How to Be Multiple

Helena de Bres, a philosophy professor who is also a twin, uses the experience of having a double as a starting point for asking what it means to be a single self. Her identical twin, Julia, provides the drawings that run through the book.

People who grow up with a twin, or simply meet one, field a steady stream of odd questions: which of them is the original, whether they have ever swapped partners, whether they can read each other's minds. For de Bres these everyday curiosities lead straight into hard philosophical puzzles. What makes a person the particular individual they are? Can one person live in two bodies? What would perfect love look like? Are we truly free to act? And at what point does admiration for someone slide into treating them as an object?

Using twinhood as her lens, she rethinks personhood, consciousness, love, freedom and justice. She traces how twins have been portrayed in art, myth and popular culture, examines the unusual social position twins occupy, and describes what it is like to be one of two. Her central claim is that our reactions to twins reveal broader wishes and anxieties about identity, destiny and human connection, and that thinking about twinhood can help twins and non-twins alike recognize their own multiplicity and approach life with more curiosity, imagination and nerve. The tone is frank, playful and hopeful, with plenty of humor.