Where do we look when we look inward? In what sort of space does our inner life take place? Augustine said that to turn inward is to find oneself in a library of memories, while the Indian Buddhist tradition holds that we are self-illuminating beings casting light onto a world of shadows. And a disquieting set of dissenters has claimed that inwardness is merely an illusion—or, worse, a deceit.
Jonardon Ganeri explores philosophical reflections from many of the world’s intellectual cultures, ancient and modern, on how each of us inhabits an inner world. In brief and lively chapters, he ranges across an unexpected assortment of diverse thinkers: Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Chinese, and Western philosophy and literature from the Upaniṣads, Socrates, and Avicenna to Borges, Simone Weil, and Rashōmon. Ganeri examines the various metaphors that have been employed to explain interiority—shadows and mirrors, masks and disguises, rooms and enclosed spaces—as well as the interfaces and boundaries between inner and outer worlds. Written in a cosmopolitan spirit, this book is a thought-provoking consideration of the value—or peril—of turning one’s gaze inward for all readers who have sought to map the geography of the mind.
Table of Content
Preamble
Explorations in Inwardness
Libraries Lined with Memories
Rashōmon’s Effect
Self-Illuminating Beings
The Face as Interface
Hidden Layers Within
Troubles with Doubles
Dreams of Dreams
More “I”s Than “I Myself”
To Say “I” Is to Liea
Postscript
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jonardon Ganeri is Bimal K. Matilal Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. His books include
The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness, and the First-Person Stance (2012) and
The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India, 1450–1700 CE (2011). He is a fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Infosys Prize in the Humanities.
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
40,569 Ebooks in this category
