Foreword to the Routledge Classics Edition Stephen Cave Preface Introduction: Are We Losing Ourselves? 1. Changing Relations to the Cosmos 2. Sciencephobia and its Sources 3. Transcendent Numbers: Pythagoras and Plato 4. What Explanation Is 5. Why the Idea of Purpose Won't Go Away 6. Is Sexual Selection Natural? 7. The Search for Senselessness 8. The Beasts That Perish 9. Free Will, Not Just Free Won't 10. How Divided Selves Live 11. Hemispheres and Holism 12. The Supernatural Aspects of Physics Conclusion: On Being Still Here. Index

Mary Midgley (1919-2018) was one of the leading moral philosophers of her generation and has been described by The Guardian as 'the foremost scourge of scientific pretension in this country'. Many of her books are available in Routledge Classics, including Beast and Man, Wickedness and The Myths We Live By.

A salutary analysis of science's claim to have done away with the self and a characteristic injection of common sense from one of our most respected philosophers into a debate increasingly in need of it. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Stephen Cave.