Straw Dogs is a philosophical work that sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche, Western tradition is founded on arrogant and mistaken beliefs about human beings and their place in the world.
Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism view humanity as a species destined to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. Even today, despite Darwin’s discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals. John Gray argues that this humanist belief is nothing more than an illusion. The aim of Straw Dogs is to explore what the world and human life would look like once humanism is finally abandoned.
Straw Dogs explores philosophical issues such as the nature of the self, free will, morality, progress, and the value of truth. Drawing inspiration from art, poetry, and the boundaries of science and philosophy itself, John Gray presents a post-humanist view of the world and human life. Straw Dogs is an exhilarating, sometimes unsettling book that leads readers to question their deepest beliefs.