Fr. 26.90

Playing Possum - How Animals Understand Death

English · Paperback / Softback

Will be released 14.04.2026

Description

Read more










How animals conceive of death and dying—and what it can teach us about our own relationships with mortality

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. 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 humor and empathy, Susana Monsó 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. Monsó, 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.


About the author










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

Product details

Authors Susana Monsó
Publisher University Presses
 
Languages English
Product format Paperback / Softback
Release 14.04.2026
 
EAN 9780691260778
ISBN 978-0-691-26077-8
No. of pages 264
Illustrations 18 b/w illus. 2 tables.
Subjects Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology > Zoology

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, Philosophy of Science, Ethics & moral philosophy, Animal behaviour, Ethics and moral philosophy, Ethology and animal behaviour, Sociology: death and dying, Sociology: Death & Dying

Customer reviews

No reviews have been written for this item yet. Write the first review and be helpful to other users when they decide on a purchase.

Write a review

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Write your own review.

For messages to CeDe.ch please use the contact form.

The input fields marked * are obligatory

By submitting this form you agree to our data privacy statement.