On concepts - Ian Ground in TLS:

‘Sphen the gay penguin died earlier this year. He was eleven years old.
He and his partner, Magic, had shared the raising of adopted chicks at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium. Together they became symbols of equality and diversity. After Sphen’s passing, the keepers took Magic to see his body. In the wild a penguin will often search for a missing partner. The keepers believed it was essential to show Magic that “his partner wouldn’t actually be returning”. In response the gentoo began to vocalize and sing, with the rest of the colony and the staff joining in. It was, reportedly, a moving experience.
What should we make of this? Is it anthropomorphic nonsense to believe that other animals can grasp the death of one of their own, or of some other species? Or is it something for which there might be, if we have eyes to see it, empirical evidence? What are the implications for our approach to understanding animal cognition and behaviour? It might seem obvious that other animals “understand” death. Animals do, after all, die, hunt, flee and fight. But a long-standing tradition in the animal sciences – thankfully no longer the default – contends that such behaviour is insufficient to talk of true understanding. The scientific denial leant on a philosophical claim. To truly understand something, the argument goes, one needs concepts. And, one way or another, concepts need language. It follows that non-linguistic animals cannot really understand anything, let alone death.’

(…)

‘The particular cases matter. One of the key strengths of the author’s approach is her rejection of that peculiar creature, so captivating to certain philosophers: the Animal with a capital A. This appears to be a species that can be found only on academic campuses, about which no empirical facts are or need to be known, except that it is loosely related to the cats and dogs familiar to philosophers. Its only important traits are that it is not human and certainly lacks language. In contrast, and following a promising trend in contemporary philosophy of animal minds, this study maintains a tight focus on real animals in all their particularity.’

(…)

‘The death display of the North American opossum gives the book its title. When faced with a threat it assumes a foetal-like position, eyes and mouth wide open, and stills all movement and reactions, reducing its body temperature, heart rate and breathing. It expels an impressive range of body fluids, including a marvellously disgusting green goo. In a final coup de théâtre, its tongue, hanging out, turns blue. Yet all the time it monitors the threat and, as soon as it passes, is up, away and back to the useful pastime of consuming vast quantities of ticks.
A sceptic may object that such a case proves nothing, since the behaviour is “mere instinct” – a reflex action no more requiring talk of a concept of death than my pulling my hand from a fire requires a concept of combustion.
The objection misses the point in exactly the right way to bring out what matters. The question is not whether the opossum believes that it should pretend to be dead. We can concede for now that thanatosis is a mere reflex, requiring no cognition from the opossum. What matters is only that opossum behaviour has evolved to exploit the general classificatory capacities of predators. So, what is in question is not the opossum’s but the predator’s concept of death.’

(…)

‘Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that though a dog could believe his master was at the door, it could not believe his master would be here the day after tomorrow. If this thought is not illegitimately trading on contingent features of our language of time (“tomorrow”, “yesterday”, “after the Bank Holiday”), the claim appears to be that other animals do not have anything like our conception of time, both fine-grained and indefinitely extended. When other claims to human uniqueness have been falling like ninepins, human understanding of our temporality looks still to be standing. The objection is that if animals cannot understand time as an extended continuum, then they cannot understand irreversibility. If death is understood as irreversible loss of function, then, they cannot understand death. As Martin Heidegger thought, time and death come as a package.’

(…)

‘The death of other animals is one thing, one’s own quite another. For some, the question of whether animals understand death holds profound interest only if it reveals whether we alone carry the burden of knowing our own mortality. Monsó’s themes in this volume undoubtedly trade on this interest. But her account will probably disappoint it, and for all the right reasons. In fact, by the end of her account one is not sure whether, when correctly understood, the question of whether animals have concepts of death is any more profound or mysterious than that of whether they have, say, concepts of food or reproduction.’

(…)

‘Even then, understanding that one will die imminently is not the same as understanding that one will die inevitably.’

(…)

‘But the replacement of philosophical mysteries with recognition of the true depth of the empirical challenges is a distinguishing mark of productive philosophical inquiry.’

Read the article here.

Fair enough, less philosophical mysteries, more empirical work. What this to Heidegger or Nietzsche (Zarathustra) but the Anglo-Saxon philosophy always had little patience for mystical philosophy that was also very much a matter of style, and for that reason was indebted to literature.

Time and death, a package.

The human animal end his relentless quest for escapism. Language itself a means to an end, to escape the unbearable fear of death a bit better and a bit faster.