The Interweaving of the Concepts of Cognition, Behavior, and Mind in Ethological Studies

Gustavo Caponi

doi:10.5007/1808-1711.2026.e109032

Authors

Gustavo Caponi Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3975-8367

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2026.e109032

Keywords:

Animal Cognition, Animal Mind, Mental State, Behavior, Ethology

Abstract

Behavior is a particular type of organic reaction. It is a cognitively guided reaction: it is an organic reaction guided by cognitions; and cognitions are registers of the internal states of an organism, or of the states of its environment, which allow that organism to functionally adjust the patterns that govern those particular organic reactions that are its behaviors. In turn, the mental states of a living being, its mind, are the set of its cognitive states; that is, the set of states resulting from cognitions that dispose it and allow it to behave in certain ways.

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