Classics as viewed from Ethology
Toshitaka Hidaka
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
Professor emeritus, Kyoto University
I am honored to be invited as one of the speakers
of this symposium, but I am still anxious what I can do here because I am an
ethologist studying animal and human behavior.
What I feel a little lucky is that I was
taught by late Professor Giichiro Maejima, a professor of linguistics and
Danish language. He recommended me to study classic languages like Greek,
Latin, Old English if I want to know English better. So I read a very, very
little bit of Aristotle, Latin classics, Beowulf etc. It was very interesting
but too hard for me. Therefore my further acquaintance with the classics was
all through Japanese translations.
For Aristotle, the crocodile is a beast
whose upper and lower jaws are attached inversely, so a crocodile opens the
mouth lifting the upper jaw in contrast to usual beasts which open the mouth
lowering the lower jaw. This is really Aristotle’s illusion. To say more
correctly, this was an illusion of Herodotus, to whose writings Aristotle owed
very much.
In the vocabulary of science, the word
illusion may mean that it is not scientifically based. Really, many scientists
will blame Aristotle that he was scientifically wrong. But such kind of saying
and evaluation appears to contain a fatal mistake in understanding the human
culture.
We humans are always understanding our
world by some illusion. Otherwise, we probably can not live. Those illusions
can be religious, fantastic, theoretic, magic or sorceric or even scientific or
theoretical etc. In every case, the illusion is firmly based in some way and is
not easily altered.
On a beartiful meadow, in a beautiful
summer morning, we may see many butterflies flying here and there. They are all
males. In the morning of this season they are sexually motivated. They are
flying around in search of female butterflies of their own species in order to
court and mate with them. There are many wild flowers blooming around. But
these male butterflies never approach, even try to approach, any of them,
because in the world of these male butterflies, the flowers are not existing.
What does exist is females, or something
which can be females. Any other thing does not exist now in the world of these
butterflies.
But in the afternoon, when the time of
courting and mating ends, the flowers suddenly appear in their world. Hungry
butterflies now look for flowers, approach them and feed on their nectar. In
our human world, flowers were existing there since the early morning, but they
were not existing in the world of sexually motivated male butterflies.
The absence and the sudden appearance of
flowers are brought about by illusion the butterflies conceive, because those
flowers have been existing throughout. But without this illusion, flowers can
neither get nor lose their meaning. And without being given some meaning by
illusion, nothing can exist in the subject’s world, either it be animals or
humans.
In every illusion, something can exist in
the world although it is not really existing. Or something which really exists
appears completely not existing, like the flowers for the male butterflies in
search of females.
As Jakob von Uexküll pointed out, no
animal can live without its umwelt, the world to which the animal gives
the meaning. Nothing different in case of humans.
Once I was greatly surprised when I noticed
that no butterfly appears in the Bible. We can hardly believe that there were
no butterflies there. At least some species of butterflies should have been
flying, but they were not existing in the world of people at that time.
Also in a Japanese classic “Man-yô-shû”,
we can find only few statement about the insects, although many kinds of birds
appear in the phrases of the verse. How was the world of Man-yô people? It is intriguing to know.
However, it is intriguing not because it
is the illusions in classics of older times. In this modern age, we also have
many kinds of illusions.
To take an example from the field of
ethology, we had an illusion that animals are living and striving in order to
maintain own species.
Animals are endowed with wonderfully
elaborated behavioral makeups. These makeups, often called instincts, were
believed to be all for the sake of survival of the species.
But after many findings from the field
observations starting with 1960s, we arrived at another illusion that animals
are not living for the sake of species. Each individual, male or female, of a
species, is striving in order to leave as many as offsprings of its own, viable
and fecund children and grandchildren bearing its own genes. For this,
individuals of a same species are always in competition with other individuals
of the same sex.
A male wishes to mate with as many as
females to get more offsprings. He shows his charm to every female displaying
his beautiful wings, his skill in getting preys, his physical force etc. etc.
Females on the other hand, she needs a
male to get her own offspring. But she often needs to take care of them because
she knows that the children she has borne are certainly her own offspring
having her genes. She therefore wishes to mate with a “good” male who will
contribute her in giving better conditions for bringing up her children.
The basic quality as a good male is that
he is healthy and tough. So she chooses such one from among the males
approaching her. This is the so-called female mate choice. Every female of
every species of animals does this female choice.
However, the particular method of the
choice varies with the species in animals, and with the culture and historical
time in humans. In the peacock, the female peahen chooses the most beautiful
male peacock because male’s beauty correlates with his health. In some frogs,
the female chooses the male which cries with the loudest and strongest voice.
In some insects, the female mates with a male which has brought the biggest and
most delicious prey.
Thus the females are always choosing
tough and healthy males. This is not for breeding a healthy species. Every
female wants to have more offsprings of herself, say having her genes. To mate
with a healthier male is more apt to leave more offsprings so as to maximize
her fitness. As a result of this each female’s choice and of male’s strive to
be chosen, healthier offsprings are produced generation by generation.
The species has been thus maintained
during these hundreds of thousands of years, but it was nothing than a result
of each individual’s illusion to have more of his or her own offsprings, in
other word, to maximize his or her own fitness. Maintenance of the species was
not the purpose nor the goal of individuals, but only a result.
This applies to the humans. What is
different is that the humans are monogamic at least officially. But not only
humans. There are many officially monogamic animals, fishes, birds, mammals
etc. other than humans. In these monogamic animals, the male choice also
occurs: the male chooses females.
Anyhow, among the offsprings thus
produced, those individuals which are more adapted to the present environment
will survive and reproduce.
The species is maintained in this way and
evolution occurs in this way. This is our illusion nowadays.
What is contained in this illusion is
that there are no purpose nor design for the evolution. That which could
survive is surviving. That’s all. When environment changes, and its survival
becomes impossible, it gets extinct like many dinosaurs. Evolution is never
designed by the God. Therefore, the God is not responsible for extinction.
However, there can be other types of
illusions. From the viewpoint of the world (umwelt) for a subject, be it animal
or human, the world is kaleidoscopic. Which world is correct and which is not,
we can not say. Also we can not say which is real or reality.
I remember, some classicist says that the
classic states always the truth, or the theme of humanity. Along the line of
the above context, I think he is right.
However what we should always keep in
mind is that the theme is never shown in a bare form of generality. It is
always hidden behind something particular or discrete.
As I illustrated with the case of butterfly,
an animal’s world is made up by illusions. For the world of humans, it should
be similar. What is different is that human illusions appear to vary almost
unlimitedly with the time, situation, history and culture of the subject
individual and of the group. In the butterfly on the other hand, the variance
of illusions probably is far more limited and almost fixed.
In this context, it is intriguing for me
to study the classics. It is just to know what world we humans are able to
have.
Now the so-called science is rapidly
progressing. But from my ethological illusion, it seems that our human world
will not greatly change and not drastically evolve. The answer may be given
from the study of classics.
*********************************
According to Jakob von Uexküll, every animal has its world
(Umwelt). This world appears to be made up with some kind of illusion of the
subject. Without having illusion, everything around the subject can not be
given meaning and the subject can not have its world. This applies to us
humans. We are understanding our world by somehow having illusions. By studying
classics, we can learn how vastly vary the illusions of humans through the age
and the culture. We may be thus able to predict how and what we should do towards
the future.
日髙 敏隆（総合地球環境学研究所）
ヤーコプ・フォン・ユクスキュルによれば、すべての動物はその世界(Umwelt)をもっている。この世界はどうやらその主体がもっているイリュージョンによってできあがっているように思われる。もしイリュージョンというものがなかったら、主体の周りにあるものは意味を与えられ得ないので、主体は自分の世界をもつことができない。このことはわれわれ人間にもあてはまる。われわれは何らかの形でイリュージョンをもつことによってわれわれの世界を理解している。古典を研究することによってわれわれは、人間のイリュージョンが時代や文化を通じていかにさまざまであるかを学べる。このようにしてわれわれは、われわれが未来へ向けていかにそして何をするべきかを予言できるかもしれない。