I don’t think this is a scientifically answerable question as we have no way to communicate these concepts or information with them.
In my experience of pets, it is clear cats or dogs recognise that they are part of their own class of organism and that they are not humans. I find it unlikely they would have language-like labels for the different classes of animal, given that they don’t have language. But I do think a cat can recognise other cats and they recognise that they are also a cat.
This is really more of an r/askphilosophy question but a few points
Surely there is some self-awareness, as in there is “something to what it’s like to be a lion”.
However, non-human animals do not have language, and do not name things. It is also the case that knowledge of concepts and categories is generally a function of language and so animals do not necessarily carve the world into categories any narrower than just things like “something to eat, a place to hide, a mate, a rival, etc.” and even then, it isn’t in semantic terms but more in terms of behavioral terms, or affordances.
Most animals don’t do this. Lions probably have a concept of lions — like, they can distinguish things that are lions from things that aren’t — but they don’t attach sounds to concepts the way people do.
But there are definitely animals who can be trained to do this. The best example I know of is parrots. Some very smart species of parrots can recognize other parrots and be trained to call them “parrot.” And we think it isn’t just a meaningless response or a trick they’ve learned to get rewards. They really do use the word to communicate — to do things like ask to visit another parrot or to point out a parrot that they can see. The catch is that they didn’t come up with the word “parrot” on their own. A human taught it to them, and they took it and ran with it.
We don’t talk about intelligence here we talk about culture…
While some a mammals like a whale or dolphin has a clear signature recognisable by group even with variation similar to what you consider as a language or an accent …
This category of cats will not necessarily react to a specific “name”, but a signal that sounds familiar and rewarding.
It would be the same as saying “food”…
That said the answer will neither be a yes or a no.
If you try to recognise if an animal has a soul based on fact that you recognise his own identity based on paperwork standards then you’re just expressing a religious bias
This is an interesting topic, the Wikipedia article on Animal Language provides a good quick overview. If you want to hear more about the topic, Radiolab had an episode discussing this with different examples: https://radiolab.org/podcast/98611-wild-talk
Most animals don’t use languages so they don’t give themselves names, but they do have an understanding of different species of animals and which is their species. There are some animals that have vocalizations consistent with language so it’s theoretically possible that they also have names for things/individuals.
Comments
I don’t think this is a scientifically answerable question as we have no way to communicate these concepts or information with them.
In my experience of pets, it is clear cats or dogs recognise that they are part of their own class of organism and that they are not humans. I find it unlikely they would have language-like labels for the different classes of animal, given that they don’t have language. But I do think a cat can recognise other cats and they recognise that they are also a cat.
This is really more of an r/askphilosophy question but a few points
Surely there is some self-awareness, as in there is “something to what it’s like to be a lion”.
However, non-human animals do not have language, and do not name things. It is also the case that knowledge of concepts and categories is generally a function of language and so animals do not necessarily carve the world into categories any narrower than just things like “something to eat, a place to hide, a mate, a rival, etc.” and even then, it isn’t in semantic terms but more in terms of behavioral terms, or affordances.
Most animals don’t do this. Lions probably have a concept of lions — like, they can distinguish things that are lions from things that aren’t — but they don’t attach sounds to concepts the way people do.
But there are definitely animals who can be trained to do this. The best example I know of is parrots. Some very smart species of parrots can recognize other parrots and be trained to call them “parrot.” And we think it isn’t just a meaningless response or a trick they’ve learned to get rewards. They really do use the word to communicate — to do things like ask to visit another parrot or to point out a parrot that they can see. The catch is that they didn’t come up with the word “parrot” on their own. A human taught it to them, and they took it and ran with it.
We don’t talk about intelligence here we talk about culture…
While some a mammals like a whale or dolphin has a clear signature recognisable by group even with variation similar to what you consider as a language or an accent …
This category of cats will not necessarily react to a specific “name”, but a signal that sounds familiar and rewarding.
It would be the same as saying “food”…
That said the answer will neither be a yes or a no.
If you try to recognise if an animal has a soul based on fact that you recognise his own identity based on paperwork standards then you’re just expressing a religious bias
This is an interesting topic, the Wikipedia article on Animal Language provides a good quick overview. If you want to hear more about the topic, Radiolab had an episode discussing this with different examples: https://radiolab.org/podcast/98611-wild-talk
Most animals don’t use languages so they don’t give themselves names, but they do have an understanding of different species of animals and which is their species. There are some animals that have vocalizations consistent with language so it’s theoretically possible that they also have names for things/individuals.