Conville & Walsh

An introduction to Western philosophy and a work of sensitive philosophical enquiry in itself, this is the first popular book by a brilliant young philosopher now working as a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Dundee. In it Timothy Chappell tells the story of Western philosophy over the 350 or so years since publication of Descartes’ Meditations, in a style that recalls A. C. Grayling’s THE REASON OF THINGS. For despite the best efforts of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Hume, Kant and many others, the paradox of the inescapable self is still alive and kicking today.

• How do you know that you aren’t simply dreaming the world?
• Isn’t everyone always self-interested?
• Just how can values – or people, or minds – fit into a material world?

These are the sort of questions that have haunted Western philosophers ever since the time of Descartes. Timothy Chappell argues that they all come from one and the same source: the concept of the inescapable self, which Descartes made into an impregnable fortress of certainty. But by doing so Descartes also, ironically enough, turned the self into an inescapable prison of doubt about everything beyond it: external reality, altruism, values, persons, and other minds included. Summarizing and addressing these dilemmas alongside original and engaging arguments, THE INESCAPABLE SELF is a book that will appeal to general readers and students alike.