Explores the topic of self in an interdisciplinary way, drawing on philosophy, psychology, and sociology

Addresses questions of wide general interest as well as introducing academic approaches

The work points to a new picture of the self as an engaged, multi-dimensional being

'Know thyself' is said to have been one of the maxims carved into the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. On the face of it, this does not seem like a very difficult task. My self is with me at every moment of every day, I have access to its inner thoughts and feelings, and I am hardly liable to mistake someone else for me. At the same time, however, the self is surprisingly elusive and opaque. What, after all, is a self? Is it some kind of object? If so, what kind? If not an object, what then? Is our sense of self ultimately illusory? Something that disappears when studied too closely? Our understanding of the self is replete with puzzles and paradoxes: I cannot be anyone but who I am, and yet everyone will acknowledge that there are circumstances in which being oneself is an extremely difficult task. If I change enough, I can be said to have become a different person. I cannot get away from myself, and yet I can find and lose myself.

Table of Contents

1:What is the Self? Metaphysics
2:Becoming Someone Else
3:Being Who You Are
4:Waxing and Waning Selves
5:Divided and Distressed Selves
6:Embodied, Social Selves

Marya Schechtman is a professor of philosophy and member of the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1988. Her work focuses on the philosophy of personal identity, particularly on the relation between metaphysical, ethical, and phenomenological approaches to this topic. She also has interests in the philosophy of memory and bioethics and has published numerous articles on these topics. She is the author of The Constitution of Selves (1996) and Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (OUP, 2014).