Garry Hagberg presents an original philosophical investigation of self-description. He explores the profound implications that Wittgenstein's later work has for our understanding of the human condition, and offers philosophical interpretations of a fascinating range of autobiographical writings, by Goethe, Dostoevsky, Iris Murdoch, and others.

• Foreword: Confronting the Cartesian Legacy


• 1: Autobiographical Consciousness


• 2: The Self, Reflected


• 3: The Self, Speaking


• 4: The Self, Thinking


• 5: The Question of True Self-Interpretation


• 6: The Uniqueness of Person-Perception


• 7: Rethinking Self-Interpretation


• Acknowledgments


• Index

Garry L. Hagberg presently holds a Chair in the School of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and has for some years served as the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College. He is the author of Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory and Meaning and Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge (both Cornell University Press), he recently edited Art and Ethical Criticism and is co-editing A Companion to Philosophy of Literature (both for Blackwell). He has contributed widely to journals, collections, and reference works, and is presently completing a series of articles on literary experience and self-formation. Hagberg is joint editor, with Denis Dutton, of the journal Philosophy and Literature.