Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
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Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche, the Western tradition has been based on the belief that humans are radically different from other animals. Straw Dogs is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned. Taking inspiration from art, poetry, the frontiers of science, and philosophy itself, John Gray argues that the belief in human difference is an illusion and offers instead a posthumanist view of the world.
John Gray upholds Schopenhauer as one of the few philosophers who has dedicated himself to studying Eastern philosophy as well as Western philosophy. The book argues against free will, and states that humans have much more in common with animals than is commonly admitted in the West. Schopenhauer is praised for his attitude towards animals, and for having addressed the brutality of much of human life.
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