The inescapable self

The ultimate nightmare scenario: everything is a nightmare. Reality itself is part of a dream - nothing is real and nothing can be trusted. The stuff of science-fiction? Yes, but the problem of the 'inescapable self' - the problem of certainty beyond our own consciousness - also lies at the very core of Western philosophical thinking. Walking in the footsteps of Plato and Descartes, Timothy Chappell recognizes that 'the fortress of my certainty about my own existence becomes the prison of my uncertainty about the existence of a world beyond me'. Using this insight as a springboard, Chappell launches into an exploration of a series of intellectual dilemmas that are the very stuff of philosophy: how can we know things outside ourselves? What basis is there for altruistic behaviour? Can we bridge the gap between mind and world? Do we have free will?