In Search of Objectivity: The Work of N.N. Ladygina-Kohts and the Problem of the Human-Animal Boundary

Abstract

Examining the scientific work of Nadezhda Nikolaevna Ladygina-Kohts (1889–1963), the Soviet primate scientist and the pioneer of the study of animal intellect, also known as Nadie Kohts, this article focuses on her ideas about the cardinal, “qualitative” distinctions that exist between the human intellect and the intellect of the anthropoid apes. I argue that strengthening the human-animal boundary became an important tool in Ladygina’s polemics against the academic racism that linked the “inferior” human races to anthropoid apes – with the beginning of the war against Nazism, the threat of racism became an important incentive for her research. Analyzing Ladygina-Kohts’ post-WWII studies of the tool-making activity in chimpanzee, I emphasize its continuity with the work of the Dutch zoopsychologist Frederik J.J. Buytendijk and his school, and focus on the importance of her approach to the problem of human-animal boundaries, comparing her ideas with the perspective of the modern evolutionary synthesis.