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 close to in our daily lives.
Using both philosophical analysis and the latest scientific discoveries, Svendsen argues that an owner's relationship with their pet is as equally valid and insightful as the 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.
Lars Svendsen is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen, Norway. He is the author of many books including A Philosophy of Boredom (2004), Fashion: A Philosophy (2006), A Philosophy of Fear (2008), A Philosophy of Freedom (2014) and A Philosophy of Loneliness (2017), all published by Reaktion Books.
"It is funny how often philosophers have been right about other animals, and how often they have been wrong. In this enlightening book, Lars Svendsen takes us through a history of Western philosophical musings, from Wittgenstein's lion to Descartes' automatons, comparing them with current knowledge."
– Frans de Waal, author of Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
"As knowledge about life human and otherwise grows greater and greater, we need a lucid guide through a thicket of questions that emerge when we try to understand animals, including the ones we are. Lars Svendsen is that guide [...] Clear as always and with a dose of characteristic humour thrown in, Svendsen draws on contributions from all the participant disciplines – philosophy, biology and zoology, for instance, but also cognitive science and even literature – to address the many questions that arise when we take seriously the importance of understanding animals."
– Jeffrey Kosky, author of Arts of Wonder: Enchanting Secularity