Rewriting the soul

Blurb

Rewriting the Soul is a 1995 book by the Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking, who offers an account of the formative influences that shape people’s understandings of their lives and their understanding of the lives of those around them. Hacking's work is both a theoretical account of the concepts and modes of agentic engagement through which people encounter the world and make sense of themselves, and a psychological account of how minds relate to memories and the fragility of this relationship, especially in the lives of people exposed to extremes of suffering and cruelty. Through a study of the history and manifestations of Multiple Personality Disorder, Hacking describes how people come to an understanding of their lives through their own memories and autobiographies. Hacking describes the shifting shared meanings that shape our memories and become the threads with which people weave their biographies.