Robertson, Ian and Springle, Alison (2026) Dumb like a fox? Intellectualism and non-human minds. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper considers whether intellectualism about know-how—the view that knowing-how is entirely reducible to propositional knowledge—has the theoretical resources at its disposal to ground a plausible characterisation of the seemingly impressive behavioural feats of non-human animals. Since intellectualism takes know-how to be a relatively sophisticated cognitive achievement, some have questioned whether it can plausibly ascribe know-how to non-human animals. This paper evaluates three intellectualist attempts to deal with the issue of animal know-how and finds each of them wanting. Along the way, it is argued that anti-intellectualism is better placed than intellectualism when it comes to characterising the prima facie skilful doings of non-human animals

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Robertson, Ian ian.george.robertson@fau.de 0000-0001-8492-2739 Springle, Alison aas524@miami.edu 0000-0002-9880-1417
Keywords:	Animal cognition, know-how, intellectualism, propositional knowledge, probabilistic knowledge
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Action Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology
Depositing User:	Dr Ian Robertson
Date Deposited:	28 Feb 2026 13:36
Last Modified:	28 Feb 2026 13:36
Item ID:	28390
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Action Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology
Date:	2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28390

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