Have you ever thought about what your dog is thinking about at any given moment? Is it thinking about philosophy, the meaning of life, what that treat really signifies? Perhaps it’s something deeper and beyond our comprehension. Today’s guest on Getting Work To Work is the author of a new book, The Word of Dog: What Our Canine Companions Can Teach Us About Living a Good Life, that explores what we can learn about our own lives by examining the lives of our best friends. Mark Rowlands is a philosopher, professor, and chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Miami. He’s also a prolific author, writing extensively about philosophy, animals, science fiction films, climate, memory, animal rights, and body language. In our conversation, we talk about his creative process and when the best ideas show up, the role memory plays in coming up with creative connections, and what he’s learned about life from dogs.

• The Word of Dog: What Our Canine Companions Can Teach Us About Living a Good Life by Mark Rowlands
  
  
• The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness by Mark Rowlands
  
  
• The Philosopher at the End of the Universe: Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films by Mark Rowlands
  
  
• Mark Rowlands
  
  
• John Rawls
  
  
• The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke
  
  
• Marcel Proust
  
  
• Ulric Neisser
  
  
• Sisyphus
  
  
• Thomas Nagel
  
  
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  
  
• Tantalus
  
  
• Alan Turing
  
  
• The Zero Theorem (2013)
  
  
• The Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  
  
• The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
  
  
• Midjourney prompt for episode art: the meaning of life abstract surrealism monochromatic –ar 16:9