Meaning in Animal Communication: Varieties of meaning and their roles in explaining communication

Abstract

Why explain the communicative behaviours of animals by invoking the information/meaning 'transmitted' by signals? Why not explain communication in purely causal/functional terms? This thesis addresses active controversy regarding the nature and role of concepts of information, content and meaning in the scientific explanation of animal communication. I defend the methodology of explaining animal communication by invoking the 'meaning' of signals, and responds to worries raised by sceptics of this methodology in the scientific and philosophical literature. This task involves: showing what facts about communication non-informational methodology leaves unexplained; constructing a well-defined theory of content (or 'natural meaning') for most animal signals; and getting clearer on what cognitive capacities, if any, attributing natural meaning to signals implies for senders and receivers. Second, it weighs into comparative debates on human-nonhuman continuity, arguing that there are, in fact, different notions of meaning applicable to human communication that have different consequences for how continuous key aspects of human communication are with other species. Show more