Birds sing in order to establish territory, attract mates, strengthen communication, contribute to survival, and because it is fun. The act of having fun is part of their very being. Their "ontology" has a ludic side. So we learn from the philosopher Charles Hartshorne.
Their existence is not simply how they appear to others; it is not how they are objecified in the lives of other birds, or in their predators, or in they prey. It is their lived subjectivity, moment by moment. And this lived subjectivity is an act of aiming at, and enjoying, what Whitehead calls satisfying intensity. As Charles Hartshorne puts it, they were "born to sing."
The enjoyment of singing is philosophically significant. It is a window into what is happening anywhere and everwhere in the interiority of other sentient beings. The intrinsic aim of living beings is not simply to survive and make it through another day or night. And it is not simply to be a "gene machine" in the ongoing evolution of life. It is to enjoy the act of surviving: to live well and to enjoy the act of living.
In writing Born to Sing, Charles Hartshorne contributes not only to our understanding of birds but to our understanding of life. He points toward a ludic ontology: to an understanding of 'being' whereby the very act of being has a celebratory side.
- Jay McDaniel
Their existence is not simply how they appear to others; it is not how they are objecified in the lives of other birds, or in their predators, or in they prey. It is their lived subjectivity, moment by moment. And this lived subjectivity is an act of aiming at, and enjoying, what Whitehead calls satisfying intensity. As Charles Hartshorne puts it, they were "born to sing."
The enjoyment of singing is philosophically significant. It is a window into what is happening anywhere and everwhere in the interiority of other sentient beings. The intrinsic aim of living beings is not simply to survive and make it through another day or night. And it is not simply to be a "gene machine" in the ongoing evolution of life. It is to enjoy the act of surviving: to live well and to enjoy the act of living.
In writing Born to Sing, Charles Hartshorne contributes not only to our understanding of birds but to our understanding of life. He points toward a ludic ontology: to an understanding of 'being' whereby the very act of being has a celebratory side.
- Jay McDaniel
What Else is Music?
“The song conveys no single crude emotion, but … something like what life is to that bird at that season, and it must be a rewarding activity for long periods when nothing much is happening of interest to the bird. This implies highly differentiated, appealing, and memorable patterns. What else is music?”
— Charles Hartshorne, Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), quoted in Sam Gadd, review of Born to Sing, The American Biology Teacher 35, no. 6 (September 1973): 365.
— Charles Hartshorne, Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), quoted in Sam Gadd, review of Born to Sing, The American Biology Teacher 35, no. 6 (September 1973): 365.
Hartshorne's Passion for Ornithology
“Hartshorne’s passion for ornithology led him to ask why birds sing. He published a major work titled Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song in 1973. The title gives away his working hypothesis that birds sing for pleasure and enjoyment. He compiled data on worldwide bird song to support his theory and devised a rating system to evaluate the quality of birdsong on a six-factor scale of relative development that includes tonal purity, loudness, organization, complexity, continuity, and imitativeness of the song. He showed that the best avian singers are territorial, ground-feeding insectivores in sylvan environments where they have low visibility and high need to communicate with each other.
He claimed that birdsong has characteristics that suggest enjoyment — it tends to be relaxed, leisurely, and sustained. Songbirds practice what he describes as youthful play as they learn to sing, tend to imitate each other and other sources of song, and have been shown to avoid monotony in their songs.
The theory has drawn critics, but if he’s right, and birds indeed do sing for enjoyment, that does not, as he points out, mean that bird song has no other purpose or advantage. The evolutionary development of species is consistent with process metaphysics. If singing results in increased reproductive fitness by protecting territory, finding a mate, or warning of danger, and it was done because it brought pleasure, so much the better. Why not couple enjoyment with reproductive success?
I find the study fascinating in the marriage of profession and avocation. The chair at the window, the binoculars, the recordings, the statistical analysis, and the book point to keen observation coupled with careful interpretation. Clearly the study of birdsong brought Hartshorne enjoyment. And that’s what God was luring him toward. He experienced life as big, just as his mother had predicted.
Hartshorne closes his book on birdsong with this paragraph. I have taken the liberty of changing his exclusively masculine language, given his later letters embracing the intention to be more inclusive:
‘Nature apart from human beings is basically good. So are people, although we have unique capacities for evil as well as good. This is because every increase in freedom increases the dangers inherent in freedom. Humans are the freest, hence most dangerous, of terrestrial animals. They need to meditate upon this elementary but not trivial truth much more than they have. The Greek fear of human conceit, hubris, was entirely justified. We need to recover that fear. Technology makes us loom large in this solar system, but among the galaxies and island universes we are as small as ever. Science, given a balanced interpretation, fully justifies the old values of reverence and love toward what is other than, and in its encompassing aspect incomparably greater than, humanity and all its works, actual or potential.’”
— Excerpt from “Why Do Birds Sing? Charles Hartshorne’s Relational Theology,” by The Rev. Duane H. Fickeisen, Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley, March 26, 2006.
He claimed that birdsong has characteristics that suggest enjoyment — it tends to be relaxed, leisurely, and sustained. Songbirds practice what he describes as youthful play as they learn to sing, tend to imitate each other and other sources of song, and have been shown to avoid monotony in their songs.
The theory has drawn critics, but if he’s right, and birds indeed do sing for enjoyment, that does not, as he points out, mean that bird song has no other purpose or advantage. The evolutionary development of species is consistent with process metaphysics. If singing results in increased reproductive fitness by protecting territory, finding a mate, or warning of danger, and it was done because it brought pleasure, so much the better. Why not couple enjoyment with reproductive success?
I find the study fascinating in the marriage of profession and avocation. The chair at the window, the binoculars, the recordings, the statistical analysis, and the book point to keen observation coupled with careful interpretation. Clearly the study of birdsong brought Hartshorne enjoyment. And that’s what God was luring him toward. He experienced life as big, just as his mother had predicted.
Hartshorne closes his book on birdsong with this paragraph. I have taken the liberty of changing his exclusively masculine language, given his later letters embracing the intention to be more inclusive:
‘Nature apart from human beings is basically good. So are people, although we have unique capacities for evil as well as good. This is because every increase in freedom increases the dangers inherent in freedom. Humans are the freest, hence most dangerous, of terrestrial animals. They need to meditate upon this elementary but not trivial truth much more than they have. The Greek fear of human conceit, hubris, was entirely justified. We need to recover that fear. Technology makes us loom large in this solar system, but among the galaxies and island universes we are as small as ever. Science, given a balanced interpretation, fully justifies the old values of reverence and love toward what is other than, and in its encompassing aspect incomparably greater than, humanity and all its works, actual or potential.’”
— Excerpt from “Why Do Birds Sing? Charles Hartshorne’s Relational Theology,” by The Rev. Duane H. Fickeisen, Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley, March 26, 2006.
Evolution and Self-Enjoyment
A relatively undeveloped part of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy is the idea that every moment of experience is an act of self-enjoyment. There is, in this view, enjoyment in the very act of experiencing itself. To exist as a subject of experience is not merely to register information or react mechanically to stimuli; it is to feel, however faintly, the immediacy of being alive. Whitehead sometimes speaks of actual entities as seeking “satisfaction,” and this satisfaction is not simply completion but enjoyment — the felt intensity of experience as it becomes itself.
Importantly, for Whitehead, the self that enjoys experience is not separate from the act of experiencing. There is no hidden ego standing behind experience as an independent observer. The self is the experiencing. The enjoyment is not possessed by the subject as though it were an object added afterward; the enjoyment is intrinsic to the very activity of becoming. The subject is its own act of feeling.
A similar idea appears in the philosophy of Hartshorne, not least in Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song. Hartshorne argues that birds sing, at least in part, for pleasure and enjoyment. This does not mean that birdsong lacks evolutionary value. Singing may help establish territory, attract mates, strengthen communication, or contribute to survival. But Hartshorne suggests that these functions do not exclude enjoyment; rather, the enjoyment may itself be part of the evolutionary success. Why should evolution not work through pleasure?
For Hartshorne, songbirds are not little machines carrying out biological programs without feeling. They are creatures participating in the intrinsic joy of expression. Their singing is not reducible to utility. There is artistry in it, improvisation in it, even something like play. Songbirds are, in their own way, musicians.
From a process perspective, this idea extends beyond birds alone. The universe itself may be understood as filled with acts of self-enjoyment at many levels of existence: human, animal, and perhaps even more elemental forms of feeling. Life seeks intensity, expression, contrast, beauty, and satisfaction. Birdsong becomes one especially audible reminder that existence is not only survival. It is also celebration.
Importantly, for Whitehead, the self that enjoys experience is not separate from the act of experiencing. There is no hidden ego standing behind experience as an independent observer. The self is the experiencing. The enjoyment is not possessed by the subject as though it were an object added afterward; the enjoyment is intrinsic to the very activity of becoming. The subject is its own act of feeling.
A similar idea appears in the philosophy of Hartshorne, not least in Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song. Hartshorne argues that birds sing, at least in part, for pleasure and enjoyment. This does not mean that birdsong lacks evolutionary value. Singing may help establish territory, attract mates, strengthen communication, or contribute to survival. But Hartshorne suggests that these functions do not exclude enjoyment; rather, the enjoyment may itself be part of the evolutionary success. Why should evolution not work through pleasure?
For Hartshorne, songbirds are not little machines carrying out biological programs without feeling. They are creatures participating in the intrinsic joy of expression. Their singing is not reducible to utility. There is artistry in it, improvisation in it, even something like play. Songbirds are, in their own way, musicians.
From a process perspective, this idea extends beyond birds alone. The universe itself may be understood as filled with acts of self-enjoyment at many levels of existence: human, animal, and perhaps even more elemental forms of feeling. Life seeks intensity, expression, contrast, beauty, and satisfaction. Birdsong becomes one especially audible reminder that existence is not only survival. It is also celebration.
The Sheer Pleasure of Singing
"Hartshorne’s life was changed when, at the age of 16, he bought a pocket-sized songbird guide and a three power field glass. Over the years of his world travels related both to his teaching and his bird song research in Europe, Australia, India and Japan, he became an authority on this form of music which is second only to that of human members of the animal kingdom. The philosopher discovered that birds sing not only to win mates and protect territory but also to avoid monotony and to experience the sheer pleasure of singing. They sometimes vary their songs for hours on end. According to his research calibrations, some species actually sing not just one song but fifty or more songs or phrases."
- Herbert Vetter, Harvard Chaplain
- Herbert Vetter, Harvard Chaplain
The Universe as a Festival of Feeling
Hartshorne's contribution to philosophical ornithology lies in his insistence that birds are subjects of experience. They do not merely behave; they feel. They do not merely survive; they enjoy.
Hartshorne's perspective was deeply rooted in process philosophy. Every living being seeks not merely continued existence but intensity, richness, and satisfaction of experience. The universe is not composed of lifeless objects but of centers of feeling. Human beings participate in this quest for fulfillment, but so do other animals. The songs of birds reveal that aesthetic enjoyment is not an accidental luxury appearing only in human civilization. It is woven into the fabric of life itself.
This insight has important implications for civilization. Modern societies often organize themselves around efficiency, economic growth, and instrumental reasoning. Activities that seem "unproductive" are frequently marginalized. Play, music, beauty, celebration, and delight are treated as secondary concerns. Hartshorne's birds suggest another possibility. They remind us that life includes forms of value that cannot be measured solely by practical outcomes. A civilization attentive to birdsong may learn that flourishing involves more than production and consumption. It also involves participation in beauty.
Hartshorne's vision also encourages a more compassionate relationship with the more-than-human world. In this way, Hartshorne's philosophical ornithology reaches far beyond ornithology itself. It offers a vision of reality in which enjoyment, beauty, and play are woven into the evolutionary process. Birdsong becomes a reminder that the universe is not merely a machine. It is also a festival of feeling. And a civilization that learns to hear that festival may become wiser, gentler, and more fully alive.