Animal knowledge is such-and-such, so ours is, too...

Anthony Gottlieb:

"...Then there is (David) Hume’s naturalism, by which I mean something different from the Greek “naturalism” mentioned earlier. Here I mean Hume’s determination to see man as wholly a part of nature and fundamentally similar to other creatures—that is, as an animal among other animals. This type of naturalism informs his treatment of our cognitive faculties, our moral sense, and, in a way, of the phenomenon of religion, which is, for him, something to be explained rather than justified. In the case of our cognitive faculties, his approach is, tellingly, the opposite of, say, that of Hobbes or Leibniz. They say: well, such-and-such can’t count as knowledge, because even animals can do that. But Hume says: animal knowledge is such-and-such, so ours is, too..."

c 1909

Artist: Clarence F. Underwood (1871 - 1929)