The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, July 06, 2009, 14:27 (5620 days ago) @ xeno6696
edited by unknown, Monday, July 06, 2009, 14:33

Dr. Turell,
Alright, Adler has laid out his initial case and his thorough treatment of the question as philosophy has handled it has brought several issues into focus. - His entire case seems to rest upon the fact that man has a propositional language. However, I can think of 1 concrete case where a gorilla shows the same skill. When growing up I remember watching a "Reading Rainbow" that talked about a (rather famous) gorilla named Koko. There's also an African Grey parrot that was even able to identify objects based on texture... a rather abstract connection. - http://www.koko.org/index.php - It shouldn't make a difference that a gorilla didn't independently invent a propositional language, the mere fact that it can be taught means that the same mental machinery exists in at least one non-human primate, and in my mind, reverts the answer back to one of some sort of degree. - There is also one possible case that Adler didn't seem to cover. (In the broadest sense.) He treats the discrete and continuous perspectives as mutually exclusive. I would like to explore this more, because I don't see this as true. Adler argues that belief in a continuum of nature negates the properties of species. I would say that a species is a name given for an organism found in a particular snapshot of its evolutionary life. - Where he has a stronger argument, is in dealing with the differences between say, plants and animals. But the fact that all life contains DNA and that all life contains a single common ancestor necessarily dictates a continuum from the first organism to ourselves. There also exists a continuum between every form of life and the common ancestor. Humans and trees are a subset of life, thus part of a continuum.