Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Hand Surgery, Academic Medical Center-University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Department of Anatomy, Embryology and Physiology, Academic Medical Center-University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2019 Oct;26(5):1588-1595. doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01643-4.
Until well in the 19th century, the Aristotelian concept of the scala naturae (ladder of nature) was the most common biological theory among Western scientists. It dictated that only humans possessed a rational soul that provided the ability to reason and reflect. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) was the first philosopher influential enough to lastingly posit that animals are cognitive creatures. His view stirred a fierce controversy, with René Descartes (1596-1650) leading among his many adversaries. Only after it became accepted that animals and humans alike have cognitive abilities, did the research on the influence of conscious awareness and intention on the behavior of an animal become possible in the 20th century. We found the anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1515-1564) to have already rejected the Aristotelian view on the lack of the rational soul in animals in his 1543 opus magnum De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem. His observation "that there is a difference in size according to the amount of reason that they seem to possess: man's brain is the largest, followed by the ape's, the dog's, and so on, corresponding to the amount of rational force that we deduce each animal to have" resonated some 330 years later when Darwin concluded that "the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind." We conclude that Vesalius was instrumental in breaking with two millenniums of dominance of the concept of lack of animal cognition.
直到 19 世纪，亚里士多德的自然阶梯（scala naturae）概念在西方科学家当中是最常见的生物学理论。它规定只有人类拥有理性灵魂，从而提供了推理和反思的能力。米歇尔·埃克姆·德·蒙田（Michel Eyquem de Montaigne，1533-1592 年）是第一个有足够影响力的哲学家，他持久地认为动物是有认知能力的生物。他的观点引发了激烈的争议，其中包括勒内·笛卡尔（René Descartes，1596-1650 年）。只有在人们普遍接受动物和人类都具有认知能力之后，20 世纪才有可能对意识和意图对动物行为的影响进行研究。我们发现解剖学家安德烈亚斯·维萨里乌斯（Andreas Vesalius，1515-1564 年）在他 1543 年的巨著《人体构造七书》中已经拒绝了亚里士多德关于动物缺乏理性灵魂的观点。他的观察结果“根据它们似乎拥有的理性数量存在大小差异：人的大脑最大，其次是猿、狗等，与我们推断每种动物拥有的理性力量成正比”，在大约 330 年后达尔文得出结论时产生了共鸣，即“人与高等动物之间的心灵差异虽然很大，但肯定是程度上的差异，而不是种类上的差异。”我们得出结论，维萨里乌斯在打破两个千年以来动物认知缺乏概念的统治方面发挥了重要作用。
