How to Be Multiple
The Philosophy of Twins
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Philosopher Helena de Bres uses the curious experience of being a twin as a lens for reconsidering our place in the world, with illustrations by her identical twin Julia.
Wait, are you you or the other one? Which is the evil twin? Have you ever switched partners? Can you read each other's mind? Twins get asked the weirdest questions by strangers, loved ones, even themselves. For Helena de Bres, a twin and philosophy professor, these questions are closely tied to some of philosophy's most unnerving unknowns. What makes someone themself rather than someone else? Can one person be housed in two bodies? What does perfect love look like? Can we really act freely? At what point does wonder morph into objectification?
Accompanied by her twin Julia's drawings, Helena uses twinhood to rethink the limits of personhood, consciousness, love, freedom, and justice. With her inimitably candid, wry voice, she explores the long tradition of twin representations in art, myth, and popular culture; twins' peculiar social standing; and what it's really like to be one of two. With insight, hope, and humor, she argues that our reactions to twins reveal our broader desires and fears about selfhood, fate, and human connection, and that reflecting on twinhood can help each of us-twins and singletons alike-recognize our own multiplicity, and approach life with greater curiosity, imagination, and courage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
De Bres (Artful Truths), a philosophy professor at Wellesley College, explores in these stunning essays how "our intense reaction to twins... illuminates wider questions about what it means to be human." In "Which One Are You?" de Bres contends that the tendency to sort twins into archetypal opposites—for example, the sun god Apollo and moon god Artemis of Greek mythology, or moral versus immoral twin story lines in literature, TV, and such movies as 1946's A Stolen Life—is a subconscious attempt to manage anxieties about the "capacity to stably identify anyone," which underlies all social interaction. "Twins in Wonderland" probes the social boundaries that "freaks" like twins violate, arguing that "we're each only a car accident, a medical diagnosis, a same-sex crush... away from social failure," while "Are You Two in Love?" explores how relationships that aren't heterosexual and romantic are frequently coded as immature by Western society. In fluid prose, de Bres gracefully clarifies philosophical notions for the lay reader, and her own observations as an identical twin invigorate the book's emotional center ("I am partly my body, I accept that now. But I'm also part of... a being whose boundaries stretch well beyond my skin, sometimes to the farthest reaches of the planet") while leaving room for the many unsolved mysteries of identity, kinship, and closeness. This will challenge the way readers see the world.
