Moving from Frans De Waal's book "Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are", the development of the science of animal behavior is critically discussed. The role of ethology in transforming moral ideas about non-human animals is presented and argumented for.
The concept of human identity is generally built upon the view that human beings are somehow central and unique among all the other living beings. Nonetheless, presumed human uniqueness is no longer tenable after the “revolution” caused by Darwin’s theory. According to the scientific image produced by Darwinian biology human beings can no longer be understood as the outcome of a project. Furthermore, cognitive ethology undermines also the idea that Homo sapiens is equipped with unique capacities and shows unique behaviors.
After a flashback on the history of zoosemiotics, the paper focuses on the way the "embodied" paradigm of post 1980s cognitivism helped renew the debate on animal communication.
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