This unusual philosophy book asks the reader to reconsider the received view that animal rights have no place in ancient thought. Catherine Osborne argues that by reflecting on the work of the ancient philosophers and poets, we can see when and how we lost touch with the natural intelligence of dumb animals.

• Part One: Constructing Divisions


• 1: Introduction: on William Blake, nature and mortality


• 2: On nature and providence: readings in Herodotus, Protagoras and Democritus


• Part Two: Perceiving Continuities


• 3: On the transmigration of souls: reincarnation into animal bodies in Pythagoras, Empedocles and Plato


• 4: On language, concepts and automata: rational and irrational animals in Aristotle and Descartes


• 5: On the disadvantages of being a complex organism: Aristotle and the scala naturae


• Part Three: Being Realistic


• 6: On the vice of sentimentality: Androcles and the Lion and some extraordinary adventures in the Desert Fathers


• 7: On the notion of natural rights: defending the voiceless and oppressed in the Tragedies of Sophocles


• 8: On self-defence and utilitarian calculations: Democritus of Abdera and Hermarchus of Mytilene


• 9: On eating animals: Porphyry's dietary rules for philosophers


• Conclusion