Citation

Author Website

www.walterveit.com

Thread

Carolyn A. Ristau, Précis of: "Birds, Bats and Minds: Tales of a Revolutionary Scientist, Donald R. Griffin"

Abstract

Carolyn Ristau offers a stellar investigative biography of Donald Redfield Griffin and his influence on the science and philosophy of animal minds. This commentary focuses on his aim to study animal minds through an ethological lens—that is, by examining the evolved, adaptive functions of mental capacities and consciousness in natural environments, rather than confining research to controlled laboratory settings. I argue that, far from being romantic, this approach can be firmly grounded in modern life history theory.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Walter Veit is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Reading. He is the author of A Philosophy for the Science of Consciousness, and What Are Zoos For?(together with Heather Browning). He is currently writing a trade book on animal consciousness. Website

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1884