How To Know Your Self: The Art & Science of Discovering Who You Really Are - Hardcover

Oliver, J. Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1324095237 ISBN 13: 9781324095231

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co, 2026

Synopsis

What if everything you thought you knew about yourself was an illusion?

For more than twenty years, University of Chicago professor J. Eric Oliver has taught a legendary course—The Intelligible Self—that students routinely describe as life-changing. Now, in How to Know Your Self, he brings the best of that classroom experience to readers everywhere, guiding us through the most profound and meaningful journey of all: understanding who we really are.

With warmth, wit and an eye for the unexpected, Oliver draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, physics and ancient philosophy to explore the mystery of the self.

Drawing on decades of teaching, research and personal experience, he offers something deeper than quick fixes or life hacks: How to Know Your Self reveals a transformative new understanding of what it means to be a person–what it means to have and be a “self”–and shows how that insight can fundamentally reshape the way we live this one life we’re given.

About this title

About the Author

J. Eric Oliver is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and host of the Knowing with Eric Oliver podcast. He has authored five books on subjects ranging from the politics of obesity to magical thinking in American life. He lives in Chicago.

Edition details

• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1324095237
• ISBN 13: 9781324095231
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336