Review: Galen Strawson, Selves. An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics

Abstract

In 1929, Alfred North Whitehead wrote that philosophy never reverts to its old position after the shock of a great philosopher . It might be the case that Galen Strawson's Selves causes such a shock. Selves is a brilliant piece of philosophy synthesizing deep insights into nature of human experience with speculative force. Although, the book cannot be said to be easily accessible, studying it is rewarding and can be recommended to almost any philosopher interested in Metaphysics or Philosophy of Mind. In the following paragraphs, we are going to give a systematic sketch of Strawson's main line of thought and his central arguments. Basically, Selves can be divided into two main parts: The rst part addresses the phenomenology of the self as understood in our everyday approach to the world, while the second part discusses the phenomenological ndings of the rst part in terms of metaphysics. Despite this two-fold structure, we emphasize that due to our understanding both parts are interrelated systematically and methodologically forming a coherent whole.