The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe Since the Seventeenth Century

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).

Author: Jerrold Seigel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 02/17/2005
Pages: 724
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.49lbs
Size: 8.96h x 6.22w x 1.80d
ISBN: 9780521605540

About the Author
Seigel, Jerrold: - 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).

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