Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author’s Introduction

• I initiated a regimen of directed reading about human nature and the notion of “self” (and selves) after being inspired by P.M.S. Hacker’s consecutive chapters on “the self and the body” and “the person” in Human Nature: The Categorial Framework (Blackwell, 2007), as well as several books by Raymond Tallis. I thought I’d share a list of titles I’ve thus far found quite helpful in thinking about questions of human nature and personal identity.
• It is a comparatively short compilation, and I cannot claim it well represents the philosophical literature on these topics, although at least several of the titles, it turns out, have been well received among professional philosophers.
• A few of the works might justly be said to approach our subject matter indirectly or by implication. And some of the titles concern “human dignity,” a concept embodying important claims and assumptions about human nature or philosophical anthropology.
• This compilation is therefore unabashedly idiosyncratic, yet I’m convinced it should prove useful to anyone leisurely or perhaps even systematically exploring fundamental questions indissolubly bound up with our attempts to make sense of or understand human nature and personal identity.