The Formation of the Modern Self: Reason, Happiness and the Passions from Montaigne to Kant

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Charting a genealogy of the modern idea of the self, Felix Murchadha explores the accounts of self-identity expounded by key Early Modern philosophers, Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume and Kant. The question of the self as we would discuss it today only came to the forefront of philosophical concern with Modernity, beginning with an appeal to the inherited models of the self found in Stoicism, Scepticism, Augustinianism and Pelagianism, before continuing to develop as a subject of philosophical debate. Exploring this trajectory, The Formation of the Modern Self pursues a number of themes central to the Early Modern development of selfhood, including, amongst others, grace and passion. It examines on the one hand the deep-rooted dependence on the divine and the longing for happiness and salvation and, on the other hand, the distancing from the Stoic ideal of apatheia, as philosophers from Descartes to Spinoza recognised the passions as essential to human agency. Fundamental to the new question of the self was the relation of faith and reason. Uncovering commonalities and differences amongst Early Modern philosophers, Murchadha traces how the voluntarism of Modernity led to the sceptical approach to the self in Montaigne and Hume and how this sceptical strand, in turn, culminated in Kants rational faith. More than a history of the self in philosophy, The Formation of the Modern Self inspires a fresh look at self-identity, uncovering not only how our modern idea of selfhood developed but just how embedded the concept of self is in external considerations: from ethics, to reason, to religion.

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This excellent book deals with the very important theme of the genesis and diverse developments of the modern sense of self. It is very helpful in situating the topic in relation to earlier views of freedom and grace to be found in Augustinian and Pelagian orientations. Its treatments of Montaigne, pairs of modern thinkers, Descartes and Pascal, Hume and Spinoza, and then of the singular contribution of Kant, are exemplary. It is full of fresh and vigorous insights. * William Desmond, David Cook Chair in Philosophy, Villanova University, USA Thomas A.F. Kelly Visiting Chair in Philosophy, Maynooth University, Ireland Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium *
Formation of the Modern Self retells the story of philosophical modernity as transforming, through crises of reason, faith, and world, the ancient philosophical strivings for truth, goodness, and happiness. It offers a strikingly original and rigorous phenomenological examination of the emergence of the modern self as not only an epistemic construct but as invigorated by the ethically-charged task of its own becoming and salvation. * Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei, Professor and Kurrelmeyer Chair in German and Professor in Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, USA *

Author Bio

Felix Murchadha is Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland. Previous books and articles include The Time of Revolution (Bloomsbury, 2013), A Phenomenology of Christian Life (2013), and The Passionate Self and the Religiosity of Phenomena in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (2019).