Part 1:
Part 2:
Kristin Andrews (left) and Robert Lurz (right) on animals and mindreading.
In this two-part conversation*, Andrews and Lurz discuss whether (and to what extent) non-human animals are able to mindread, i.e., understand others’ mental states. In Part 1, they begin with a review of the history of inquiry into animal mindreading, and then examine (starting at 28:18) Andrews’s views about the evolutionary origins and explanatory and predictive roles of mindreading. In Part 2, they discuss Lurz’s plans for experimental investigation of animal mindreading (14:54), Andrews’s and Lurz’s differing views of the abilities of great apes (32:49), and the relative importance of fieldwork and laboratory evidence (48:47).
The drawing to which Lurz refers at 18:44 is in this paper (p. 25).
*=The conversation was interrupted by a tech snafu, so we divided the video in two.