By Susan Hurley, Matthew Nudds

To what quantity can animal behaviour be defined as rational? What does it even suggest to explain behaviour as rational? This booklet specializes in one of many significant debates in technological know-how this present day - how heavily does psychological processing in animals resemble psychological processing in people. It addresses the query of no matter if and to what volume non-human animals are rational, that's, no matter if any animal behaviour will be considered as the results of a rational notion procedures. It does this with realization to 3 key questions, which recur in the course of the booklet and that have either empirical and philosophical features: What different types of behavioural projects can animals effectively practice? What if any psychological methods has to be postulated to give an explanation for their functionality at those projects? What homes needs to approaches need to count number as rational? The e-book is unique in pursuing those questions not just on the subject of our closest kin, the primates, whose intelligence often will get the main recognition, but in addition when it comes to birds and dolphins, the place notable effects also are being received. a few chapters concentrate on a specific species. They describe the various notable and intricate behaviour of those species - utilizing instruments in novel how you can resolve foraging difficulties, for instance, or behaving in novel how one can remedy advanced social difficulties - and ask even if such behaviour might be defined in rational or basically mechanistic phrases. different chapters handle extra theoretical concerns and ask, for instance, what it capability for behaviour to be rational, and no matter if rationality should be understood within the absence of language. The booklet contains a few of the world's major figures doing empirical paintings on rationality in primates, dolphins, and birds, in addition to distinctive philosophers of brain and technological know-how. The e-book contains an editors' advent which summarises the philosophical and empirical paintings offered, and attracts jointly the problems mentioned by way of the contributo