Goals, No-Goals and Own Goals

usual boundaries between scientific and philosophical enquiry. Originating from university seminars held in Oxford over many years, each author takes a highly developed position; the scientists argue with each other quite as much as with the philosophers, and vice versa. The result is

a very unusual debate which is equally accessible to philosophers and scientists. The central theme is the significance and nature of goal-directed and intentional behaviour. At one extreme, David McFarland, Reader in Animal Behaviour at the University of Oxford, brings into radical

question the need for either of these concepts, at least in the scientific study of animal behaviour. At the other extreme, the Oxford philosopher, Alan Montefiore, argues that such concepts are indispensable to any explication of the meaningful use of language and that we must

therefore acknowledge their importance in understanding the nature of human behaviour.