Babich V.V. —
In Defense of Narrative Identity
// Philosophical Thought. – 2024. – ¹ 7.
– P. 74 - 91.
DOI: 10.25136/2409-8728.2024.7.71341
URL: https://en.e-notabene.ru/fr/article_71341.html
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Abstract: Over the past few decades, a number of philosophers, psychologists, and other scholars have used the concept of narrative as a basis for thinking about personal identity and ethical responsibility. It has been argued that, ethically, we should strive to achieve the unity that we discover in creating narratives about our lives. More recently, critical reactions to narrative theories have taken the form of a specific anti-narrative discourse. This article presents arguments in defense of the theory of narrative identity, based on the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, in whose thinking narrative is a central concept. The presented study defends the thesis that narrative identity is not an arbitrary contingent mental construct, but is necessarily present in human existence and is associated with the hermeneutic understanding of man as a temporary being capable of reflexive activity, constructing meanings, assessments, and goals. It is argued that narrative identity theory successfully addresses the problem of personal identity and the related question of the ethical responsibility of the subject by creating a narrative unity of the life project of an individual, in which the interrelationship between the concepts of personal identity, narration and evaluation is built. Section 1 analyses MacIntyre's concept of narrative and explains its significance for solving the problem of personal identity. Section 2 explicates the key characteristics of narrative identity: holisticity, intelligibility, teleology and the principle of self-care; it also provides responses to the criticisms of opponents who oppose the narrative concept of personal identity. Section 3 presents arguments in defence of Taylor's assertion that the ethical horizon of our existence presupposes the desire for narrative unity of the individual.
Babich V.V. —
Homo loquens: values in the structure of narrative identity
// Philosophical Thought. – 2023. – ¹ 6.
– P. 55 - 67.
DOI: 10.25136/2409-8728.2023.6.40863
URL: https://en.e-notabene.ru/fr/article_40863.html
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Abstract: The relationship between narrative identity and values is considered. It is argued that the problem of the relationship and balance between the experience of experiencing: values, a multidirectional spectrum of desires, emotions and actions, is inseparable from the issue of self-determination of the subject. The presented analysis is based on the concept of the dynamics of narrative changes by Ch.M. Taylor "the best possible articulation of experience" (Best Account) and the concept of M.M. Bakhtin.
Building a narrative identity is impossible without reference to values that serve as the foundations of intentional states, orientations and motives that determine behavior. The necessity of values for our self-description reveals their reality. Reflection is a necessary condition for the ontologization of values, defining the difference between "values" and "norms", "desires" and "preferences". In the structure of narrative identity, value is not any desire or preference, but only one that needs justification (rational articulation). The empirical consequence of rational articulation is the formation of a common narrative or the formation of a common language that facilitates the justification of values, which is a condition for the emergence of solidarity.
The hermeneutic circle is considered as a model for the formation and transformation of narrative identity. The presented model describes the interaction between the subject's articulations and his pre-reflexive experience of the emotional experience of values, correlating these elements with the existing spectrum of axiological interpretations. The hermeneutic circle reveals the possibility of coordinating in the subject different levels of existence of values, from the point of view of overcoming the contradictions between the individual and the collective: desires, emotions, values and actions. It is concluded that values are embedded in the structure of narrative identity in several ways: they form the content of the narrative, reinforce ideas about ideals through narrative, and form intentions.