Theories of Culture in the Work of Austrian Human Ethologists : Otto Koenig a Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
Abstract
This chapter aims at presenting the cultural and biological background of the work of ethologists of the Austrian School, namely Konrad Lorenz, Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, and Otto Koenig. Especially Koenig tends to be somewhat neglected, mainly because he published only in German and did not follow a traditional academic career.
Nonetheless, his Kultur und Verhaltensforschung (1970) is a text of crucial importance for ethology. Better known and appreciated is the work of Eibl-Eibesfeldt and his ethological studies of human behaviour, which among other things investigate the biological roots of human artistic creativity and its place in human 'ethogram'.
His book Die Biologie des menschlichen Verhaltens (1984), which became very influential especially in its English mutation, is analysed in this contribution in the detail it deserves.