Lloyd Morgan's Canon: A History of Misrepresentation

Thomas, Roger K. (2001) Lloyd Morgan's Canon: A History of Misrepresentation.

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Abstract

Almost from the beginning and continuing in the present, Morgans canon (best known from Morgan, 1894), a guideline for interpreting animals psychological processes based on evolutionary development, has been misinterpreted and, therefore, misrepresented. Misrepresentation has occurred in at least five ways. Perhaps, the three most frequent ways have been to represent Morgans canon as being closely related or equivalent to the law of parsimony, Ockhams razor, and/or a simplicity criterion, i.e., that the simplest interpretation is to be preferred. The fourth and fifth misrepresentations have been to represent Morgans canon as having been written to oppose anthropomorphism or George Romanes use of anecdotes. The canon appeared on page 53 (Morgan, 1894), and beginning on page 54, Morgan explicitly disassociated the canon from a simplicity criterion and, thus, implicitly, from the law of parsimony and Ockhams razor. He then argued, in essence, that anthropomorphic reasoning was the only way humans could explain animals psychological processes. In 1890 and in 1894, Morgan wrote favorably about Romanes collection and use of anecdotes, and Morgans revised version of the canon in 1903 included an apparent effort to clarify the canon to prevent some of the misinterpretations. Spanning 1928-1998, there have been at least 13 additional published efforts, often intense, to correct misinterpretations of Morgans canon (see Tables 1 and 3). Nevertheless, spanning 1896-2001, Morgans canon was misrepresented continuously, as may be seen in the 27 examples shown in Tables 1 and 2 and as may be seen in the 10 (or 11) examples of misrepresentation in recent (1991-2001) history of psychology textbooks shown in Table 4. The misrepresentations fit well with the Zeitgeist associated with the rise of experimental animal psychology and Behaviorism. The Zeitgeist of present cognitive psychology is becoming more favorable to Morgans canon as he intended it.

EPrint Type:	Other
Keywords:	Morgan's canon, animal cognition, anthropomorphism, anecdotes, law of parsimony, Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, C. Lloyd Morgan, George John Romanes
Subjects:	Chronology > 20th Century Geography > Europe History > Intellectual Psychology > Animal/Comparative/Ethology Psychology > Cognition Psychology > Evolution Psychology > Methodology Theory > Epistemology Theory > Philosophy of Science
ID Code:	17
Deposited By:	Thomas, Roger K.
Deposited On:	15 August 2001

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