax grasped ; Part II - Theoretical and Philosophical Implications ; Chapter 2: Philosophical Preconceptions ; The Cartesian revolution ; Praedicet ergo est ; Cartesian bifurcationism versus mechanist continuity ; Moderate bifurcationism ; Becoming a person ; The 'charm' of the theory of mind thesis ; The Cartesian view of the mental ; The ascent of Pan ; 'The constitutional uncertainty of the mental' ; Chapter 3: Rhetorical Inclinations ; "Sure, but does he really understand what we say?" ; Evaluating metalinguistic claims: Logical prerequisites ; The commonsense picture of communication ; Animal research and the Scarlet Letter factor ; The epistemological conception and its methodological legacy ; Methodological reductivism ; Methodological operationalism ; Metalanguage as cultural technique ; Chapter 4: Beyond Speciesism ; Apes have language: So what? ; Our shared heritage ; Primal man ; Wholistic intelligence ; Hierarchical intelligence ; Language and mind ; Linguistics and the innateness conundrum ; The problem posed by Kanzi and alternative resolutions ; The issue of intentionality ; Social constructionism ; The perspectival shift ; Quine's dilemma and Locke's puzzle ; Why Kanzi could not be ignored ; The malliability of the nervous system ; The achievement of meaning - with language ; The emergence of the social contract ; The new lens ; References ; Index