The Self: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

This VSI is a multidisciplinary approach to central questions about the nature and existence of the self. It engages millennia-old questions about the self as well as modern research to produce new perspectives on both academic questions about the self and the more immediate practical, everyday puzzles about the self that concern us all.

Marya Schechtman, Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois

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).