The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self - An Intellectual History of Personal Identity

Erscheinungsjahr 2006
ISBN: 978-0-231-13744-7
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 400 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 709 g

This book traces the development of theories of the self and personal identity from the ancient Greeks to the present day. From Plato and Aristotle to Freud and Foucault, Raymond Martin and John Barresi explore the works of a wide range of thinkers and reveal the larger intellectual trends, controversies, and ideas that have revolutionized the way we think about ourselves.

The authors open with ancient Greece, where the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and the materialistic atomists laid the groundwork for future theories. They then discuss the ideas of the church fathers and medieval and Renaissance philosophers, including St. Paul, Philo, Augustine, Aquinas, and Montaigne. In their coverage of the emergence of a new mechanistic conception of nature in the seventeenth century, Martin and Barresi note a shift away from religious and purely philosophical notions of self and personal identity to more scientific and social conceptions, a trend that has continued to the present day. They explore modern philosophy and psychology, including the origins of different traditions within each discipline, and explain both the theoretical relevance of feminism and gender and ethnic studies and also the ways that Derrida and other recent thinkers have challenged the very idea that a unified self or personal identity even exists.

Martin and Barresi cover a number of issues broached by philosophers and psychologists, such as the existence of a fixed and unchanging self and whether the concept of the soul has a use outside of religious contexts. They address the question of whether notions of the soul and the self are still viable in today's world. Together, they reveal the fascinating ways in which great thinkers have grappled with these and other questions and the astounding impact their ideas have had on the development of self-understanding in the west.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Martin, Raymond

Barresi, John

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophische Anthropologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction1. From Myth to Science2. Individualism and Subjectivity3. People of the Book4. Resurrected Self5. The Stream Divides6. Aristotelian Synthesis7. Care of the Soul8. Mechanization of Nature9. Naturalizing the Soul10. Philosophy of Spirit11. Science of Human Nature12. Before the Fall13. Paradise Lost14. Everything That Happened and What It MeansNotesReferencesIndex

Leseproben

Read the >Introduction to The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self

Über Autor(innen)

Raymond Martin is professor and chair of the department of philosophy at Union College. He is the author of several books, including Self-Concern: An Experiential Approach to What Matters in Survival.John Barresi is retired professor of psychology and philosophy at Dalhousie University and the coauthor (with Raymond Martin) of Naturalization of the Soul: Self and Personal Identity in the Eighteenth Century.