Why your cat is the best philosopher

A young girl looks out of the classroom window. It’s the end of the day, and she’s bored. She spots a goldfinch land on the ground outside. It hops about and twitches for whatever reasons goldfinches do that, and then takes off. It swoops and dives around the playground, as if doing it all for the girl. Oh, how she would like to fly.

Humans have long looked to the animal kingdom for inspiration. We envy their skills and talents: flight, speed, strength, sociability, and so on. Religions almost always feature animal imagery, and flags will often blazon a lion, an eagle, a wolf — something bold or heroic. And philosophers are in on the game as well.

Even in the earliest historical records, people were exploring the philosophical side of animals. What can this animal teach me? What virtues does it embody? What can I learn about myself by studying this creature?

Joining in an ancient line is John Gray’s book Feline Philosophy. In the book, Gray examines what we can all learn about life from spending more time around cats. His conclusion: We should all be a bit more feline.

Mo the Philosophical Cat

A cat does not do philosophy, and that makes it a better philosopher than anyone else. Gray argues that for humans, philosophy acts as a kind of medicine. We are full of doubt and anxiety about how to live, yes, but most of all we are filled with the existential dread that comes from knowing that we will die.

To combat this, we create systems like religions and ideologies. We try to soothe our death-terror with stories. We become obsessed with “the good life,” “the examined life,” and “time well spent.” We have turned the word “happiness” into a multi-billion-dollar industry, but as a species we are no happier than we ever were. We are sick, craving a cure, but the medicine we have isn’t working.

Cats, though, have no such sickness. Imagine a cat called Mo. Mo does not search for meaning in her life, and she is not trying to become a better cat. She does not experience her life as a project that could fail, and she doesn’t wake up with the imagined burden of a thousand cats’ expectations.

Mo hunts, she sleeps, and she sits in the sunlight. When she suffers, she does not add to her suffering by asking why. She does not need to invent systems or stories because the world is as the world is. Gray’s point is not that Mo is wise; Mo wouldn’t write books even if she could. The point is that Mo is not sick. Humans are.

Be more cat

Gray starts his book by saying that we cannot become a cat. We can try to transfigure if we want, but you’re mostly running up against the immovable wall of cellular biology. Still, we can mimic a cat. We can do more cat things and try to see things like a cat. Gray leans on a point that Blaise Pascal makes about ritual and religion: If you do something enough, it changes you. If you force your mind a certain way, it stays like that.

As the philosopher Mark Vorobej pointed out, it’s not entirely clear why Gray has singled out cats. What’s true here of cats is true of dogs, birds, rats, squirrels, moles, badgers, or mongooses. Should we be more mongoose? It’s a fair critique, but it is somewhat pedantic. I’m sure Gray is not some feline exceptionalist. I take his book to be a lesson in intentionality. We can try to become more like a cat, rat, or badger, and I think he chose cats because they’re both cute and far more present in our lives. We see cats at home or on social media. All over social media. It’s just much easier to talk about something so available. Yes, he could have chosen dogs, but hey — take your pick.

So, how can we be more cat? Well, we need to distance ourselves from this sick and broken human way of seeing things. Stop seeing your lives in terms of some huge, overarching metanarrative. Don’t try to find meaning in your suffering. Stop seeing the world in terms of puzzles to solve. Don’t try to persuade other people to be more reasonable. Recognize that you are who you are, and it is what it is. Sometimes life just happens. So climb trees, play with a ball, sleep a lot more, and lie by the fire when things get cold and dark. Cherish life and think only as much as you want.

This article is featured on Big Think.