ONLINE FIRST
published on March 8, 2025
Ronald Hall
https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq202534247
Naming the Animals
Revisiting the Wisdom of Genesis
In his paper, I focus on Genesis¡¯ account of Adam¡¯s task of naming the animals to show its bearing on a contemporary philosophical dispute between Kantian anti-realism and Merleau-Ponty¡¯s perceptual realism. For help in my project, I call on Charles Taylor who draws an important distinction between human language and animal communication and along the way, I call on Wittgenstein¡¯s distinction between a primitive language and primitive concept of language. My analysis of Adam¡¯s task shows that Kant (the Christian) holds a view that significantly diverges from the Genesis myth while Merleau-Ponty (the secularist) holds a view that is significantly aligned with it.