In your average bookstore, the volumes stacked by the dozen and sold under the heading of Self-Help are liable to be found quartered in the same part of the building as those falling under the less obviously improving rubric of Philosophy. It's a little hard to see why, in the present age, when Philosophy has wrapped its professionalism aloofly around it and sneaked off down the corridor into the seminar room, casting sufficient doubt as it retreats from view on the mere existence of a self to make the notion of Self-Help seem at best paradoxical and at worst inconceivable. Long gone are the days when, as we veterans of London's public transport fondly misremember, there was invariably someone on the upper deck of the 38 bus who was patently having a ball en route for the office with The Critique of Pure Reason.

LRB 31 October 2002 | PDF Download