I have to confess that I had a particular set of interests in reading this, and so I did skim some parts that were less relevant to those interests. The book goes over theories of the self, personhood and identity. Much of the book is taken up with examining and discarding many of the inherited philosophical approaches: dualisms Cartesian, Thomistic, and materialistic accounts. The view that ‘emerges’ is that what the author terms ‘emorgent dualism’ probably works best. There is a helpful discussion, too, of the forms of emergence. He ends with a discussion of the prospects for post-mortem existence from an emergent dualist point of view -which is actually compatible with an orthodox Christian account. Very helpful.

I found the analogy of an electro magnet helpful: the current goes on and a magnetic field is generated; an emergent property which is for the purposes of this discussion an analogue of the person /soul /identity.

I found it helpful in showing the way that an emergent approach can be related to a modified Aristotelian/Thomist approach, which had been my intuition. It was also good to see the emergent account come out as the most explanatory account and as philosophically coherant.