Customer Reviews

The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Love the topic but am disappointed by this book for three reasons. First, the territory covered is pretty elementary, summarizing material that most well-read people already know. Second, rather than engaging the variety of issues relevant to understanding the self, this book focuses primarily on the narrower issues of the unity and continuity of the self; that is fine, but the book's promo material does not make that narrower scope clear, so it's a bit misleading. Third, what starts out looking like an even-handed review of the history of the self turns out in the end to be a heavy-handed, ideologically scientistic and materialist slam on Christianity. In the end what we learn about the human self is less about "everything that happened and what it means" (what the authors propose at the start) and more about the authors' personal "vantage point," which turns out to be a rehash of the old, misguided science-religion conflict frame asserting how "religious dogma can retard scientific understanding" with "Christianity [being] primarily responsible, with its dogma," that has the effect of imposing a "vicelike grip," casting "a shadow" over science and philosophy, etc. ad nauseum. The authors' philosophy of science seems stuck in the 1930s, blissfully unaware of the controversial nature of their reductionistic, materialist metaphysic and anthropology. As if the only alternative was Cartesian dualism. Or as if Lacan, Foucault, and Derrida deserve to be taken as self-evident gospel. One expects more and better in 2007 from educated scholars. One might expect, for instance, attention to the nature of (seemingly immaterial) mind and consciousness as related to the argument, the very thing that makes the writing and reading of such books possible. Why is it that some of the most scientistic scholars are the least able to see their own pre-scientific ideology? Ironically, the book's last line quotes a Bible verse (Proverbs 16:18), which, these days, seems most applicable to triumphalist, scientistic materialists of this sort. May be worth a library borrow, but not buying.

For anyone who has ever wanted to know the essence of what the different philosophers over the centuries have said, this is a great book to read. I have been fascinated to read the overview of the philosophers from Plato to the present time, and was even inspired to follow up with a book found in the bibliography covering pre-Socratic philosophers. I now know which of the thinkers that I want to read in depth in my own search for Truth without having to spend the kind of years these authors have obviously spent reading all of their works.