Abstract
In this essay, I defend a bi-constructivist approach to ethology—a constructivist ethology assuming that each animal adopts constructivist strategies. I put it in opposition to what I call a realist-Cartesian approach, which is currently the dominant approach to ethology and comparative psychology. The starting point of the bi-constructivist approach can be formulated as a shift from the classical Aristotelian question “What is an animal?” to the Spinozean question, which is much less classical but which seems to me to be much stronger: “What are the capacities of the animal?”. Is it possible to conceptualize an ethology which insists on interpretation and therefore on invention, innovation and creativity, rather than on causality, the monotony of behavioural routines, and/or genetic or environmental determination? Such an ethology would be based not on the fiction of an absent observer but on fully recognizing the necessity of an observer, who is effectively present in order to get an observation. A pluralistic ethology does not dissociate itself from the marginal epistemologies of practitioners like animal trainers, hunters, stockbreeders etc., or, moreover, non-western experts. An ethology of this kind is not clamped within the boundaries of purely academic epistemology, obsessed by demarcation lines between the human and the animal. My work on the bi-constructivist approach represents a contribution towards the elaboration of an authentically biosemiotic ethology, one which is significantly different from the mechanical ethology of today.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This strange-sounding expression refers to objectivity as it is understood by contemporary science. It assumes, first, that there exists a reality separated from those who are living in it. Second, it is supposed that superposition of observations is not a sign of social and cultural convergence of the observations, but of an independence acquired by an observer through the observation process. Such independence is proof of the truthfulness of the observations.
This approach is close to what Ernst von Glasersfels tried to develop through many years: direct access to reality does not exist. Access to reality is always situated at a certain location and time. The observer always represents a part of the image created. The English philosopher Berkeley and the Neapolitan philosopher Vico are undoubtedly the fathers of constructivism. But it was Jean Piaget who first established a connection between individual construction of knowledge and the Darwinist idea of adaptation. Piaget also imagined a new relation between knowledge and reality: the relation between the two no longer has a representational nature. The portrayal is not understood any longer as an image of reality. My communication cannot be compared to sending a message in Morse code. Others interpret my message according to their experience, not to mine.
I think that one characterization of a living being is to give a meaning to what happens, but note that this does not mean that there is necessarily only ONE meaning, which we can find and which can be effectively objectified.
The question of sexual selection is interesting from this point of view because it is a domain where ethology, particularly sociobiology, largely reintroduced an interpretative dimension. But this dimension became immediately neutralized, because it is understood only as a process of behavioural triggering. The objectivistic ethology was, in addition, interested also in the semiotics of triggers, but was constantly eliminating any interpretative dimension. The semiotics of ethology was always mechanical semiotics. I believe that an interesting chapter of a rigorous history of ethology should be devoted to precisely this subject.
For Nadin, L. Zadeh’s genius lies not only in his invention of systems of fuzzy logic, but also in his making the first meaningful attempt to give a rational base to probability theory.
But a computer can be partially capable of innovation—at least, when it multiplies the unexplained “bugs”. Some of them can become also adaptive to take the evolutionary metaphor.
The Popperian approach rests on creating a hypothesis about reality, followed by attempts to disprove it empirically or experimentally. The hermeneutic-Popperian approach applies this idea to the interpretation of living subjects of study.
I have to thank to Kalevi Kull for an enlightening discussion on the subject.
I have rather neglected the biosemiotic approach, which is only marginal in ethology. I have neglected it especially because it is marginal and because I prefer to focus my paper on the dominant realist-Cartesian approach and on the bi-constructivist approach.
References
Boehm, C. (1999). Hierarchy in the forest. The evolution of egalitarian behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Boesch, C. (1999). Teaching in wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 41, 530–532.
Burghardt, G. (1991). Cognitive ethology and critical anthropomorphism: A snake with two heads and hognose snakes that play dead. In C. Ristau (Ed.), Cognitive ethology, the minds of other animals: Essays in honor of Donald R. Griffin (pp. 53–90). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass.
Cooper, W. S. (2001). The evolution of reason, logic as a s branch of biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dennett, D. (1990). The interpretation of texts, people and other artifacts. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 50, 177–194.
Dennett, D. (1996). Kinds of minds: Toward an onderstanding of consciousness. Basic Books
Despret, V. (2002). Quand le loup habitera avec l’agneau. Paris: Les Empêcheurs de Penser en Rond.
Dissanayake, E. (1992). Homo aestheticus. Where it comes from and why. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Driver, M. P., Humphries, N. (1988). Protean behavior: The biology of unpredictability. Oxford University Press
Eberhard, W. G. (1990). Imprecision in the behavior of Leptomorphus Sp. (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) and the evolutionary origin of new behavior patterns. Journal of Insect Behavior, 3, 3.
Fentress, J. C. (1992). The covalent animal: on bonds and their boundaries in behavioral research. In H. Davis and D. Balfour (Eds.), The inevitable bond. Examining scientist-animal interactions. Cambridge University Press, pp. 44–71.
Goodall, J. (1968). Behaviour of free-living chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream area. Anim. Behav. Monogr. 1.
Goodall, J. (1986). The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of behavior. Harvard University Press.
Halloy, J., Sempo, G., Caprari, G., et al. (2007). Social integration of robots into groups of cockroaches to control self-organized choices. Science, 318, 1155–1158.
Heinrich, B. (1999). Mind of the raven, investigations and adventures with wold-bird. New York: Cliff Street Book.
Herzfeld, C., & Lestel, D. (2005). Knot tying in great apes: etho-ethnology of an unusual tool behavior. Social Science Information, 44(4), 621–651.
Hoffmeyer, J. (1997). Signs of meaning in the universe. Indiana University Press.
Hoffmeyer, J. (2009). Biosemiotics. An examination into the signs of life and the life of signs. University of Scranton Press.
Huxley, J., Mayr, E., Osmmond, H., & Hoffer, A. (1964). Schizophrenia as a genetic morphism. Nature, 204, 220–221.
Lenain, T. (1997). Monkey painting. London: Reaktion Book.
Lestel, D. (2004). L’animal Singulier. Paris: Seuil.
Lestel, D. (2007). L’histoire des animaux singuliers. Bulletin d’histoire et d’épistémologie des science de la vie, 14(2), 119–136.
Lestel, D., & Herzfeld, C. (2005). Topological ape: Knot tying and untying and the origins of mathematics. In P. Grialou, G. Longo, & M. Okada (Eds.), Image and reasoning, interdisciplinary conference series on reasoning studies (Vol. 1, pp. 147–162). Tokyo: Keio University Press.
Nadin, M. (2003). Anticipation. The end is where we start from. Lars Müller Publishers.
Nishida, T. (1980). The leaf-clipping display: a newly discovered expressive gesture in wild chimpanzees. Journal of Human Evolution, 9, 117–128.
Poole, J. (1996). Coming of age with elephants. A memoir. New York: Hyperion.
Pryor, K. (1975). Lads before the wind. New York: Harper and Row.
Rosen, R. (1991) Life itself: A comprehensive inquiry into the nature, origin and fabrication of life. Columbia University Press.
Rosen, P. (2000). Essays of life itself. Columbia University Press.
van Frassen, B. (1989). Laws and symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lestel, D. What Capabilities for the Animal?. Biosemiotics 4, 83–102 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-010-9109-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-010-9109-6