I will now return to some of the theoretical issues I raised in Chapter 1 and review them in the light of arguments presented in the intervening chapters. The issues are complex and unresolved. This chapter is a set of ‘loose ends’ rather than a list of tidy conclusions. I will focus on what I consider to be the leading issues. The first of these is the problem of locating persons and selves within levels and types of explanation. The second is to consider whether a dynamic-systems perspective and the concept of emergence offer a solution to this problem. I will then go on to discuss some of the finer points of using words such as ‘fiction’, ‘illusion’ and ‘virtual’ in relation to self. Finally, I comment on the way authors have historicised the self and worried about its future.

Explaining persons within levels

It is difficult to produce a view of persons that integrates all three levels of explanation that I have identified: the sub-personal, the personal and the supra-personal. My aim was to bring them together in a common framework for the natural and social sciences. It is at the personal level that explanations are most familiar. Personists refer to personal attributes such as holding beliefs, acting on desires and making rational plans for the future, but there is a problem in relating this kind of discourse to causal theories.