Steward, H orcid.org/0000-0003-1654-577X (2018) Morgan's Canon: Animal Psychology in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. In: Adamson, P and Edwards, GF, (eds.) Animals: A History. Oxford Philosophical Concepts . Oxford University Press , Oxford , pp. 293-318. ISBN 9780199375967
Abstract
Morgan’s Canon instructs us that “in no case is an animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of psychological evolution and development”. In this paper, I survey, evaluate and also add to the growing number of critiques of Morgan’s Canon that now exist in the philosophical literature. The paper argues that Morgan’s Canon has been both misunderstood and inappropriately extended to contexts for which is was never intended; and moreover, that its widespread endorsement by animal psychologists has led to overly and provably perniciously conservative tendencies to interpret animal behaviour in unduly mechanistic ways.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) Oxford University Press 2018. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Morgan's Canon; animals; psychology; behaviorism; Conwy Lloyd Morgan; comparative psychology |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 11 Jan 2018 12:52 |
Last Modified: | 28 Jun 2020 00:38 |
Published Version: | https://global.oup.com/academic/product/animals-97... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Series Name: | Oxford Philosophical Concepts |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:125428 |