Abstract
The basic value of the natural design perspective is that it provides a rich language for the description of social interactions that is neither covertly mentalistic nor barrenly behavioristic. A natural design analysis begins by clearly defining and identifying those properties of behavior that require special explanatory principles. Communication is design to mediate a design. Behavior between two animals is communicative only if one of the two animals has a behavioral design, and the other animal displays structures or behaviors that mediate this behavioral design and these structures or behaviors are evidently designed for their mediating role. Many phenomena in animal behavior are communications by this definition. Two classic cases are analyzed from the natural design perspective, the alarm calls of the vervet monkey and the song of the white-throated sparrow. This analysis makes clear that these two cases differ not in the referentiality of the communication, as is often supposed, but in the kinds of designs that are mediated.
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Thompson, N.S. (1997). Communication and Natural Design. In: Owings, D.H., Beecher, M.D., Thompson, N.S. (eds) Communication. Perspectives in Ethology, vol 12. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1745-4_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1745-4_13
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