Models of the Self

Shaun Gallagher & Jonathan Shear, Editors

Scientist Francis Crick (of the DNA double-helix fame) put forward the Astonishing Hypothesis (Simon & Schuster, 1994) that you yourself—your sense of personal identity—are no more than the behavior of your nerve cells and associated chemicals. In Models of the Self, some two dozen researchers with various backgrounds—science, philosophy, mysticism—discuss the nature of the "self."

Oxford philosopher Galen Strawson provides the opening chapter and a final review of the whole debate. Among the contributors, popular author Mary Midgley makes a typically swashbuckling attack on Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and others who share Crick's "reductionist" views. The most fascinating chapter is by neurologist Jonathan Cole. He reports interviews with blind people (including U.K. Education Minister David Blunkett and the broadcaster Peter White) on the importance of seeing faces for our sense of identity.

"We cannot understand consciousness without tackling the self—and this book tackles it head-on." —Susan Blackmore (author of The Meme Machine, OUP, 1999

"In both its breadth and depth...outstanding testimony to the success of cognitive science in unravelling the conundrum of personhood." —Guy Claxton (author of Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, Fourth Estate, 1997)

· ISBN 0-907845-09-6 · Published June 1999 by Imprint Academic · Paperback · 544 pages · $49.90 ·

· ISBN 0-907845-40-1 · Published June 1999 by Imprint Academic · Hardcover · 544 pages · $49.90 ·

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