The Self-Field

This book was written with the simple but firm conviction that only a radically new approach embracing both human and non-human animal life can explain the true nature and evolution of the self for what it is: a self-organising system of its own; how it functions in a changing environment, and what the major factors in its development have been, and are now…Only by also recognising our own species for the fallible, instinctive creatures we generally are, rather than the self-conscious, rational beings we prefer to believe we are, is it possible to resolve the dilemma posed by philosopher John Gray: ‘This may be the era of the Anthropocene – the geological epoch in which human action is transforming the planet. But it is also the one in which the human animal is less than ever in charge’.

From The Self-Field: Mind, Body and Environment, Routledge, 2021, p. 241.