Abstract
Research in animal behavior begins by identifying what animals are doing. In the course of observation, the observer comes to see animals as performing a particular activity. How does this process work? How cn we be certain that behavior is identified correctly? Wittgenstein offers an approach to these questions. looking at the uses of certainly rather than attempting to find rules that guarantee it. Here two stages in research are distinguished: first, watching animals, and second, reporting the results to other scientists. Certainly about what animals are doing, has different uses at each stage.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bourdieu, P.; 1977, outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Durant, J. R.: 1981, ‘Innate Character in Animals and Man: A Perspective on the Origins of Ethomology’, in C. Webster (ed.), Biology, Medicine and Society 1840–1940, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Gibson, J. J.: 1966, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Grenwood Press, Westpoint, CT.
Goffman, E.: 1974, Frame Analysis, Harper and Row, New York.
Grene, M.: 1966, The Knower and the Known, Faber and Faber, London.
Grene, M.: 1985, Descartes, niversity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Hailman, J. and B. D. Sustare: 1983, ‘What a Stuffed Toy Tells a Stuffed Shirt’, Bioscience 23, (11), 644–651.
Harre, R.: 1986, Varieties of Realism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Hearne, V.: 1987, Adam's Task, A. A. knopf, new York.
Heinroth, O. and K. Heinroth: 1959, The Birds, O. Heinroth (trans)., Manuscript in Alexander Library, University of Oxford.
Laclau, E. and C. Mouffe, 1987, ‘Post-Marxism without apologies’, New Left Review 166, 79–106.
Langer, S.: 1951, Philosophy in a New Key, Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press.
Margolis, H.: 1987, Patterns, Thingking and Cognition, University Chicago Press, Chicago.
Margolis, J.: 1986, Pragmatism Without Foundations: I. Reconciling Realism and Relativism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Margolis, J.: 1987, Science Without Unity II: Reconciling the Human and natural Sciences, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Peirce, C. S.: 1958, ‘How to Make our Ideas Clear’, in P. Wiener (ed.), Values in a Universe of Chance, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
Polanyi, M.: 1958, Personal Knowledge, Routledge and Regan Paul> London.
Wittgenstein, L.: 1968, Philosophical Investigations, Basil Blackwell, oxford.
Wittgenstein, L.: 1969, On Certainty, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gordon, D.M. Wittgenstein and ant-watching. Biol Philos 7, 13–25 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130161
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130161