Feline Philosophy: Cat s and the Meaning of Life
John Gray
Translated to Russian by I. Kushnareva. M.: Gaidar Institute Press, 2023. – 136 p. – (Logos magazine library).
ISBN 978-5-93255-645-0
Montaigne wrote: "When I play with my cat, who knows if she is not more amused by me than I am by her!" We have no evidence that people have ever really "domesticated" cats. Rather, at some point the cats realized that people could be useful to them. In this book, John Gray tries to deal with the philosophical and moral problems of the very strange connections between humans and these wonderful animals. Relying on the centuries–old philosophical heritage – from Montaigne to Schopenhauer – he examines what kind of relationship we have with this most unusual "pet".
The book is based on a deep sense of gratitude to cats as, perhaps, the only species that helps us – in our deep loneliness in the world – to understand our own animal nature.