Playing Possum

How Animals Understand Death

Susana Monsó

$49.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Princeton University Pres
01 February 2025

Ethics & moral philosophy; Sociology: death & dying; Mathematics & Sciences; Philosophy of science; Animal behaviour

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralysed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom.

With humour and empathy, Susana Mons tells the stories of ants who attend their own funerals, chimpanzees who clean the teeth of their dead, dogs who snack on their caregivers, crows who avoid the places where they saw a carcass, elephants obsessed with collecting ivory, and whales who carry their dead for weeks. Mons, one of today's leading experts on animal cognition and ethics, shows how there are more ways to conceive of mortality than the human way, and challenges the notion that the only emotional reactions to death worthy of our attention are ones that resemble our own.

Blending philosophical insight with new evidence from behavioral science and comparative psychology, Playing Possum dispels the anthropocentric biases that cloud our understanding of the natural world, and reveals that, when it comes to death and dying, we are just another animal.

'Mons upends our anthropocentric views of death and makes the case that other species possess the cognitive requirements to understand death and mortality.'

Francisco J. Rivera Rosario, The Transmitter

By: Susana Monsó
Imprint: Princeton University Pres
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780691260761
ISBN 10: 0691260761
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 01 February 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Susana Mons is associate professor of philosophy in the Department of Logic, History, and Philosophy of Science at the National Distance Education University (UNED) in Madrid.

Reviews for Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death

""This riveting book—often surprisingly uplifting, sometimes even funny—will enhance and expand our understanding of how other minds may apprehend one of life’s greatest mysteries.""---Sy Montgomery, The American Scholar ""Illuminating.""---Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution ""Monsó upends our anthropocentric views of death and makes the case that other species possess the cognitive requirements to understand death and mortality.""---Francisco J. Rivera Rosario, The Transmitter