Philosophical Barnacles and Empiricist Dogs
Knowing Animals in Modernist Literature and Science
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3856194 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Caroline Hovanec (0000-0001-6531-6522, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 245-269 |
| Publication date | 2013-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Configurations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1063-1801 • E-ISSN: 1080-6520 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/con.2013.0019 |
| OpenAlex | W2061541306 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 5 |
In the early twentieth century, both literature and science writing began experimenting with animal perspectives, imagining how creatures radically different from us would perceive and understand the world. This technique reflected a contemporary interest in animal minds, but it also led scientists to question their own epistemological assumptions and gave writers an opportunity to develop an aesthetics of defamiliarization. This essay examines works by C. Lloyd Morgan, J. B. S. Haldane, and Virginia Woolf, arguing that they use the technique of animal perspectives and the trope of the philosophizing animal to reflect on how we as humans know the world and the other animals within it. Their writings presage the methods and questions guiding cognitive ethologists today
Aesthetics · Animal behavior · Art · Biology · Creatures · Defamiliarization · Empiricism · Epistemology · Literature · Philosophy of science · Science studies · Sociology · Zoology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Joseph Conrad and Literature · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |