Research Catalog

Title

Self : ancient and modern insights about individuality, life, and death / Richard Sorabji.

Author

Sorabji, Richard.

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Supplementary Content

• Contributor biographical information
• Contributor biographical information
• Publisher description
• Publisher description

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 400 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"Over the centuries, the idea of the self has both fascinated and confounded philosophers. From the ancient Greeks, who problematized issues of identity and self-awareness, to Locke and Hume, who popularized minimalist views of the self, to the efforts of postmodernists in our time to de-center the human subject altogether, the idea that there is something called a self has latterly been in steady decline. But for Richard Sorabji, this negation of the self is dispiriting. In Self, he sets out to recover the rich variety of positive accounts of the self from Antiquity right up to the present, while offering his own inspiring view of what precisely the self might be." "Drawing on Eastern religion, classical Antiquity, and Western philosophy, Sorabji proceeds to tackle a number of thematic debates that have preoccupied philosophers over the ages, including the concept of the self, its sameness and mutability, the idea of the resurrection of the body and spirit, and the fear of death. According to Sorabji, the self is not an undetectable soul or ego, but an embodied individual whose existence is plain to see. It is also neither a linguistic creation nor a psychological fiction, but something that owns both a consciousness and a body."--Jacket.

Subject

• Self (Philosophy)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-363) and indexes.

Contents

• List of abbreviations -- Acknowledgments - Introduction -- pt. 1. Existence of self and philosophical development of the idea -- 1. The self : is there such a thing-- 2. The varieties of self and philosophical development of the idea -- pt. 2. Personal identity over time -- 3. Same person in eternal recurrence, resurrection, and teletransportation -- 4. Stoic fusion and modern fission : survival cannot depend on what happens to someone else -- 5. Memory : Locke's return to Epicureans and stoics -- pt. 3. Platonism : impersonal selves, bundles, and differentiation -- 6. Is the true self individual in the Platonist tradition from Plato to Averroes-- 7. Bundles and differentiation of individuals -- pt. 4. Identity and persona in ethics -- 8. Individual persona vs. universalizability -- 9. Plutarch : narrative and a whole life -- 10. Self as practical reason : Epictetus' inviolable self and Aristotle's deliberate choice --
• Existence of self and philosophical development of the idea -- Personal identity over time -- Platonism : impersonal selves, bundles, and differentiation -- Identity and persona in ethics -- Self-awareness -- Ownerless streams of consciousness rejected -- Mortality and loss of self.

Call Number

JFE 06-13275

ISBN

• 0226768252
• 9780226768250
• 9780226768267
• 0226768260
• 9780199266395 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

• 2005038002
• 9780226768250

OCLC

62878379

Author

Sorabji, Richard.

Title

Self : ancient and modern insights about individuality, life, and death / Richard Sorabji.

Imprint

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-363) and indexes.

Connect to:

Table of contents

Table of contents

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

Publisher description

Table of contents only

Other Standard Identifier

9780226768250

Research Call Number

JFE 06-13275

*R-RMRR BD438.5 .S67 2006