L’istinto tra animali umani e non umani. Breve storia di un concetto

Instinct is still today a fundamental notion for the studies on animal behaviour and communication. This notion concerns all those operations that regulate vital processes and attitudes in organisms. However, the notion of instinct can generate theoretical problems if used in a non-scientific way: indeed, if used in a laypeople’s perspective, this notion seems to imply an old vision of the fixism of natural species. Therefore, we must retrace the history of this term to find out one or more technical definitions of instinct according to evolutionist theories: these definitions could be used nowadays in discussions about animal communicative or non-communicative behaviour.