The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century - Hardcover

Seigel, Jerrold

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521844177 ISBN 13: 9780521844178

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Synopsis

What is the self? The question has preoccupied people in many times and places, but nowhere more than in the modern West, where it has spawned debates that still resound today. Jerrold Seigel combines theoretical and contextual approaches to explore the ways key figures have understood whether and how far individuals can achieve coherence and consistency in the face of inner tensions and external pressures. Clarifying that recent "post-modernist" accounts belong firmly to the tradition of Western thinking they have sought to supercede, Seigel provides a persuasive alternative to claims that the modern self is typically egocentric or disengaged. Both a Fulbright Fellow and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Jerrold Seigel is currently William R. Keenan Professor of History at NYU. His previous books include The Private Worlds of Marcel Duchamp (University of California Press, 1995) and Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life (Viking Penguin, 1986).

About this title

Book Description:

Jerrold Seigel here offers a magisterial new account of how major Western European thinkers have confronted the self since the seventeenth century. Combining theoretical and contextural approaches, he explores the ways key figures have understood whether and how far individuals can achieve coherence and consistency in the face of inner tensions and external pressures. He makes clear that recent "post-modernist" accounts belong firmly to the tradition of Western thinking they have sought to supercede, and provides a persuasive alternative to claims that the modern self is typically egocentric or disengaged.

About the Author:

Jerrold Seigel is William J. Kenan, Jr., Professor of History at New York University. His previous books include Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930 (1986) and The Private Worlds of Marcel Duchamp: Desire, Liberation and the Self in Modern Culture (1995).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0521844177
• ISBN 13: 9780521844178
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 736