Current primate research has yielded stunning results that not only threaten our underlying assumptions about
the cognitive and communicative abilities of nonhuman primates, but also bring into question what it means to be
human. At the forefront of this research, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh recently has achieved a scientific breakthrough of
impressive proportions. Her work with Kanzi, a laboratory-reared bonobo, has led to Kanzi's acquisition of linguistic
and cognitive skills similar to those of a two and a half year-old human child.
Apes, Language, and the Human Mind skillfully combines a fascinating narrative of the Kanzi research with incisive
critical analysis of the research's broader linguistic, psychological, and anthropological implications. The first
part of the book provides a detailed, personal account of Kanzi's infancy, youth, and upbringing, while the second
part addresses the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological issues raised by the Kanzi research. The authors
discuss the challenge to the foundations of modern cognitive science presented by the Kanzi research; the methods
by which we represent and evaluate the abilities of both primates and humans; and the implications which ape language
research has for the study of the evolution of human language. Sure to be controversial, this exciting new volume
offers a radical revision of the sciences of language and mind, and will be important reading for all those working
in the fields of primatology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive and developmental psychology.
Table of Contents
Part I. Entry into Language
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
Theory of Mind
Syntax Grasped
What Kanzi Tells Us
Part II. Theoretical and Philosophical Implications 2. Philosophical Preconceptions
The Cartesian Revolution
Praedicet Ergo Est: It Predicts Therefore It Is
The Cartesian Mind as "Folk" Theorist
Cartesian Bifurcation versus Mechanist Continuity
Becoming a Person
The "Charm" of the Theory of Mind Thesis
The Cartesian Hierarchy of Psychological Concepts
The Ascent of Pan
"The Constitutional Uncertainty of the Mental"
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
The Epistemological Conception and Its Methodological Legacy
Methodological Reductivism
Methodological Operationalism
Metalanguage as Cultural Technique
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 Alternate Resolutions
The Issue of Intentionality
Social Constructionism
The Perspectival Shift Driven by Kanzi
Quine's Dilemma and Locke's Puzzle
Why Kanzi Could Not Be Ignored
The Malleability of the Nervous System
The Achievement of Meaning - with Language
The Achievement of Meaning Unbuttoned: The Emergence of the Social Contract
The New Lens: Moving Beyond Speciesism
