AUTHOR=Bruni Domenica , Perconti Pietro , Plebe Alessio 

TITLE=Anti-anthropomorphism and Its Limits

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2018

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02205

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02205

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=There is a diffuse sentiment that to anthropomorphize is a mild vice that people
tend to do easily and pleasingly, but that an adult well educated person should
avoid.
In this paper it will be provided an elucidation of ``anthropomorphism'' in the 
field of common sense knowledge, the issue of animal rights, and about the use 
of humans as a model in the scientific explanation. It will be argued for a
``constructive anthropomorphism'', i.e., the idea that anthropomorphism is a
natural attutude to attribute human psychological features to other
individuals, no matter they are actually rational agents, or not. If we know the 
``grammar'' of this attutude, we can avoid the risks in overestimating the 
environmental inputs towards anthropomor­phism and, at the same time, take the 
heuristic advantages of anthropomor­phism in the use of human mind as a model
for both everyday circumstances and scientific enterprise.