{"product_id":"simulated-selves-by-andrew-spira-9781350298163","title":"Simulated Selves","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe notion of a personal self took centuries to evolve, reaching the pinnacle of autonomy with Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I am’ in the 17th century. This \u003cem\u003epersonalisation\u003c\/em\u003e of identity thrived for another hundred years before it began to be questioned, subject to the emergence of broader, more inclusive forms of agency. \u003cem\u003eSimulated Selves: The Undoing Personal Identity in the Modern World\u003c\/em\u003e addresses the ‘constructed’ notion of personal identity in the West and how it has been eclipsed by the development of new technological, social, art historical and psychological infrastructures over the last two centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the provisional nature of the self-sense has been increasingly accepted in recent years, \u003cem\u003eSimulated Selves\u003c\/em\u003e addresses it in a new way—not by challenging it directly, but by observing changes to the environments and cultural conventions that have traditionally supported it. By narrating both its dismantling and its incapacitation in this way, it records its \u003cem\u003eundoing\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLike \u003cem\u003eThe Invention of the Self: Personal Identity in the Age of Art\u003c\/em\u003e (to which it forms a companion volume), \u003cem\u003eSimulated Selves\u003c\/em\u003e straddles cultural history and philosophy. Firstly, it identifies hitherto neglected forces that inform the course of cultural history. Secondly, it highlights how the self is not the self-authenticating abstraction, only accessible to introspection, that it seems to be; it is also a cultural and historical phenomenon. Arguing that it is by engaging in cultural conventions that we subscribe to the process of identity-formation, the book also suggests that it is in these conventions that we see our self-sense—and its transience—best reflected.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBy examining the traces that the trajectory of the self-sense has left in its environment, \u003cem\u003eSimulated Selves\u003c\/em\u003e offers a radically new approach to the question of personal identity, asking not only ‘how and why is it under threat?’ but also ‘given that we understand the self-sense to be a constructed phenomenon, why do we cling to it?’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000742723820,"sku":"9781350298163","price":62.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20893913482668.jpg?v=1763301705","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/simulated-selves-by-andrew-spira-9781350298163","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}