THE PHILOSOPHICAL ETHOLOGY OF ROBERTO MARCHESINI

Abstract

Central to the work of Roberto Marchesini is a sustained critical engagement with the sciences of animal behavior. Drawing on veterinary, biological, and philosophical training, he critiques the legacy of Cartesianism that sees animals as machines at the same time as acknowledging the importance of biological knowledge and approaches for understanding animals. Further, he offers his own version of a zooanthropological and posthumanist method for the future of ethology as an interdisciplinary social science founded on shared existence, interaction, and understanding. His reframing of questions around biological and cultural continuity in turn refigures received notions of identity, animality, and the origin of culture itself.

Keywords:

• philosophical ethology
• zooanthropology
• posthumanism
• theriomorphism
• bioethics
• zoomimesis

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

I would like to thank Matt Chrulew and Brett Buchanan for undertaking these projects in philosophical ethology together (and for all the accompanying discussions, translating, editing, and curating), and Joan Stambaugh who first taught me the craft of translation. Ananya Mukherjea has supported the entire conceptual enterprise and offered countless pieces of expertise and advice on renderings, descriptions, and framings for this work. Ralph Acampora first introduced me to Roberto Marchesini. I would similarly like to thank Boria Sax for his enthusiastic acceptance to write the prefatory essay for this issue, and for his longstanding attention to and advocacy of Roberto Marchesini's work as an important point of reference for anglophone scholarship on animals. I am very grateful to Elena Past, Deborah Amberson, and Sarah De Sanctis for translating pieces for this issue and for their attention to Marchesini's work in other publications and translations; Karin Andersen and Mark Roth for the use of their excellently suited images in this issue and for their dialogues with Marchesini; Roberto Marchesini, Eleonora Adorni, and Sabrina Golfetto for their deep welcome, kindness, and philosophical correspondence during this process; and Dominique Lestel and Vinciane Despret for their hospitality and ongoing exchange of ideas in this area. This work was supported in part by a PSC-CUNY Enhanced Research Award, an Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Translation Grant, Australian Academy of the Humanities International Science Linkages funding, Australian Research Council funding for extinction studies, SSHRC funding, and Curtin University visiting fellowship funding. Last, but not least, I thank the cats who “populate” our home and lab and who make the work of animal studies so immediately interesting.

1 Ricordi di animali or Animal Memories is Marchesini's autobiography. It is recounted in terms of the encounters with animals that have structured and animated his life.

2 Hack was twice elected to the Italian parliament as a member of the Communist Party, though she ceded the seats to other members to focus on astronomy, and she stood for election to the European parliament as part of the Lista Anticapitalista. Celli was a member of the European parliament and a Bologna city councilor as a member of the Green Party (and the Green Party–European Free Alliance).

3 He also wrote a well-received play about Darwin and evolution called Darwin delle scimmie [Darwin of the Monkeys].

4 Among other honors, Hack was named “gay personality of the year” for her efforts toward civil rights and legal recognition in Italy. She was also an advocate for the increased use of bicycles as a form of transportation.

5 In Italy it is possible to attend a high school focused on the study of Greek and Latin language and literature.

6 For reasons of space and topical focus, we have left out of this issue some of Marchesini's other work such as his cyberpunk novel and science fiction stories.

7 Grazer's gaze is painter Mark Roth's term for the perception and landscape view of the grazing animal among grasses. It evokes notions of species-specific ways of seeing the world, pre-Columbian grasslands in North America, and visions of rewilding. Selections from the Grazer's Gaze: The Grass Paintings series are included in this special issue; the series is visible in its entirety at <http://www.tinsquo.com/archives/cat_paintings_the_grasses.html>.

8 A chapter that combines selections from each of the two books is included in this special issue (“Plural Intelligences”).

9 A number of essays have been translated into English, including the pieces translated by Boria Sax in Humanimalia 1.2 and Elena Past and Deborah Amberson in their book Thinking Italian Animals, articles in Philosophical Readings (“Different Levels”) and NanoEthics (“Against Anthropcentrism”), and a translation of Epifania animale by Sarah De Sanctis is forthcoming (a chapter of which is included in this special issue).