From the Biology of Animal Behavior to the Biology of Human Cognition

The article discusses the effects of Konrad Lorenz’s work at the University of Königsberg. They constitute a response of biology to Immanuel Kant’s question regarding the possibility of making synthetic a priori judgments, which he presented in monographs “Kant’s Lehre vom Apriorischen im Lichte gegenwärtiger Biologie” and „Die angeborenen Formen möglicher Erfahrung”. The two Lorenz’s publications present the main thesis of evolutionary epistemology which can be understood both as phylogenesis of human cognitive abilities and as a theory of epistemological process of approaching the truth of the reality. Evolutionary epistemology’s significance is lies in an attempt to show the way of overcoming the opposition between rationalism and empiricism and between realism and idealism. The attempt raises a controversy and questions concerning the methodological status such epistemology which bridges biology and philosophy