Methodological Signatures in Early Ethology: The Problem of Animal Subjectivity

What is the adequate terminology to talk about animal behaviour? Is terminology referring to mental or emotional states anthropomorphic and should therefore be prohibited or is it a necessary means to provide for an adequate description and should be encouraged? This question was vehemently discussed in the founding phase of Ethology as a scientific discipline and still is. This multi-layered problem can be grasped by using the concept of methodological signatures, developed by Köchy et al. (2016c). It is designed to analyse and systematically compare animal research approaches by examining their common parameters. By examining the works of Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) and Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907–1988), this paper offers new insights both on a methodological and theoretical level. Methodologically, the application of the concept of methodological signatures is illustrated; theoretically, the principles of Classic Ethology are analysed. My aim is to illustrate how the problem of scientific access to animal subjectivity was addressed in the history of Ethology by analysing statements about animal sentience. For this purpose, I will first outline the general discussion about animal subjectivity and the tension between anthropomorphism and empirical adequacy. I introduce my own theoretical and methodological framework before presenting an analysis of Lorenz’ and Tinbergen’s methodological signatures. Thereby, I show how the question of terminology is deeply embedded in a network of epistemological, methodological and ontological concepts and establish key characteristics in regard to ethological approaches to animal subjectivity. Finally, I shed light on the possibility of using this typology to examine current frameworks of animal welfare research.

O conceito de subjetividade no sistema de Hegel: a subjetividade animal na natureza e a passagem para a alma na Filosofia do Espírito

In this article, I investigate the concept of subjectivity in Hegel. First, I analyze this notion in its logical significance, as a concept and as an idea, a unity of subjectivity and objectivity. Second, I go through the significance of the concept of subjectivity also in the Philosophy of Real. Thus, I analyze subjectivity as life, in its concretization as vegetable subjectivity and as animal subjectivity in the Philosophy of Nature. Then, I problematize the question of the passage from Nature to Spirit, focusing more specifically on the issue of the emergence of the human soul - as the first aspect of the subjectivity of the spirit - based on the configuration of animal subjectivity. I argue that this passage takes place according to a movement of continuity and, from this movement, I have brief considerations about the concept of soul as the natural moment of the subjectivity of the spirit.

The Innovative Animals of Children’s Fiction

This chapter discusses the animals of early children’s fiction, showing that their didactic and affective purposes are rooted in the period’s conception of childhood as a time of special closeness to animal being. Children’s writers teach children to grow away from animality, but also use animals to encourage the child reader’s sympathy. The fiction’s message of kindness to animals depends both on reminding children of feelings they share with nonhuman creatures and on explaining human superiority. The chapter argues that children’s writers make a distinct contribution to a developing literature of animal subjectivity. They make significant innovations in narrative techniques for representing nonhuman viewpoints, not only in their use of animal narrators but in third-person narrative access to non-linguistic animal minds. Writers include Dorothy Kilner, Thomas Day, Sarah Trimmer, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Dorothy Wordsworth, Maria Edgeworth, and Edward Augustus Kendall.

Animal Eyes: Gazing at the Animal in Video Games

Encounters with animals are common in video games, where they are often included to add realism to the gameworld. Encounters with animal subjectivity, however, are not. The anthropocentric nature of video games means that animals are often environmental objects, and sometimes resources, but only occasionally characters, and rarely protagonists. As a consequence, there is no encounter with the animal presence, and often no shared gaze: The look of the animal is instead transformed into something wholly antagonistic (such as in Horizon Zero Dawn), wholly submissive (as in Far Cry Primal) or absent entirely (Red Dead Redemption). Even when video game animals are designed with the intention of “appreciating” the animals, the privileging of their panoptic human spectators just as often results in their objectification.

Compassionate Conservation: Exploring the Lives of African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus) in Botswana

This paper argues for a more compassionate conservation by positioning animals as subjects in research and scholarship. Compassionate conservation is a multidisciplinary field of study that broadly attends to the ethical dimensions of conservation by merging conservation biology and animal welfare science. However, animal geography is rarely discussed in the compassionate conservation scholarship despite sharing similar tenets. This paper argues that responsible anthropomorphism and animal geography concepts of animal subjectivity (lived experiences) and agency (capacity to act) positions African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) as subjects in conservation research and scholarship. It merges biological research, public communication, and interview and participant observation data to present wild dogs as thinking, feeling, self-conscious animals with agency, and whose welfare is negatively affected in human-dominated landscapes in Botswana. This paper argues for more attention to be paid to animal subjectivity and agency to foster more compassionate relations with wildlife. It argues that positioning animals as subjects in research and scholarship is an ethical starting point for moving compassionate conservation forward. This ‘enriched’ scholarly approach moves us closer to appreciating the lives of wildlife and the complexity of their circumstances and experiences.