Humans also have territory, hunting and hierarchy. Everything that a lion does, humans also do but more complicated. So I think we would be able to understand the new creature.

But the problem is really that the lion that speaks is not the same creature as the lion we know. Everything the lion we know wants to say can already be said through its body language or current faculties. The goldfish grows to the size of its container.

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adamzwasserman 3 days ago | parent [-]

You've completely missed Wittgenstein's point. It's not about whether lions and humans share some behaviors - it's about whether they share the form of life that grounds linguistic meaning.

	▲	zeroonetwothree 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think humans would be intelligent enough to understand the lion's linguistic meaning (after some training). Probably not the other way around. But it's a speculative argument, there's no real evidence one way or another.