Feline Philosophy
Published in 2020, the book's subtitle is “Cats and the Meaning of Life”.
The author and former Oxford professor, John Gray, uses the behavior of cats as a lens through which to evaluate major schools of philosophy. Cats, of course, do not have or need a philosophy, which – one could argue – is a philosophy in itself.
In any case, the book is short and entertaining. What is most entertaining are the stories about cats:
- Mèo, in Jack Laurence's memoir of Michel de Montaigne
- Saha, in Sindonie-Gabrielle Colette's 1933 novel, The Cat
- Ming, in Patricia Highsmith's story, 'Ming's Biggest Prey'
- Lily, in Junichiro Tanizaki's novel, A Cat, a Man and Two Women
- Gattino, in Mary Gaitskill's essay, 'Lost Cat'
- Muri, in Russian religious philosopher Nicolos Berdyaev's autobiography
I was very pleased to see Gray's reference to one of the books that deeply moved me when I was young: The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. (Cats don't need to read that book, but I sure did!)
I think the best summary of the book is the first rule of the section titled “Ten feline hints on how to live well”:
- Never try to persuade human beings to be reasonable.
Trying to persuade human beings to be rational is like trying to teach cats to be vegans. Human beings use reason to bolster whatever they want to believe, seldom to find out if what they believe is true.
So true!
#100daystooffload Day 22.