Self Definition: A Philosophical Inquiry from the Global South and Global North

Teodros Kiros

doi:10.5771/9781793605955

Summary

Self Definition argues that sex, gender, and race are constructions by the ineffable self as it seeks to define its possibilities free of domination. The self’s embodiments are themselves performances of self definition. Teodros Kiros supports his argument by a careful reading of the literature from both the Global South and Global North that spans figures, works, and eras from antiquity to our late modern present. These readings demonstrate that race, gender, and sex are performed in the Global South radically differently from in the Global North. These three notions as markers of identity are fluid, open, and expansive, and Kiros brilliantly shows this through inquiry into thought rooted in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and China. By the time that the Global North forges possibilities of the self in the modern period, race, gender, and sex become fixed. Biology and anatomy become understood as destinies, and the possibilities of the self are deeply constrained.

This book approaches case studies of key figures and movements chronologically and thematically, and in doing so Kiros highlights the tensions between the openness of the Global South and the rigidity of the Global North through which human possibilities as exercises of self-definition become clear under conditions of freedom. Our views of self definition will forever be transformed after reading this important text.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2019
Copyright Year: 2019
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-0594-8
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-0595-5
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 130
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 4
1. The Self in Ancient Egypt No access Pages 5 - 10
2. The Self in Classical Indian Thought No access Pages 11 - 16
3. Sri Aurobindo No access Pages 17 - 20
1. A. Confucius No access
2. B. Lao Tzu No access
3. C. Chuang Tzu No access
5. Buddhist Innovations No access Pages 29 - 30
1. A. Plato No access
2. B. Aristotle No access
7. Race, Sex, and Gender in the Quran No access Pages 37 - 38
1. A. Zara Yacob No access
2. B. Descartes No access
3. C. Kant No access
4. D. Hegel No access
5. E. Kierkegaard No access
1. A. Heidegger No access
2. B. Simone de Beauvoir No access
3. C. Foucault No access
4. D. Judith Butler No access
1. A. Philosophical Rereading of Fanon, No access
2. B. Lewis Gordon on Black Existence No access
3. C. Paget Henry and African Ontology No access
4. D. bell hooks, the Black Woman No access
1. A. Self-Construction No access
2. B. Imagination No access
3. C. Possibilities No access
4. D. Norms No access
5. E. Values No access
6. F. Reason No access
7. G. Faith No access
1. A. The Desiring Subject No access
2. B. The Moral Subject No access
3. C. The Actional Subject No access
Bibliography No access Pages 115 - 122
Index No access Pages 123 - 128
About the Author No access Pages 129 - 130