The Philosophical Ethology of Roberto Marchesini

Roberto Marchesini is an Italian philosopher and ethologist whose work is significant for the rethinking of animality and human–animal relations. Throughout such important books as Il dio Pan (1988), Il concetto di soglia (1996), Post-human (2002), Intelligenze plurime (2008), Epifania animale (2014), and Etologia filosofica (2016), he offers a scathing critique of reductive, mechanistic models of animal behaviour, as well as a positive contribution to zooanthropological and phenomenological methods for understanding animal life. Centred on the dynamic and performative field of interactions and relations in the world, his critical and speculative approach to the cognitive life sciences offers a vision of animals as acting subjects and bearers of culture, whose action and agency is also indispensable to human culture. In tracing the ways in which we share our lives and histories with animals in different contexts of interaction, Marchesini’s cutting-edge philosophical ethology also contributes to an overarching philosophical anthropology of the human as the animal that most requires the present and input of other animals. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.

General Introduction: Philosophical Ethology Brett Buchanan, Jeffrey Bussolini and Matthew Chrulew Introduction: Roberto Marchesini Jeffrey Bussolini, Brett Buchanan and Matthew Chrulew Preface: Zootropia, Kinship, and Alterity in the Work of Roberto Marchesini Boria Sax 1. The Philosophical Ethology of Roberto Marchesini Jeffrey Bussolini 2. The God Pan Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 3. Rediscovering the Threshold Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 4. Animals of the City Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 5. Postmodern Chimeras Roberto Marchesini, trans. Deborah Amberson 6. The Theriosphere Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 7. Plural Intelligences Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 8. Nonhuman Alterities Roberto Marchesini, trans. Elena Past 9. Zoomimesis: Animal Inspiration Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 10. The Therioanthropic Being as Our Neighbour Roberto Marchesini, trans. Sarah De Sanctis 11. Posthuman Antispeciesism Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 12. Philosophical Ethology and Animal Subjectivity Roberto Marchesini, trans. Jeffrey Bussolini 13. Entering Theriomorphic Worlds: An Interview with Roberto Marchesini Jeffrey Bussolini, Matthew Chrulew and Brett Buchanan

Jeffrey Bussolini is Associate Professor of Sociology-Anthropology at City University of New York, USA. Brett Buchanan is Director of the School of the Environment, Laurentian University, Sudbury,Canada. Matthew Chrulew is ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the Centre for Culture and Technology, Curtin University, Australia.