Quotes About Imanishi

We seek ecological validity in our studies and follow the advice of Uexküll, Lorenz, and Imanishi, who encouraged human empathy as a way to understand other species. True empathy is not self-focused but other-oriented. Instead of making humanity the measure of all things, we need to evaluate other species by what they are.

Not unlike Lorenz's emphasis on knowing the whole animal, Imanishi urged us to empathize with the species under study. We need to get under its skin, he said, or as we would nowadays put it, try to enter its Umwelt.