“Laughing is the essence of man,” said François Rabelais. A scathing rebuttal!
First of all, unfortunately, man does not always laugh, and secondly, this is to pay little attention to the good jokes played by certain primates. Never mind: language is the essence of mankind! Well…not anymore. If we are the only species capable of writing Anna Karenina as well as an Ikea leaflet, we can detect certain elementary components of language in, guess who, “our own cousins”, and not only there. Communication in the broadest sense of the term takes on infinite variety across species, with calls, songs, pheromones, gestures and ornaments. But finally, what makes us such exceptional creatures, so unique that some claim we are forged in the image of God himself? Our capacity for abstraction, perhaps… It has reached such a degree of sophistication that, yes, without any risk of error, we are the only ones to have dreamed of walking on the Moon. The only ones crazy enough to have decided that we were capable of doing it, and to have done it! We are also the only ones capable of making ourselves sick to death by brooding over the things we shouldn’t have done, by imagining a better world, or by thinking that we don’t know why we are here and that we will never know. It is the nature of mankind to wonder what is the nature of our species. And of others!
This is where animal psychology, ethology, and psychology in general come in, to understand why other animals fascinate us, how we are similar to each other, and how we differ. But also how we should consider them, treat them, and nature with them: in order to avoid the fact that it is human nature to make everything dirty.
— J. F. Marmion
Contributors
Boris Albrecht, Claude Beata, Gilles Bœuf, Sarah Bortolamiol, Marie Bourjade, Georges Chapouthier, Marianne Cohen, Fabienne Delfour, Jean-Pierre Digard, Jean-François Dortier, Jean-Marc Drouin, Joël Fagot, Florence Gaunet, Tamara Gomez-Moracho, Marine Grandgeorge, Astrid Guillaume, Pierre Jouventin, Sabrina Krief, Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Frédéric Lévy, Mathieu Lihoreau, Adrien Meguerditchian, Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, Véronique Servais, Christel Simler, Cédric Sueur, Kotaro Suzuki, Laurent Testot, Anne-Laure Thessard, Marion Thomas, Jacques Vauclair
TABLES OF CONTENTS
Man’s own (never stays that way for very long), Jean-François Marmion
The birth of animal psychology, Marion Thomas
Animal psychology: conceptual revolutions, Véronique Servais
How animals perceive the world, Kotaro Suzuki
Reflections on animal emotions, Georges Chapouthier
Meerkats Attack! Or violence in animals, Jean-François Dortier
Dolphins and games, Fabienne Delfour
The study of cats: a science with velvet paws, Interview with Marine Grandgeorge
At the school of life: learning in the animal world, Marie Bourjade
“Respecting animals means respecting their differences”, Interview with Jean-Pierre Digard
How do baboons see the world, Jacques Vauclair
Collective intelligence in bees, Mathieu Lihoreau and Tamara Gomez-Moracho
Do you like insects? interview with Jean-Marc Drouin
Communication, from primate to human, Adrien Meguerditchian
Seducing… to death, Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu
Attachment: a bridge between fear and pleasure, Claude Beata
Attachment in mammals, Frédéric Lévy
Forest, humans, chimpanzees, a three-way relationship, Sarah Bortolamiol, Marianne Cohen, Sabrina Krief
Primates and humans: so far, so close, interview with Joël Fagot
Biodiversity: safeguarding it, drawing inspiration from it, Gilles Bœuf
Human-animal coevolution, Pierre Jouventin
Caring with animals, Boris Albrecht
Stories of dogs: from laboratory subjects to caregivers, Laurent Testot
Does our dog really love us, Interview with Florence Gaunet
The bestiary of mythologies, Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
Towards transanimalism, Anne-Laure Thessard
The legal status of the animal, Christel Simler
Debates on speciesism, Astrid Guillaume
Anthropomorphism, a false friend, Cédric Sueur
The human animal: what distinguishes it from others, Jean-François Dortier
