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Meaning and ostension in great ape gestural communication

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Abstract

It is sometimes argued that while human gestures are produced ostensively and intentionally, great ape gestures are produced only intentionally. If true, this would make the psychological mechanisms underlying the different species’ communication fundamentally different, and ascriptions of meaning to chimpanzee gestures would be inappropriate. While the existence of different underlying mechanisms cannot be ruled out, in fact claims about difference are driven less by empirical data than by contested assumptions about the nature of ostensive communication. On some accounts, there are no reasons to doubt that great ape gestural communication is ostensive. If these accounts are correct, attributions of meaning to chimpanzee gestures would be justified.

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Notes

  1. Scott-Phillips’ analysis of meaning appeals to a clause (3) different from the one adopted here. It is now widely accepted that Grice’s original third clause, which Scott-Phillips adopts, would rule out cases intuitively described as meaningful (Neale 1992; Sperber and Wilson 1995). This clause is therefore dropped, and replaced with a different clause to protect Grice’s analysis from objections raised by philosophers including Strawson (1964) and Schiffer (1972).

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank to Manuel Bohn, Cathy Crockford, Gema Martín Ordás, Denis Tatone and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on this manuscript.

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  1. Berlin School of Mind and Brain/Department of Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Richard Moore

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Moore, R. Meaning and ostension in great ape gestural communication. Anim Cogn 19, 223–231 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0905-x

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