By Mary Midgley

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The distinguished British philosopher deconstructs the fashionable materialist idea that our sense of self is an illusion. The denial of the self has been sustained by the belief that the physical sciences require it. Midgley traces the historical roots of this misconception, and shows how our own experiences are just as necessary for understanding of ourselves and the world as the study of brains.

Reviews

"It is a very big little book. Midgley manages in just 150 pages to say more than most scholars manage in a lifetime. ... Midgley combines both the ability to place intellectual fashions in their broader context with having lived long enough to personally witness the rise and fall of many of them. ...in this bite-size book she digests some of the toughest intellectual challenges of our day."
- Stephen Cave, Financial Times