Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name - Softcover

Hearne, Vicki

3.74

204 ratings by Goodreads

9780060976347: Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060976349 ISBN 13: 9780060976347

Publisher: Perennial, 1994

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Have you ever watched a horse flick her tail or had a dog greet you at your door and known in your heart that the animal was exhibiting something more than simple instinctual responses? If so, you must read this book. In it Vicki Hearne asserts that animals that interact with humans are more intelligent than we assume. In fact, they are capable of developing an understanding of “the good,” a moral code that influences their motives and actions. Hearne’s thorough studies led her to adopt a new system of animal training that contradicts modern animal behavioral research, but—as her examples show—is astonishingly effective. Hearne’s theories will make every trainer, animal psychologist, and animal-lover stop, think, and question.

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From the Publisher:

From "AUDUBON MAGAZINE," which chose it as one of the thirteen most significant books about nature publishing during the last hundred yers, to Susan Sontag, who hailed it as a "fascinating, incisive work of moral imagination," admirers of "Adam's Task" have praised it is one of our era's most original and brilliant books about language, domestic animals (dogs, cats, horses), and ourselves. Drawing on the discourses of philosophy and animal training, Vicki Hearne makes a case, in boldly anthromorphic terms, for attributing to the creatures we love, train, and play with, the potential for a "moral understanding" of their relationship to us--the potential, in other words, for nobility and dignity. With a new introduction by Donald McCaig.

From the Back Cover:

Adam's Task offers an innovative and metaphysical approach to training animals. Based on studies of literary criticism, philosophy, and extensive hands-on experience in training, Hearne asserts that animals (at least those that commonly cohabitate or interact with humans) are far more intelligent than we assume. In fact, they are capable of developing an understanding of "the good," a moral code that influences their motives and actions. In response to her studies and experiments, Hearne developed an entirely new system of animal training that contradicts modern animal behavioral research and yet, as her examples show, is astonishingly effective.

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