ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the biographical and disciplinary influences that shape Roberto Marchesini's inquiry and his particular performance of philosophical ethology. Marchesini's version of philosophical ethology is informed by the particular areas of study and interest that he combines in a unique way to address questions in ethology and animal subjectivity. Human ethology helps in understanding human behavior and ways of interacting, so-called human culture is deeply reliant upon animal references and interactions, and nonhuman animals also have cultures of many kinds. Another aspect of Marchesini's philosophical ethology is his work in cognitive ethology and evolutionary theory. Boria Sax has previously written that the persistence of a strong pastoral tradition and some differences in the adoption of factory farming in Italy are particularities of context that help to account for the difference between Marchesini's approach and those that are more common in anglophone scholarship.
