Oneself as Another

A series of ten studies on the self, grown out of Ricoeur's Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh. He steers between philosophies that make the self a certain foundation, as in Descartes, and those that dissolve it, as in Nietzsche. His key distinction is between two senses of identity: idem, sameness over time like that of a thing, and ipse, selfhood, the identity of someone who keeps a promise even when they have changed. The studies approach the self through four questions. Who speaks? draws on philosophy of language. Who acts? turns to analytic theory of action. Who tells a story? develops the idea of narrative identity, in which a life gains unity by being told. Who is responsible? leads to Ricoeur's short ethics, defined as aiming at the good life with and for others in just institutions, tested against Kantian duty and resolved by practical wisdom. The last study considers how otherness belongs to the self: the body, other people and conscience.

It offers one of the most balanced accounts of personal identity, linking analytic debates about persons with narrative, ethics and responsibility.