J.T. Ismael's monograph is an ambitious contribution to metaphysics and the philosophy of language and mind. She tackles a philosophical question whose origin goes back to Descartes: What am I? The self is not a mere thing among things--but if so, what is it, and what is its relationship to the world? Ismael is an original and creative thinker who tries to understand our problematic concepts about the self and how they are related to our use of language in particular.

J. T. Ismael is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Time at the University of Sydney. Dr. Ismael has taught at Stanford University, held fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, and holds a Queen Elizabeth II research grant from the ARC.