The fundamental thesis of the book—that practices are constitutive of the self in a deep way that has not been sufficiently recognized—is explored through wide-ranging examples, including global-technological capitalism, religious authority and the creationism debate, multiculturalism, psychoanalytical explanation, jazz, baseball, political activism, cooking, and many others. These diverse strands, although they obviously come from far and wide, are convincingly woven into a coherent and illuminating large-scale pattern.

This book shows the student, the general reader, or anyone interested in what philosophy—itself a practice—is how hard, clear thinking promotes human understanding and how helpful analytical thought can be to numerous hotly debated issues. Readers are given the conceptual tools and philosophical equipment they need as the book progresses, and they will know that they are in the hands of an excellent, confidence-inspiring teacher of the subject." —Garry L. Hagberg, Bard College