Portrait of a Man with a Dog by Bartolomeo Passerotti (1585)
Some of the values and sentiments of our ‘best friend’: Gratitude, Contentment, Loyalty, Companionship, Friendship, Forgiveness, Love, Compassion, Kindness, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.
Dogs not only have these values and sentiments, but they show them and live them to the full. Just imagine what a life and what a world we would have had if we were a bit more like our dogs!
Dogs, the Original Philosophers
Photo credit: Philosophers' Dogs
‘If a dog could write a book of philosophy, what would it contain?’
‘What makes human existence worth the bother? How can we free ourselves of inner conflict and live with joy?’
‘What would a book of philosophy contain if it were written by a dog? Dogs are natural philosophers, and I am convinced they can answer some important questions for us – about life, what is important in it, and how to live it. Philosophers have done their best to address these questions, with limited success. But dogs answer them effortlessly and decisively. Humans think about these questions, but dogs live them. It is in their lives we find the answers we need…
…’The meaning of life is far from a dog’s only excursion into philosophical waters. If you know how to look, you will find them weighing in on such questions as the nature of consciousness, what it means to be moral, freedom and its scope and limits and the nature of rationality. They do this effortlessly, without understanding that they are weighing in on anything at all, let alone a philosophical dispute. Rather than think about the answers to these questions, they live them, and if there is one thing that animates all their answers it is love: the love of life and action…
Photo credit: Getty Images/ via the Guardian
‘We humans think and we think, and we think some more; we are unnatural philosophers. We devise answers to our questions, and sometimes these satisfy us, but only for a while. Dissatisfaction is always our eventual lot. The stench of doubt pervades our efforts, and it is no coincidence that when philosophy was born, in ancient Athens, it was born in doubt – in Socrates’s claim that he knew nothing. Philosophy has always been concerned with what we can know because, deep down, we suspect we don’t know very much at all.
‘Dogs are natural philosophers. Socrates was only joking when he said this, but he should have taken the idea more seriously. What we know, we know through thinking; dogs in comparison know through living. And in the unbridled happiness of dogs – in their love of life and their utter commitment to their actions – we can find answers to many of the traditional problems of philosophy,...
‘Finding meaning in life is hard for us, but easy for dogs. Meaning in life exists wherever the love of life emanates from a nature that is whole and undivided. Being undivided by reflection, being whole and entire, a dog has only one life to live, whereas we – in whom reflection’s canyon is deepest – have two. For us, there is both the life that we live and the life that we think about, scrutinise, evaluate and judge.
‘A dog will inevitably love its one life more than we love our two lives. Meaning in life is easy for dogs – and hard for us – because meaning is simply the joyful expression of a nature undivided against itself. I have been fortunate enough to spend my life with many dogs. I have loved them all, but, perhaps more importantly, in them I glimpse, obscurely but resonantly, what it is to love life.’- Read the entire article HERE
A must-read book
If a dog could write a book of philosophy, what would it contain?
Photo credit: GrantaBooks on X
‘You have spent part of your life with a dog, you may find certain questions popping, unbidden, into your mind. Is my dog living a fulfilled life? Is my dog a good dog? Does my dog love me? This, however, only scratches the surface of a canine philosophy.
Drawing on his life lived with dogs (two German shepherds, the amiable Hugo and his dark twin Shadow; Brenin, a wolf hybrid, and Tess his wolf dog daughter; and Nina, a German shepherd/malamute mix), on the ideas of philosophers from Socrates to Hume and Sartre, and on the cutting edge psychology of canine cognition, philosopher Mark Rowlands explores the way dogs experience the world to bring us closer to an understanding of ourselves.
While dogs feel unparalleled joy and focus in the moment, humans are burdened by the disquietude of anxiety, doubt and even anguish. Happiness for dogs can be achieved in the daily chase of a squirrel, for humans it is much more elusive. Digging deep into their morality, freedoms, consciousness, intelligence and love of life, Rowlands discovers that dogs have a unique way of existing which amounts to a different philosophical outlook altogether - if they could write such a thing - and that they may have better answers to the meaning of life than we do.’
Read more and buy the book HERE
A selection of readings from our archive:
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Gratitude
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Love
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Living in the Slow Lane
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Ancient Wisdom
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Friendship
World in Chaos and Despair: Rediscovering the art of healing ourselves and all that is around us
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of the Simple Things in Life
The secret to happiness? Contentment!
The Wisdom of Compassion: The path to Peace, Contentment and Well-being
What does it mean to be kind? What is Kindness?
Wouldn’t the world be a better place with a bit more kindness? Harnessing the Economics of Kindness
Kindness to Heal the World- Kindness to Make the World Great Again