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On Aims and Methods of Cognitive Ethology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Dale Jamieson  and
Marc Bekoff
Dale Jamieson
Affiliation:
University of Colorado
Marc Bekoff
Affiliation:
University of Colorado
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Extract

In 1963 Niko Tinbergen published a paper, “On Aims and Methods of Ethology,” dedicated to his friend Konrad Lorenz. This essay is a landmark in the development of ethology. Here Tm bergen defines ethology as “the biological study of behavior” and seeks to demonstrate the “close affinity between Ethology and the rest of Biology” (p. 411). Building on Huxley (1942), Tinbergen identifies four major problems of ethology: causation, survival value, evolution, and ontogeny. Cancern with these problems, under different names (mechanism, adaptation, phylogeny, and development), has dominated the study of animal behavior during the last half century (Dawkins, et al. 1991; Dewsbury 1992).

Type
Part IV: Cognitive Ethology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1992 , 1993 , pp. 110 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

We are grateful to all those who participated in discussions of this material at the University of Wyoming and the 1992 Philosophy of Science Association meetings. We especially thank Colin Allen, Marc Hauser, David Resnik and Carolyn Ristau

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