Books

We follow mammal's search for meaning, as Mark Vorobej savages John Gray's book of impractical cat philosophy, while B.V.E. Hyde ponders the point of Jordan Peterson. In Classics, Hilarius Bogbinder reviews Plato's Republic.

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WHAT CAN WE LEARN from cats about how we should live our lives? Quite a lot, apparently, if we follow the inspiring lead of John Gray in his highly original study, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life (2020).

Humans, according to Gray, are inherently anxious and miserable creatures who are often driven mad by nearly constant despair and an unconquerable fear of death (pp.93-95). As reflexively self-conscious and therefore conflicted and 'self-divided' souls (p.35), unhappiness is our natural state and, to quote Blaise Pascal, ultimately "nothing can console us." Because we see the world as 'a threatening and strange place', we analyze, interpret, and worry about absolutely everything around us. Rational reflection only makes matters worse. Cats, on the other hand, are alien life forms who are profoundly "other than us in the deepest levels of their being" (p.26). They are naturally happy and content. Possessing "an innate understanding of how to live" (p.7), they simply do what comes comes naturally, and want for nothing beyond the unexamined and largely instinctive life that nature has bestowed on them. Oblivious to the passage of time, they are free of inner anguish. For example, they do not agonize over decisions, either past, present or future, since they do not miss the lives they have not led. Accordingly, the joyful and tranquil feline mind is 'one and undivided' (p.6), and is not in any danger of being wracked by feelings of guilt, regret, doubt, despair, or dissatisfaction. Most significantly, "cats are not ruled by [the fear of] death" (p.104). In a phrase, cats have "no need of philosophy" (p.3). They flourish perfectly well without it.

Cats'n'Rats'n'Bats