Hope, Argos, and Donna

The Tangier smoke cat catches a piece of meat in his front paws like a monkey…my little monkey beast. The white cat rubs his way towards me, tentative, hoping.

William S. Borroughs, The Cat Inside (93).

I used to live in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and commute to work to Aachen (Germany), where I would stay for a couple of days, leaving on Mondays at dawn and coming back on Tuesdays in the very late evening. When I would arrive home, not only I rejoiced in seeing my partner again, but I also hoped that our two cats (see this post’s cover image) would show affection in seeing me again. Most times, however, that was not the case: our boy, Frank (on the right), would simply vibe on the couch—as he so often has done, on the many couches we had; while his sister, Donna (on the left), would give me a mild side-eye, or outright walk away. To someone who does not know cats (and to some who do), the message seemed clear: whether I am there or not, to her, does not make a big difference. And yet, as every Wednesday early in the morning the garbage would be collected, I would always bring out our garbage on the very Tuesday nights I would return from work. I would get out of the apartment to leave the garbage bags outside, for less than a minute. And as soon as I’d be back inside, Donna would stand in front of the entrance door, sitting upright, eyes wide open, and would let out a meow so high-pitched it was close to a screech. That message was clear: “How dare you leave again?!”

While the history of Western philosophy has often made a strong distinction between human beings and other animals, due to the alleged higher intelligence of the former, the last decades have seen that statement all the less obvious. On the one hand, philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre have thoroughly explored the ways human and animal behavior, needs and social relationships are much closer than classical philosophers might have thought. On the other hand, there has been growing appreciation for how different animals may not be less intelligent than human beings, but rather possess minds so different from our own that we cannot fathom them. Thomas Nagel reflected on such a challenge in his What Is It Like to Be a Bat, and much work on the octopus’s mind points in a similar direction. I would like to reflect, here, on whether cats can experience the feeling that we would call hope; and what my cats taught me about what hope can do for us.

Donna and I. Picture taken by the author.

Hope as a specific mental state has been discussed quite in depth within analytic philosophy, and has often been considered to be a relatively sophisticated mental state. Philosophers R.S. Dawnie and P.J. Day—and, to some extent, even Descartes—define hope as some combination of a desire, or wish, for something to be the case, and a belief for some probable state of affairs to be true. Other philosophers have added some additional requirements for hope to be formally or functionally distinguishable from, e.g., despair—such as a practical reason to hope, cognitive resolve, or some mental imaging of what the wished upon future is. A few authors propose that hope is not reducible to some combination of desire and belief, but rather a “primitive” mental state with its own functional profile. With very little exception, it is apparent that hoping seems to be a mental state that requires quite complex cognitive capacities, and the question of whether animals can hope would intuitively receive a negative answer. There is one example, in ancient literature, that would imply the opposite. 

In The Odyssey, just as Ulysses is entering his home—in disguise, planning to kill the sycophantic suitors who are courting his wife—he meets Argos: his dog. The poor creature has been left home when Ulysses went to Troy, twenty years prior. He has been neglected by everyone, is lying in manure, riddled with parasites, only waiting for Ulysses to return home. The king’s heart is broken, but he cannot show his true feelings, lest his disguise be foiled, and all he can do is shed one single tear. But Argos sniffs the man, recognizes him, and weakly wiggles his tail; and knowing that Ulysses has returned, he lies down and dies, at peace. This iconic episode of The Odyssey, called back to in even sadder fashion by the TV show Futurama, can not only be seen as a representation of loyalty, a trait often associated with dogs, but potentially hope. Despite the twenty years passing by with no sign of Ulysses’ return, Argos waited for him—despite all of the signs against it, Argos expected Ulysses to return. It is debatable whether Argos’ incapacity to rationally formulate beliefs led to this irrational behavior, being merely groundless expectation rather than hope; or whether this unreasoned, borderline foolish expectation in the face of contrary evidence is exactly what hope consists in, and what philosophers such as the Stoics have criticized it for.

And what about cats? If dogs can often be seen as being creatures loyal to the point of blind faith, cats may be seen to claim independence above all, bordering on utter selfishness. Especially when compared to dogs, cats can appear aloof, detached, or even uncaring; however, quite more nuance is needed for a fairer picture. Dogs were integrated within human settlements and bred over the course of generations so as to fulfill diverse kinds of activities—hunting, scavenging, guarding. But cats, as John Bradshaw points out, do not appear to have significantly changed over the course of millennia when it comes to their genetic makeup or their general behavioral patterns. They found themselves liked, or even revered, by human beings, and they were content with co-habiting, having a regular source of food and shelter, and being allowed to live as they pleased. An adaptive creature who, as all creatures, seeks comfort beyond survival, and would be ready to live in the wild if it weren’t for the opportunity humans gave them. Would such a creature even need to hope?

And yet, in spite of this picture, I cannot help thinking of Donna yelling at me when I would leave the house to throw the garbage, just after returning from Aachen. I cannot help thinking of Frank sitting on my lap, paws up and purring, when I relax on the couch; nor of Donna, who, after crossing her gaze for sometimes a few seconds, jumps off wherever she is sitting to request to be picked up and cuddled. While more reserved and more ambiguous than dogs’, I cannot doubt that cats do feel love for the humans who care for them. Would not such a relationship be something that makes cats content, if not outright happy? After all, as both Augustine and Kant argued, to hope—however (ir)rationally motivated—is always aimed at a state of affairs that would make us more content or more happy. And if Donna is happier when I am there to cuddle, and she waits at the door while I am not there, expecting—or demanding, even—my return, is that not a form of hoping? A longing for happiness, even if what Donna is feeling is not, formally, a wish?

Recently (and thanks to my partner, as it was a gift from her) I came across John Gray’s book called Feline Philosophy, where the author reflected on what philosophical and ethical lessons we can learn from our feline companions. There was, however, one passage that truly struck me, and that I report in its entirety, where he contrasts the unnecessary complexity of human love—derived from our complex society, our complex relationships, our complex minds—to the simplicity of feline love:

“In love, more than anywhere else, human beings are ruled by self-deception. When cats love, on the other hand, it is not in order to fool themselves. Cats may be egoists but they do not suffer from vanity—not in regards to humans, at any rate. What they want from humans is a place where they can return to their normal state of contentment. If a human being gives them such a place, they may come to love them” (75).

Gray’s claim recontextualized not just my own relationships with my cats, but the meaning of hoping. Some philosophers, such as Seneca, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, or Camus criticize hope as vicious: an attitude that takes our minds away from the world in front of us, and the challenges we need to overcome to become realized and happy. The potential viciousness of hope lies in the risk of cushioning us from reality, to impede our capacity to actually address its challenges, to change, and grow—something that Nietzsche’s criticism of hope in the afterlife, typical of many religions, clearly shows. But what the cat hopes is not something away from their world. 

When Donna, as I believe, hopes that I (or my partner) come back home, it is to realize their contentment. The way cats (and perhaps even dogs) hope is not a diversion from unhappiness or distress, but a longing for contentment. They can wait for their human to be back because that relationship, and the place where that relationship unfolds, makes them content and gives them happiness. Maybe the hope cats feel, exactly as a simple or “primitive” mental state, is not for filling in their own incompleteness, but to enrich their already defined, independent selves. While battered and uncared for, Argos could maintain his dignity despite Ulysses’ absence, because recognizing himself as Ulysses’ dog, and waiting for Ulysses to come home, is an affirmation of Argos’ very self. Ulysses’ return would not enrich or diminish his status, but only enrich Argos’ life and, for a brief moment, it did. Donna’s apparent lack of care upon my return, and following (enraged?) demand for me to stay, expresses her identity as a creature who can be content with what she can find, living with her brother and vibing—but who loves me not because she needs me, but because she wants me to be around, as I can make her world richer. And what I think I have learned from my cats is that hope can be good not as an expression of something we need or have lost, but as a longing for something, or someone, that can make our world richer.