Meaning in great ape communication: Summarising the debate (2015)
Journal Article
Scott-Phillips, T. (2016). Meaning in great ape communication: Summarising the debate. Animal Cognition, 19(1), 233-238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0936-3

Does non-human great ape communication have meaning in the same way as human words (and some other human behaviours)? I recently argued that the answer to this question is most likely to be in the negative (Scott-Phillips in Anim Cogn 18(3):801–805,... Read More about Meaning in great ape communication: Summarising the debate.

The ease and extent of recursive mindreading, across implicit and explicit tasks (2015)
Journal Article
O'Grady, C., Kliesch, C., Smith, K., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). The ease and extent of recursive mindreading, across implicit and explicit tasks. Evolution and Human Behavior, 36(4), 313-322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.01.004

Recursive mindreading is the ability to embed mental representations inside other mental representations e.g. to hold beliefs about beliefs about beliefs. An advanced ability to entertain recursively embedded mental states is consistent with evolutio... Read More about The ease and extent of recursive mindreading, across implicit and explicit tasks.

What is Art? A Pragmatic Perspective (2015)
Journal Article
Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). What is Art? A Pragmatic Perspective. Think, 14(40), 87-91. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1477175615000093

What is art? Marcel Duchamp made this question pertinent when he developed his ‘Readymades’: ordinary, manufactured objects that he presented as art. In this paper, I use pragmatics – the branch of linguistics concerned with language use in context,... Read More about What is Art? A Pragmatic Perspective.

Meaning in animal and human communication (2015)
Journal Article
Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). Meaning in animal and human communication. Animal Cognition, 18(3), 801-805. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0845-5

What is meaning? While traditionally the domain of philosophy and linguistics, this question, and others related to it, is critical for cognitive and comparative approaches to communication. This short essay provides a concise and accessible descript... Read More about Meaning in animal and human communication.

Nonhuman Primate Communication, Pragmatics, and the Origins of Language (2015)
Journal Article
Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). Nonhuman Primate Communication, Pragmatics, and the Origins of Language. Current Anthropology, 56(1), 56-80. https://doi.org/10.1086/679674

Comparisons with the cognition and communication of other species have long informed discussions of the origins and evolution of human communication and language. This research has often focused on similarities and differences with the linguistic cod... Read More about Nonhuman Primate Communication, Pragmatics, and the Origins of Language.