Love and Selfhood: Self-Understanding Through Philosophy and Cognitive Neuroscience

After years of neurohype and a neuroskeptic backlash, this book provides a systematic analysis of the contributions to self-understanding cognitive neuroscience (CNS) and philosophy can make.

The stories of five people in search of self-understanding serve as touchstone throughout the book. Their identities are tied up with what they love. The book provides in-depth analyses of CNS of love and CNS of self-reflection. It critically discusses philosophers who focus on the relation between love, self-understanding and selfhood, such as Harry Frankfurt, Susan Wolf, Charles Taylor and S ren Kierkegaard. It also builds an argument about CNS' contributions to self-understanding more broadly, and how different these are from philosophy's contributions.

The book develops conceptual review as a philosophical method for improving the validity and comparability of CNS studies. It integrates CNS insights into its philosophical view on love and selfhood where applicable. This book thus argues and exemplifies that philosophy and CNS can work together.

Author: Annemarie Van Stee
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 07/28/2023
Pages: 234
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.67lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.83w x 0.53d
ISBN: 9783031068034

About the Author

Annemarie van Stee is lecturer in philosophy at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.