Kenny's book covers the philosophical concept of the self.
He concentrates here on two of the roots of "self" - the epistemological root and the psychological root. Saying: "The myth of the self takes different forms in accordance with the root from which it takes its growth."
In his introduction Kenny notes:
"It is not poets and dramatists, but philosophers who are most given to talking about the self. The Oxford English Dictionary lists a special philosophical sense of the word ""self"" which it defines as follows:
That which in a person is really and intrinsically he (in contradistinction to what is adventitious); the ego (often identified with the soul or mind as opposed to the body); a permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness.
It is the purpose of this lecture to claim that the self of the philosophers is a mythical entity, and so likewise is the self of the poets and dramatists to the extent to which it is modelled on the philosophers' myth."
- ISBN13 9780874621556
- Publish Date 31 December 1988
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 July 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Marquette University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 34
- Language English