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).

• Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
• Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy
• Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History
• A Secular Age
• Primary Readings in Philosophy for Understanding Theology
• An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy
• Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity
• Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition
• The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity
• Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man