Self and world

Self and World is an attempt to provide and assess arguments for materialism about self-consciousness. This is not an ontological thesis, rather it is the claim that in some sense ‘‘self-consciousness requires awareness of oneself qua subject as shaped, located and solid’’ (p. 117). Importantly, the qualifying ‘some sense’ leaves room for unpacking in terms of a conception of oneself as a physical object or merely an intuitive awareness of oneself as such. Taking note of this crucial distinction, which he uses to good effect, Cassam’s book makes a sober, sustained case for this thesis by relying on three complementary arguments which strike from several directions at once. Following in the footsteps of Kant and Strawson, these arguments, which comprise the three central chapters of the book, are all transcendental in form.