The Self: Transformation and Aspiration

Catalog description

Who are you? Who might you be one day? How much do you have control over the answers to these questions? And do the answers really even matter? In this course, we will consider some recent work in analytic philosophy that contends that aspiration and transformation are central to how we understand ourselves and our lives. We will also consider the views of philosophers who argue for the importance of transcendence of self to living well and with meaning, as well as writings from the Buddhist tradition, which famously advises the elimination of the self.