Being in Time: Selves and Narrators in Philosophy and Literature / Edition 1

by Genevieve Lloyd

Overview

Genevieve Lloyd's book is a provocative and accessible essay on the fragmentation of the self as explored in philosophy and literature. The past is irrevocable, consciousness changes as time passes: given this, can there ever be such a thing as the unity of the self? Being in Time explores the emotional aspects of the human experience of time, commonly neglected in philosophical investigation, by looking at how narrative creates and treats the experience of the self as fragmented and the past as 'lost'. It shows the continuities, and the contrasts, between modern philosophic discussions of the instability of the knowing subject, treatments of the fragmentation of the self in the modern novel and older philosophical discussions of the unity of consciousness. Being in Time combines theoretical discussion with human experience: it will be valuable to anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and literature, as well as to a more general audience of readers who share Augustine's experience of time as making him a 'problem to himself'.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415071956
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/02/1993
Series:	Ideas
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Genevieve Lloyd is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and author of The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in Western Philosophy (London, Routledge, 1984). She has published papers on the metaphysics of time, on the history of philosophy, philosophy and literature, and philosophical aspects of gender.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1 Augustine and the ‘problem’ of time; 2 The self: unity and fragmentation; Descartes: the unity of thinking substance; Hume’s labyrinth and the painting of modern life; Kant: the unity of apperception 3 The past: loss or eternal return? Bergson: time and loss; Nietzsche: ‘ill will towards time’ 4 Life and literature; Proust: ‘life realized within the confines of a book’; Virginia Woolf: moments of being. Conclusion: philosophy and literature