Pessoa has become many things to many people in the years that have passed since his untimely death. For some, he is simply the greatest Portuguese poet of the twentieth century. For others, he has gradually emerged as a forgotten voice in 20th century modernism. And yet Pessoa was also a philosopher, and it is only very recently that the philosophical importance of his work has begun to attract the attention it deserves. Pessoa composed systematic philosophical essays in his pre-heteronymic period, defending rationalism in epistemology and sensationism in the philosophy of mind. His heteronymic work, decisively breaking with the conventional strictures of systematic philosophical writing, is a profound and exquisite exploration in the philosophy of self.
In Virtual Subjects, Fugitive Selves, Jonardon Ganeri pulls together the strands of Pessoa’s philosophy and rearticulates it in a way that does justice to its breathtaking originality. He reveals the extraordinary power of Pessoa’s theory by applying it to the analysis of some of the trickiest and most puzzling problems about the self to have appeared in the global history of philosophy.
‘Jonardon Ganeri’s book is a landmark study, refreshingly free of the usual pieties, conscious of the most recent developments, and with the potential to galvanize the field of Pessoa studies.’ –Paolo de Medeiros.
This monograph is a deep philosophical excavation and celebration of an extraordinary poet of modernity. The reader follows a creative philosophical conversation and encounter between the philosopher Ganeri and his own work, and the virtual subjects and fugitive selves that make up Pessoa’s heteronymy and philosophy of the self.’ –Bartholomew Ryan
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About the Author
Jonardon Ganeri is a philosopher whose work draws on a variety of philosophical traditions to construct new positions in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and epistemology. He is the author of Fernando Pessoa: Imagination and the Self; Attention, Not Self; The Concealed Art of the Soul; and The Lost Age of Reason; all published by Oxford University Press. Ganeri joined the Fellowship of the British Academy in 2015 and won the Infosys Prize in the Humanities the same year, the only philosopher to do so. He delivered the 2024 John Locke Lectures. Ganeri is currently Bimal K. Matilal Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.
Book Details
Title: Virtual Subjects, Fugitive Selves: Fernando Pessoa and his philosophy
Author: Jonardon Ganeri
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: July 30, 2025
Language: English
Paperback:184pp
Available @ Amazon.com
