cover image The Created Self: Reinventing Body, Persona, Spirit

The Created Self: Reinventing Body, Persona, Spirit

Robert Weber, Weber. W. W. Norton & Company, $25.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-393-04833-9

To what extent does evolutionary psychology, which tends to characterize behavior as a means to the ends of genetic recombination and replication, fully characterize the personal and spiritual motives of the human self? According to Weber, a psychologist, having a self enables the individual to pursue creative endeavors, which though often adaptive from an evolutionary standpoint, actually extend beyond what can be explained in terms of biological, reproductive aims. Using the model of the self developed by William James (1842-1910), the first American psychologist, Weber attempts to show that the self is a constantly developing, ""unitary system,"" consisting of bodily awareness, persona and spirit, over which the individual has control. Such a concept of the self, Weber argues, is necessary in order to account for personal motives that defy evolutionary explanation. That human beings often invest disproportionate amounts of time in activities that lead to personal satisfaction (such as achieving career goals) at the expense of increasing reproductivity is, he contends, ""at variance with an evolutionary psychology explanation, and indicate[s] that the rules now are different."" Written for a general audience, Weber's account of the self is certainly provocative, exploring phenomena such as body piercing in an effort to show some of the ways that selfhood extends behavior beyond the ends prefigured by our genetic endowment. Although Weber never calls his presupposition of a Jamesian, tripartite division of the self into question, his basic point--that human behavior is more complicated than many evolutionary psychologists portray it and may be rooted in the nature of a self--is worth considering. (Jan.)