How to Be Multiple

The Philosophy of Twins

De: Helena de Bres, Julia de Bres

Narrado por: Kirsty Gillmore

Bloomsbury presents How to Be Multiple by Helena de Bres, read by Kirsty Gillmore.

Philosopher Helena de Bres uses the curious experience of being a twin as a lens for reconsidering our place in the world.

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?

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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Helena de Bres aims to rescue twins from the gothic, from horror movies, and from singleton scrutiny . . . she stitches the project together with brio, a sense of stupefied luck at having a twin, and an insistence that anyone can reap similar benefits by acknowledging our interdependence, relaxing the need to believe in our singularity.

[de Bres] draws on her own experience as a way to explore mind-body boundaries and the nature of individualism and autonomy . . . As an identical twin, Ms. de Bres describes in fascinating detail the ways in which her twin’s thoughts and her own—and their physical experiences—seem to merge.

[de Bres] presents a philosophical inquiry into what twinship is to both the people who are twins and those of us looking in from the outside . . . [she] shows how recognizing the unique connections twins have to one another can help us to restructure and refocus our thoughts on the importance of individuality and our collective responsibilities to one another.

Stunning . . . 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 while leaving room for the many unsolved mysteries of identity, kinship, and closeness. This will challenge the way readers see the world.

A collection of engaging essays about binarization, identity, love, free will, objectification, and the depiction and understanding of twins in literature, art, philosophy, psychology, and popular culture . . . A thoughtful, well-rendered collection of musings on identity.

Lucid, curious, and deeply felt, How to Be Multiple is a work of philosophy, an autobiography of twindom, and a captivating exploration of selfhood. Most of us are not twins, but we all know duality, and de Bres uses her exceptional condition as a lens to examine what makes us distinct and what we all share. What a fun, gorgeous book.

Helena de Bres has written a brilliant, surprising, and philosophically complex exploration of what it means to be a twin, but more than that—she’s written a book that has transformed my understanding of what it means to be both one-of-a-kind and intimately connected to another human being. Profoundly illuminating, insightful, funny, and moving—How to Be Multiple is a must-read.

What is it like to be an identical twin? To know someone with such uncanny intimacy? To see another possible life with your genes played out? De Bres raises so many thrillingly mind-bending existential questions that she convinces you that twinship is a crucial key to understanding how we love and who we are.

This study of twinhood sits at the intersection of the intellectual and the personal—philosopher Helena de Bres is a twin herself, attuned to the uncanniness of being a twin as both a scholar and a sister.

The Philosophy of Twins

This book is excellent. If you’re a twin or a philosophy nerd, or both in my case, it is a must read!!

Fantastic, funny and deep

A fun, funny, intellectually engaging book. Debres pulls of an amazing feat. The narrator is excellent too!

Interesting, but…

Interesting, but not as much info on twins as I was hoping. There are a lot of “off topic” agendas that the author weaves into a book about twins.

Not really about twins too much

This book is really more about the authors world view and experiences, I was expecting a bit more, but it turned out to be about how the author had issues and felt she was a victim in many circumstances.