The Philosopher's Dog

Routledge (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

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.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Good and evil: an absolute conception.Raimond Gaita - 1991 - New York: St. Martin's Press.
A common humanity: Thinking about love and truth and justice.Tony Lynch - 2001 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4):572 – 574.
Defending Gaita’s Example of Saintly Behaviour.Elizabeth Drummond Young - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2):191 - 202.
Gaita's Moral Philosophy and the Rational Soul.Stephen Buckle - 2013 - Philosophical Investigations 36 (4):285-302.
The Role of Love in Animal Ethics.Anca Gheaus - 2012 - Hypatia 27 (3):583-600.
A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice.Tony Lynch - 2001 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4):572-574.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-03-04

Downloads
0

6 months
0

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

Morgan’s Quaker gun and the species of belief.Devin Sanchez Curry - 2023 - Philosophical Perspectives 37 (1):119-144.
Deletion as second death: the moral status of digital remains.Patrick Stokes - 2015 - Ethics and Information Technology 17 (4):237-248.
Moral Considerability and the Argument from Relevance.Oscar Horta - 2018 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (3):369-388.

View all 15 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references