Although the title of Cullen's book is Deleuze and Ethology, the author does not focus on passages in which Gilles Deleuze discusses ethology or animals. Cullen does not even quote Deleuze's valuable definition of ethology as “the study . . . of the capacities for affecting and being affected that characterize each thing.” Instead, Cullen tries to construct a philosophical ethology of his own with reference to Deleuze's works on cinema, which, Cullen argues, allowed the philosopher “to describe his ontology from the point of view of the particular beings that inhabit the world.” It is this emphasis on particular beings rather than species that, according to Cullen, lies “at the heart of philosophical ethology.”
Philosophers have often asked if it is possible to understand what animals feel, as for instance in the famous article “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” by Thomas Nagel. In films, the...
