Feline Philosophy

Cats and the Meaning of Life

John Gray

$22.99

Paperback

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English

Penguin
03 November 2021

Philosophy; Analytical philosophy & Logical Positivism; Popular philosophy; Cats as pets

A playful yet profound examination of what cats can teach us about life and how to live it

'When I play with my cat, how do I know she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?' Montaigne

There is no real evidence that humans ever 'domesticated' cats. Rather it seems that at some point cats saw the potential value to themselves of humans. John Gray's wonderful new book is an attempt to get to grips with the philosophical and moral issues around the uniquely strange relationship between ourselves and these remarkable animals.

Feline Philosophy draws on Gray's own wide reading to give fascinating examples of the complex and intimate links that have defined how we react to and behave with this most unlikely 'pet'.

At the heart of the book is a sense of gratitude towards cats as perhaps the species that more than any other - in the essential loneliness of our position in the the world - gives us a sense of our own animal nature.

By: John Gray
Imprint: Penguin
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 7mm
Weight: 100g
ISBN: 9780141988429
ISBN 10: 0141988428
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 03 November 2021
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

John Gray's most recent book is the highly praised Seven Types of Atheism; his other books include Straw Dogs, Black Mass, The Soul of the Marionette and The Silence of Animals. He has kept feline companions for over thirty years.

Reviews for Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life

The intellectual cat's pyjamas ... Gray's is the perfect book for the estranging oddness of the pandemic. -- Tim Adams * The Observer * Why can't a human be more like a cat? That is the question threaded through this vivid patchwork of philosophy, fiction, history and memoir ... Feline Philosophy is a wonderful mixture of flippancy and profundity, astringency and tenderness, wit and lament. -- Jane O'Grady * Daily Telegraph * Engaging, amusing, perceptive and untimely, in the most admirable Nietzschean sense. -- Mark Rowlands * New Statesman * An elegant philosophical study of the good life ... one of the most important thinkers alive ... It's a mark of the book's subtlety that you're not quite sure how seriously to take him. -- James Marriott * The Times * A scratching, spitting, and finally purring tour de force. -- Will Self