Just like a novel, a good non-fiction book can change the way you look at the world, even if just a little bit. The best and smartest non-fiction is the stuff that looks at something that seems everyday and normal, then casts a whole new light upon it.
The Happiness of Dogs by Mark Rowlands does just that. The author is a professor of philosophy at the University of Miami and has a large backlist of popular philosophy books under his belt, most famously The Philosopher and the Wolf, his 2009 memoir.
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The key focus of this book is revealed in its subtitle: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living. It blends personal experience with some serious philosophical inquiry, a mix that Rowlands judges perfectly, with frequent chuckles and head-scratching, thought-provoking moments in equal measure.
We start with a mention that Socrates referred to dogs as ‘natural philosophers’, and what Rowlands thinks he might’ve meant by that. The author likes to begin each chapter with a reference to him interacting with his own dogs, most notably his German shepherd Shadow, and how the dog’s behaviour can be explained by its attitude to life.
This is a nice and gentle way into some serious topics such as morality, freedom and anxiety, consciousness and different kinds of intelligences. The author is an expert in the field of theories of the mind in non-human animals, and that shows in his assured and confident tone, but there is a lot of fun to be had in these pages too.
Ultimately Rowlands is trying to see if we can take anything from the way dogs interact with their world and use it to help us humans live and love in a way that is less complicated, less self-destructive and less stress-inducing. A noble cause, and one that he succeeds at with aplomb.
