SP25 Minorities and Philosophy Guest Speaker

Abstract:

The idea that we make ourselves who and what we are through our self-narratives has become increasingly popular in philosophy, psychology, sociology and everyday life.  It has also spawned a great deal of backlash.  Critics of the narrative approach point out that the stories we tell about ourselves cannot conjure us into existence, since a narrator must already exist for a story to be told.  Furthermore, they argue, our lives do not follow the logic of stories.  Narratives are aesthetic artifacts, crafted so that each element meets an artistic or communicative aim.   Human lives, by contrast, are messy natural processes, filled with accidents, contingencies, and random events.  Our self-narratives are often self-serving, and the narratives others tell about us can be oppressive, especially if we internalize them.  It seems clear that there is something legitimate in these complaints, but it is less clear whether they actually undermine the narrative approach. This can be difficult to determine because it is not easy to pin down precisely what the claim that we are constituted by our narratives comes to in concrete terms (or what, exactly, these narratives are).  In this talk I start with the standard criticisms of the narrative approach and use responses to them to develop a narrative account of the self that is able to answer these worries without giving up the claim that self-narratives (which share important features with literary narratives) play an essential role in making us who and what we are.  This account draws from work in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, literary theory, and philosophy.