On the reasonable discourse of rational animals (part one)

We trace the origin of the term “rational animal” in our tradition through the translation of the Aristotelian conception of the zoon logikon, the animal that “has logos”, into Western languages by way of the Latin animal rationale.

The term logos is notoriously problematic for translators.  In its original cultural context, it seems to have had a wide range of applications in ordinary language, and to have functioned as something like a technical term in philosophical discourse — a term of art spun in various ways according to the purposes of a philosopher or a passage.

The Hellenic term and its cognates have been translated into English terms such as:

i) saying, statement, phrase, word

ii) oration, speech, conversation, discourse

iii) report, story, history, fable, reckoning, account

iv) assertion, promise, maxim, command

v) thought, opinion, reason, ground, principle

vi) language, power of speech, right to speak

Given that broad range of uses, it seems the selection of the Latin ratio imposes a bias in the translation of logos, if the distinction between ratio and oratio divides thought and reason (ratio) from language and speech (oratio).  An Aristotelian conception of human beings as speaking-and-reasoning animals would be thus modified through the act of translation to become a medieval conception of human beings as thinking-and-reasoning animals.  The translation brushes aside the role of language, which was arguably crucial and primary in the original context. The translation emphasizes, or leaves room to emphasize, the role of “inner” thought, characterizable as not necessarily or not intrinsically linguistic thought.

Application of this modified definition as a criterion that distinguishes human animals from other animals would seem to entail that humans “think-and-reason” while nonhuman animals do not “think-and-reason”.

This act of translation may have suited the purposes of Christian interpreters who substituted ratio for logos, but does not seem to reflect Aristotelian intentions.  What’s worse, it seems a false and unwarranted assumption that no nonhuman animals “think”.  By contrast, the claim that no nonhuman animals (observed to date) have language or linguistic capacities like ours seems a reasonable evidence-based report.

Of course animals without a capacity to speak like we do cannot think in linguistic terms like we do, and thus cannot have habits of thought and action organized in part by their own exercise of such linguistic capacities.  This does not entail that such animals do not “think” in any relevant sense of the term. It does not entail that they do not have minds, awareness, sentience, perceptual experience, intentions, intelligence, or conceptual capacities.  It does not entail that they do not communicate.

It seems there are some among us who tend to speak about the difference between human and nonhuman animals in ways that still reflect the prejudices of the medieval interpreters of Aristotle.  Some of these contemporary speakers even appeal to the authority of that troubled old conception of rationality as if it were a sort of justification for their views. I’m not alone in saying that sort of bias seems an offshoot of ignorance, error, and confusion.  It seems reasonable to expect the persistence of such bias to amplify the risk of compounding inherited philosophical problems instead of resolving them. I suggest a review of the history of relevant usage may be one beneficial treatment in pursuit of a corresponding remedy.

Perhaps by now many of us have no need for that particular correction.  I suspect more subtle problems and prejudices lurk in our inherited conception of rationality nonetheless.  Consider for instance the way that divergent attitudes about rationality, and divergent attitudes about what counts or does not count as a reasonable attitude about evidence, plague conversations between atheists and theists, or between metaphysical materialists and metaphysical idealists.  Consider the way that psychologists presume to have authority in deciding what counts and what does not count as a subculture or a community, what counts and what does not count as a culturally or communally sanctioned norm of behavior or belief — as if cultures and communities and norms do not in fact diverge in history due to changes in the attitudes and behaviors of individuals.  Consider the ways that choices made by economists, CEOs, marketers, and politicians inform our attitudes about what counts and what does not count as “rational self-interest”.

It seems that all the empirical and formal sciences put together aren’t sufficient to completely determine our attitudes and judgments about the rational and the irrational, or the reasonable and the unreasonable, any more than they can completely determine our attitudes and judgments about the good and the bad, the just and the unjust, the desirable and the undesirable, the tasteful and the distasteful.

Of course empirical science informs us about biological bases and historical trends, and about biological and socioeconomic implications, of our attitudes, judgments, and decisions in such matters.  And formal science helps us sort and extend our thoughts in all matters. But it seems our attitudes about the rational, the reasonable, the good, the just, the desirable, the tasteful, and whatever we should name among such things, are not sufficiently determinable on scientific grounds.  These are matters of persuasion.

It belongs to our nature spontaneously to modify the attitudes and behaviors we inherit — not to apply the norms we receive from cultural and institutional authorities like insensate and unwitting rule-followers.

It seems this transformative process is ceaseless in beings like us, that it continues even while we sleep, that it belongs to our nature as speaking animals and contributes to the freedom we have in fact.

One way to take responsibility for this process is to engage in careful philosophical discourse about matters of persuasion, for instance by examining our thoughts and attitudes about the rational and the irrational.  I expect such conversations have significant personal and political implications in the long run, and that philosophical prejudice and confusion in such matters, compounded over generations and centuries, may tend to multiply personal and political problems and to disrupt communities and ways of life.

It seems fitting to proceed in such conversation by developing a conception of animal rationality and a conception of human beings as speaking animals.

[This essay is the first in a series.  The series continues here.]