How to be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins

How to be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins

De Bres will read from her book How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins and discuss its themes with Paulina Sliwa. The audience will be encouraged to join the conversation, with plenty of time for questions and comments. The discussion will be followed by a wine reception.

This event is organized by the FWF Cluster of Excellence Knowledge in Crisis.

About the Book:

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, and 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.

Helena de Bres is a professor of philosophy at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She is the author of the academic/trade crossover Artful Truths: The Philosophy of Memoir (University of Chicago Press, 2021) and the philosophical personal essay collection How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins (Bloomsbury USA, 2023). In addition to her scholarly work, de Bres has published personal essays, book excerpts and op eds in The Point, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Yale Review, Aeon and Psyche, among other places.

Paulina Sliwa is a professor of moral and political philosophy at the University of Vienna. Working in moral philosophy, epistemology, and feminist philosophy, Sliwa’s research seeks to understand the practices that lie at the center of our moral lives: how we give and receive moral advice, how we blame, forgive, make excuses, how we praise and give credit. Such understanding is valuable for its own sake, but it can also point us towards ways in which those practices may contribute to unjust social arrangements and should be reformed.

Host or Publisher Knowledge in Crisis