Griffiths, Paul E. (2004) Instinct in the ‘50s: The British Reception of Konrad Lorenz’s Theory of Instinctive Behavior. [Preprint]

Preview

PDF Instinct_in_the_50s.pdf Download (89kB)

Abstract

In 1950 most students of animal behavior in Britain saw the instinct concept developed by Konrad Lorenz in the 1930s as the central theoretical construct of the new ethology. In the early 1950s J.B.S Haldane made substantial efforts to undermine Lorenz’s status, challenging his priority on key ethological concepts. Haldane was also critical of Lorenz’s sharp distinction between instinctive and learnt behavior, which was inconsistent with Haldane’s own account of the evolution of language. Haldane’s account of transitions between learning and instinct drew on a view of the genotype-phenotype relationship common amongst his contemporaries and which may have ‘preadapted’ some British biologists to respond positively to Daniel S. Lehrman’s 1953 critique of Lorenz’s instinct concept. By the 1960s Lorenz drew a clear distinction between his own views and those of the ‘English-speaking ethologists’.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Griffiths, Paul E.
Keywords:	instinct innateness developmental canalisation Konrad Lorenz J.B.S Haldane ethology
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology
Depositing User:	Professor Paul Edmund Griffiths
Date Deposited:	22 Mar 2004
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:12
Item ID:	1676
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology
Date:	March 2004
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/1676

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item