Playing with Dogs: Toward Interspecies Hermeneutics

In Truth and Method, Hans-Georg Gadamer argues that to have language is to have a world. While nonhuman animals can and do communicate, they do not understand and give shape to their environment through that communication in the way that humans do with language. Against Gadamer, I argue that humans and nonhumans similarly create meaning through play, thus giving shape to their worlds. Drawing on the works of Donna Haraway, I argue that interspecies play is a mode of creative meaning making, conversation, and understanding. By examining dog and human play, we can glean a more robust sense of what it is to be human. Finally, looking to dog play through a hermeneutic lens shows how we can develop a sense of what it is for a dog to be a dog without falling into dogmatic scientism and to develop an account of interspecies hermeneutics.