Why studying plant cognition is valuable, even if plants aren’t cognitive.

Philosophers and scientists propose the idea that plants are cognitive, which has been met with criticisms. These criticisms focus on the fact that plants do not possess the properties traditionally associated with cognition. By contrast, several proponents introduce novel ways to conceptualize cogn...

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Publicado en:Synthese Vol. 200; no. 6; pp. 1 - 32
Autor principal: Colaço, David
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Dec2022
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Why studying plant cognition is valuable, even if plants aren’t cognitive.
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        au: Colaço, David
        affil: Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU, Munich, Germany
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        Cognitive kinds
        Concepts
        Hypotheses
        Plant cognition
      ab: Philosophers and scientists propose the idea that plants are cognitive, which has been met with criticisms. These criticisms focus on the fact that plants do not possess the properties traditionally associated with cognition. By contrast, several proponents introduce novel ways to conceptualize cognition. How should we make sense of this debate? In this paper, I argue that the plant cognition debate is not about whether plants meet a set of well-delineated and agreed-upon criteria according to which they count as cognitive. Rather, many proponents are hypothesizing about cognition. They construe COGNITION not as an expression of what cognition is, but rather as a conjecture about what cognition might be. These conjectures orient research that can uncover novel similarities amongst the phenomena to which these concepts extend. In defending this view, I argue that investigating plant cognition is valuable, even if the results of these investigations lead us to reject the claim that plants are cognitive.
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