A dialogue debating whether land or sea creatures show more intelligence, defending animal reasoning against Stoic denial.
De Sollertia Animalium ("On the Cleverness of Animals," also known by its Greek title Peri tes ton alogon zoon logou) is one of Plutarch's Moralia dialogues, framed as a continuation of a symposium begun the day before over a debate on hunting. Autobulus, worried that praising hunting has overexcited the young men present, sets up a formal contest: Aristotimus will argue that land animals are more intelligent, and Phaedimus that sea creatures are, with the audience to judge which side makes the better case.
The dialogue is really an attack on the Stoic doctrine that animals are wholly alogos (irrational), lacking any share in reason. Autobulus argues that if the rational and irrational must exist as paired opposites, the irrational is already fully supplied by soulless things, so animals need not be conscripted to fill that role. The bulk of the work is then a catalog of animal behaviors offered as evidence of genuine intelligence: spiders spinning geometrically sound webs, ravens in Libya dropping stones into water jars to raise the water level, a dog on a ship doing the same with oil in a jar, bees and geese ballasting or muzzling themselves against wind and noise, cranes flying in wind-cutting triangle formations and keeping night watch with a stone gripped in one claw, herons patiently outwaiting an oyster's grip, ants ransoming their dead and dividing overloaded burdens, cuttlefish inking the water to escape captors, and dolphins guiding sailors and honored in shrines to Apollo Delphinius.
The piece matters as a rare sustained ancient argument for animal cognition, marshaling naturalist observation (much drawn from Aristotle) against a philosophical school that denied animals reason altogether, and it closes not with a declared winner but with a call to combine both speakers' arguments against those who would strip animals of reason and understanding entirely.
“Slight indeed is the strength of a man, but by the versatility of his wits he subdues the dread tribes of the sea, of the earth, and of the air.”
— De Sollertia Animalium · read this chapter →
“the first man who killed a bear or a wolf won praise for it”
— De Sollertia Animalium · read this chapter →
“the geese, fearing eagles, when they cross the Taurus range, take into their mouths”
— De Sollertia Animalium · read this chapter →
“as a ransom for the corpse, a grub, and the others, taking it up and handing over”
— De Sollertia Animalium · read this chapter →
“you will fight well in common cause against those who would strip animals of reason and understanding”
— De Sollertia Animalium · read this chapter →
It is a Plutarch dialogue staging a judged debate over whether land or sea animals show greater intelligence, used to argue against the Stoic view that animals have no reason at all. Speakers Aristotimus and Phaedimus each catalog animal behaviors as evidence, from stone-dropping ravens to cooperative ants.
Yes. The dialogue's framing voice, Autobulus, rejects the Stoic argument that the irrational needs animals to complete a philosophical pairing with the rational, and the whole work presents animal behavior as evidence of genuine intelligence and understanding.
Ravens and a ship's dog raising liquid levels by dropping stones, bees ballasting against wind, geese muzzling their own noise with a stone, cranes flying in defensive formation and standing night watch gripping a stone, herons outwaiting oysters, ants ransoming their dead, and dolphins guiding sailors.
It is framed as the second day of a symposium; the first day's praise of hunting worried the character Autobulus that it had made the young men present too eager for bloodshed, so the animal-intelligence contest is set up partly as a corrective.
The dialogue does not declare a winner. It ends by suggesting the two speakers' arguments should be combined into a single case against those who deny animals reason and understanding altogether.
It is also known by its Greek title, Peri tes ton alogon zoon logou ("On the Fact that Irrational Animals Use Reason"), and circulates in English as 'On the Cleverness of Animals' or 'Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer.'
Moralia: Ad Principem Ineruditum · Moralia: Adversus Colotem · Moralia: Amatoriae Narrationes · Moralia: Amatorius · Moralia: An Recte Dictum Sit Latenter Esse Vivendum · Moralia: An Seni Respublica Gerenda Sit · Moralia: An Virtus Doceri Possit · Moralia: An Vitiositas Ad Infelicitatem Sufficia · Moralia: Animine An Corporis Affectiones Sint Piores · Moralia: Apophthegmata Laconica · Moralia: Aquane An Ignis Sit Utilior · Moralia: Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti