Download or read book The Philosopher s Dog written by Raimond Gaita and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this beautifully written book Raimond Gaita tells inspirational, poignant, sometimes funny but never sentimental stories of the dogs, cats and cockatoos that lived and died within his own family. He asks fascinating questions about animals: Is it wrong to attribute the concepts of love, devotion, loyalty, grief or friendship to them? Why do we care so much for some creatures but not for others? Why are we so concerned with proving that animals have minds? Reflecting on these questions, and drawing on the ideas of Descartes, Wittgenstein and J.M. Coetzee, Gaita pleads that we ask ourselves what it means to be creatures of ‘flesh and blood.’ He discusses mortality and sexuality, the relations between storytelling, philosophy and science and the spiritual love of mountains. An arresting and profound book, The Philosopher’s Dog is a triumph of both storytelling and philosophy. This Routledge Classics edition includes a substantial new introduction and afterword by the author.
Download or read book What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Dog written by Steven D. Hales and published by Open Court. This book was released on 2011-08-31 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do dogs live in the same world as humans? Is it wrong to think dogs have personalities and emotions? What are dogs thinking and what’s the nature of canine wisdom? This is a book for thoughtful dog-lovers who want to explore the deeper issues raised by dogs and their relationships with humans. Twenty philosophers and dog-lovers reveal their experiences with dogs and give their insights on dog-related themes of metaphysics and ethics.
Download or read book How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog written by Anthony McGowan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because man’s best friend deserves to know the secrets of how to live a good life, too. Monty was just like any other dog. A scruffy and irascible Maltese terrier, he enjoyed barking at pugs and sniffing at trees. But after yet another dramatic confrontation with the local Rottweiler, Anthony McGowan realizes it’s high time he and Monty had a chat about what makes him a good or a bad dog. Taking his lead from Monty’s canine antics, McGowan takes us on a hilarious and enlightening jaunt through the major debates of philosophy. Will Kant convince Monty to stop stealing cheesecake? How long will they put up with Socrates poking holes in every argument? In this uniquely entertaining take on morality and ethics, the dutiful duo set out to uncover who—if anyone—has the right end of the ethical stick and can tell us how best to live one’s life.
Download or read book Dogs written by Mark Alizart and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Man’s best friend, domesticated since prehistoric times, a travelling companion for explorers and artists, thinkers and walkers, equally happy curled up by the fire and bounding through the great outdoors—dogs matter to us because we love them. But is that all there is to the canine’s good-natured voracity and affectionate dependency? Mark Alizart dispenses with the well-worn clichés concerning dogs and their masters, seeing them not as submissive pets but rather as unexpected life coaches, ready to teach us the elusive recipes for contentment and joy. Dogs have faced their fate in life with a certain detachment that is not easy to understand. Unlike other animals in a similar situation, they have not become hardened, nor have they let themselves die a little inside. On the contrary, they seem to have softened. This book is devoted to understanding this miracle, the miracle of the joy of dogs – to understanding it and, if at all possible, to learning how it’s done. Weaving elegantly and eruditely between historical myth and pop-culture anecdote, between the peculiar views of philosophers and the even more bizarre findings of science, Alizart offers us a surprising new portrait of the dog as thinker—a thinker who may perhaps know the true secret of our humanity.
Download or read book Understanding Animals written by Lars Svendsen and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do animals perceive the world? What does it really feel like to be a cat or a dog? In Understanding Animals, Lars Svendsen investigates how humans can attempt to understand the lives of other animals. The book delves into animal communication, intelligence, self-awareness, loneliness, and grief, but most fundamentally how humans and animals can cohabit and build a form of friendship. Svendsen provides examples from many different animal species—from chimpanzees to octopus—but his main focus is on cats and dogs: the animals that many of us are closest to in our daily lives. Drawing upon both philosophical analysis and the latest scientific discoveries, Svendsen argues that the knowledge we glean from our relationships with our pets is as valid and insightful as any scientific study of human-animal relations. With this entertaining and thought-provoking book, animal lovers and pet owners will gain a deeper understanding of what it is like to be an animal—and in turn, a human.
Download or read book Philosophy Dog written by Breon O'Farrell and published by Universe Publishing(NY). This book was released on 2001 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever wonder what makes your furry four-legged pooch sit when you say "Come?" Or has "Little Rover" ever used your expensive shoes for chew toys? "When you improve your leadership skills as a dog owner, you can create one of life's most rewarding experiences: being best friends with a good dog," writes veteran dog trainer Breon O'Farrell in this lushly photographed book chock-full of wit and wisdom. Mixed with charm, experience, and anecdotal stories, "Philosophy Dog is a beautiful gift book for new dog owners and long-time dog enthusiasts alike. O'Farrell's enthusiasm for harmonious bonding with your dog is contagious. Sixty of the world's leading fashion photographers, who subscribe to his wisdom, have contributed images of their furry best friends for this extraordinary collection. Contributing Photographers: Bruce Weber, Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier, Herb Ritts, Ellen Von Unwerth, Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Mark, and many others have joined O'Farrell in creating whathe calls "the most beautiful, useful dog book."
Download or read book Can Animals Be Moral written by Mark Rowlands and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can animals act morally? Philosophical tradition answers "no," and has apparently convincing arguments on its side. Cognitive ethology supplies a growing body of empirical evidence that suggests these arguments are wrong. This groundbreaking book assimilates both philosophical and ethological frameworks into a unified whole and argues for a qualified "yes."
Download or read book Kant s Dog written by David E. Johnson and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kant's Dog provides fresh insight into Borges's preoccupation with the contradiction of the time that passes and the identity that endures. By developing the implicit logic of the Borgesian archive, which is most often figured as the universal demand for and necessary impossibility of translation, Kant's Dog is able to spell out Borges's responses to the philosophical problems that most concerned him, those of the constitution of time, eternity, and identity; the determination of original and copy; the legitimacy of authority; experience; the nature of language and the possibility of a decision; and the name of God. Kant's Dog offers original interpretations of several of Borges's best known and most important stories and of the works of key figures in the history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Saint Paul, Maimonides, Hume, Locke, Kant, Heidegger, and Derrida. This study outlines Borges's curious relationship to literature and philosophy and, through a reconsideration of the relation between necessity and accident, opens the question of the constitution of philosophy and literature. The afterword develops the logic of translation toward the secret at the heart of every culture in order to posit a Borgesian challenge to anthropology and cultural studies.
Download or read book Machado De Assis s Philosopher or Dog written by Suriani da Silva and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) published five of his nine novels as feuilletons in daily newspapers or fortnightly women's magazines. How were the structure and themes of those novels entangled with this serial-publication form? In da Silva's important new study, textual scholarship, critical theory and the history of the book are combined in order to trace this relationship. The most important case study is an extended consideration of Philosopher or Dog? (1891), the novel after which he abandoned the feuilleton. Through a comparison of the serial and book versions of Philosopher or Dog? and a thorough study of the periodical in which it appeared, the international women's magazine The Season , da Silva analyses the changes which the genre novel was undergoing at the end of the nineteenth century: the decline of the serial, and the standardisation of female press. Ana Claudia Suriani da Silva is Tutor of Portuguese at the University of Birmingham and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Download or read book What s a Dog For written by John Homans and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As dogs take their place as coddled family members and their numbers balloon to over 77 million in the United States alone, it’s no surprise that canine culture is undergoing a massive transformation. Now subject to many of the same questions of rights and ethics as people, the politics of dogs are more tumultuous and public than ever—with fierce moral battles raging over kill shelters, puppy mills, and breed standards. Incorporating interviews and research from scientists, activists, breeders, and trainers, What’s a Dog For? investigates how dogs have reached this exalted status, and why they hold such fascination for us humans.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Animal Minds written by Robert W. Lurz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a collection of fourteen essays by leading philosophers on issues concerning the nature, existence, and our knowledge of animal minds. The nature of animal minds has been a topic of interest to philosophers since the origins of philosophy, and recent years have seen significant philosophical engagement with the subject. However, there is no volume that represents the current state of play in this important and growing field. The purpose of this volume is to highlight the state of the debate. The issues which are covered include whether and to what degree animals think in a language or in iconic structures, possess concepts, are conscious, self-aware, metacognize, attribute states of mind to others, and have emotions, as well as issues pertaining to our knowledge of and the scientific standards for attributing mental states to animals.
Download or read book Inside of a Dog written by Alexandra Horowitz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-18 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an unabashed dog lover, Alexandra Horowitz is naturally curious about what her dog thinks and what she knows. As a cognitive scientist she is intent on understanding the minds of animals who cannot say what they know or feel. This is a fresh look at the world of dogs -- from the dog's point of view. The book introduces the reader to the science of the dog -- their perceptual and cognitive Abilities -- and uses that introduction to draw a picture of what it might be like to bea dog. It answers questions no other dog book can -- such as: What is a dog's sense of time? Does she miss me? Want friends? Know when she's been bad? Horowitz's journey, and the insights she uncovered from studying her own dog, Pumpernickel, allowed her to understand her dog better, and appreciate her more through that understanding. The reader will be able to do the same with their own dog. This is not another dog training book. Instead, Inside of a Dogwill allow dog owners to look at their pets' behaviour in a different, and revealing light, enabling them to understand their dogs and enjoy their relationship even more.
Download or read book Dog Sense written by John Bradshaw and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dogs have been mankind's faithful companions for tens of thousands of years, yet today they are regularly treated as either pack-following wolves or furry humans. The truth is, dogs are neither -- and our misunderstanding has put them in serious crisis. What dogs really need is a spokesperson, someone who will assert their specific needs. Renowned anthrozoologist Dr. John Bradshaw has made a career of studying human-animal interactions, and in Dog Sense he uses the latest scientific research to show how humans can live in harmony with -- not just dominion over -- their four-legged friends. From explaining why positive reinforcement is a more effective (and less damaging) way to control dogs' behavior than punishment to demonstrating the importance of weighing a dog's unique personality against stereotypes about its breed, Bradshaw offers extraordinary insight into the question of how we really ought to treat our dogs.
Download or read book Clifford the Champion written by Norman Bridwell and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who will be America's Super Dog? Clifford has entered a contest to become America's Super Dog! But he is competing against Champ. Champ does everything perfectly. He runs fast, jumps high, and is good at catching Frisbees®. Champ may be a winner, but Clifford will prove he has good sportsmanship and a winning spirit!
Download or read book Feline Philosophy written by John Gray and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to cats—and what they reveal about humans' torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats--the animal that has most captured our imagination--than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne's house cat, whose un-examined life may have been the one worth living; Meo, the Vietnam War survivor with an unshakable capacity for "fearless joy"; and Colette's Saha, the feline heroine of her subversive short story "The Cat", a parable about the pitfalls of human jealousy. Exploring the nature of cats, and what we can learn from it, Gray offers a profound, thought-provoking meditation on the follies of human exceptionalism and our fundamentally vulnerable and lonely condition. He charts a path toward a life without illusions and delusions, revealing how we can endure both crisis and transformation, and adapt to a changed scene, as cats have always done.
Download or read book Animal Rights and Wrongs written by Roger Scruton and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this acclaimed book, Scruton takes the issues relating to vivisection, hunting, animal testing and BSE and places them in a wider framework of thought and feeling. Now available in paperback
Download or read book The Philosopher and the Wolf written by Mark Rowlands and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The charming and poignant story of the relationship between a philosophy professor and his pet wolf. Mark Rowlands was a young philosophy professor, rootless and searching for life’s greater meaning. Shortly after arriving at the University of Alabama, he noticed a classified ad in the local paper advertising wolf cubs for sale and decided he had to investigate, if only out of curiosity. It was love at first sight, and the bond that grew between philosopher and wolf reaffirms for us the incredible relationships that exist between man and animal. Mark welcomed his new companion, Brenin, into his home. More than just an exotic pet, Brenin exerted an immense influence on Rowlands both as a person, and, strangely enough, as a philosopher, leading him to reevaluate his attitude toward love, happiness, nature, death, and the true meaning of companionship.
