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单词 instinct
释义
instinct

Biology
  • An innate tendency to behave in a particular way, which does not depend critically on particular learning experiences for its development and therefore is seen in a similar form in all normally reared individuals of the same sex and species. Much instinctive behaviour takes the form of fixed action patterns. These are movements that—once started—are performed in a stereotyped way unaffected by external stimuli. For example, a frog’s prey-catching tongue flick is performed in the same way whether or not anything is caught. Some complex instinctive behaviour, however, requires some learning by the animal before it is perfected. Birdsong, for example, consists of an innate component that is modified and made more complex by the influence of other birds, the habitat, etc.


Philosophy
  • The term implies innately determined behaviour, inflexible to change in circumstance and outside the control of deliberation and reason. The view that animals accomplish even complex tasks by nature and not by reason was common to Aristotle and the Stoics, and the inflexibility of their routines was used in defence of this position as early as Avicenna. A continuity between animal and human reason was proposed by Hume, and followed by sensationalists such as the naturalist Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802). The theory of evolution prompted various views of the emergence of stereotypical behaviour, and the idea that innate determinants of behaviour are fostered by specific environments is a guiding principle of ethology. In this sense it may be instinctive in human beings to be social, and for that matter to reason. See also animal thought.


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