NATURALISTS PORTRAYALS OF ANIMAL LIFE - ENGAGING THE VERSTEHEN APPROACH

This paper is an investigation into naturalists' understanding of anim al life, focusing specifically on the turn-of-the-century naturalists George and Elizabeth Peckham, and Jean Henri Fabre. It argues that the se authors apply what social scientists call the 'Verstehen' method to the study of animals, in that they approach animal action as evidenci ng a subjective, experiential perspective. The presuppositions and for ms of evidencing and reasoning of the naturalist genre are analyzed, a nd their effects on the portrayal of animals are elucidated, by lookin g closely at the particular authors. The paper ends by examining the c onnection between the form of knowledge of animal life embedded in nat uralist studies, and the question of anthropomorphism.