Abstract

Ethology developed as an objectivistic approach presuming that the animal mind should be excluded from scientific consideration. Konrad Lorenz was a proponent of an objectivistic line of research; however, he was deeply interested in the inner subjective world of animals and in the mind-body problem. At the initial stage of elaborating ethological theory, his consideration of subjective phenomena helped him understand the specific character of instinctive animal behavior. Lorenz was interested in some interrelated issues concerning animal mind: the validity of analogies between animal and human mind, the possibility of scientific examination of animal mind and of its content. He appreciated the value of the analogies, but his attitude towards these problems varied during his life. Lorenz maintained that the barrier between psychological and physiological domains is insuperable for rational thought. Holding the monistic worldview, he was convinced that subjective and physiological phenomena are, in reality, one and the same, which we recognize by means of two incommensurable cognitive capacities.