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On Personality

Paperback

Main Details

Title On Personality
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Peter Goldie
SeriesThinking in Action
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback
Pages:160
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
ISBN/Barcode 9780415305143
ClassificationsDewey:126
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint Routledge
Publication Date 16 June 2004
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Warm, sensitive, creative, outgoing, cheeky, creepy. Scan any personal ads page and it's clear that to get a life you need a personality first. It is also a notion with a long and often bizarre history: in early Greece and medieval Europe, it was thought to depend on the balance of bile in the body. On Personality is a thoughtful and stimulating look under the skin of this widely-used but little understood phenomenon. Peter Goldie points out that we rely on personality to do a lot of work: describe, judge, understand, explain and predict others as well as ourselves. Is it really up to this task? If personality is about 'character', is it a relic of a bygone Victorian age? If personality is so reliable, how can a virtue in one person be a vice in another? Drawing on a great range of philosophers, novelists and films, from Aristotle, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche to Joseph Conrad, Middlemarch , War and Peace and Bridget Jones' Diary , Peter Goldie also discusses some famous psychology experiments. If personality is a reliable guide to predicting what people will do, he reflects on why people often surprise us and asks whether personality is simply down to chance and circumstan On Personality is essential reading for anyone interested in this fascinating but slippery concept. It will also make you think twice before writing your CV.

Reviews

'It is exciting to see a philosopher, rather than a psychologist, wrestle with the concept of personality' - Paul Crichton, Times Literary Supplement 'Goldie writes in warmly accessible fashion.' - Steven Poole, The Guardian