Richard Sorabji presents a brilliant exploration of the history of our understanding of the self, which has remained elusive and mysterious throughout the spectacular development of human knowledge of the outside world. He ranges from ancient to contemporary thought, Western and Eastern, to reveal and assess the insights of a remarkable variety of thinkers. He discusses a set of topics which are at the heart of our understanding of ourselves: personal identity; memory; the importance of seeing one's life as a whole; the relation between self, intellect, will, and agency; self-awareness; the stream of consciousness; embodiment; death and survival. He rejects the view, found in various philosophical and religious writings, that the self is an illusion, and develops his own original conception of the self as essential to our ownership of our experience and our apprehension of the world.

About the Author
Richard Sorabji is Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy at King's College London and Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. Besides co-editing The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions, and editing seventy volumes so far of The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, he is the author of Aristotle on Memory; Necessity, Cause and Blame; Time, Creation and the Continuum; Matter, Space and Motion; Animal Minds and Human Morals; and Emotion and Peace of Mind.

Reviews
So rich and complex a work as this can hardly be expected to elicit the complete agreement of any reader, but I am persuaded that it will prove intellectually fecund for all. * Peter Lautner RHIZAI *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199550135
Author Richard Sorabji
Format Paperback
Page Count 414
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 153mm * 23mm