Pai asked:

What is intelligence?

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Intelligence is generally thought to be tied to concept use and language. Without language we would
not have concepts, and without concepts we could not think. This is a commitment we have taken up
since Wittgenstein's private language argument which is basically that we cannot follow rules alone,
so we could not apply concepts alone. Donald Davidson has put it that we need a standard against
which to check our concept use and also that it is integral to intelligence that we can explain our
usage of our concepts and we can do this because they fall within a whole conceptual scheme or
shared theory. The approach from language excludes animals from intelligent thought.

Another reason for intelligence being based on concepts is that these are what, in thought, are
manipulated or used so that we can have an infinite number of thoughts, even though the number of
words and concepts we use is limited. Use of words and concepts is manipulated in a logical way by
means of truth functional connectives. This line of thought takes intelligence to be computational and
finds support in artificial intelligence research. However, it follows from Davidson's social approach to
the nature of language that a machine cannot possess intelligence since it is not really a language
user unless it can have false beliefs where these arise from the nature of the way we are, i.e.
conscious beings like us. A human being can say something "seemed to be the case" or "it looked as
if . .", but on closer inspection or on having something pointed out us, we can adjust our beliefs, but a
machine does not distinguish true from false beliefs on the basis of changed consciousness: There is
no evidence that machines are conscious at all. So on this view intelligence is social.

Another view of intelligence, which allows animals in, is that it is the ability for practical reason.
Richard Sorabji holds that animals are rational and it is difficult to dispute that animals have practical
reason in the face of his example of some kind of ape who wanted to reach up to something in a high
place out of his natural reach, so he picked up a cane and knocked the object down. Animals have a
level of intelligence which is practical, but their intelligence is limited due to a lack of linguistic
knowledge. Animals do have a behaviouristic way of communicating with one another but without
language and concept possession there is no clear means of achieving higher levels of intelligence
such as abstract thought or the ability to invent and imagine.

Rachel Browne