Homo loquens: values in the structure of narrative identity

Babich Vladimir Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0001-8537-9782 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Tomsk State Pedagogical University 634061, Russia, Tomsk region, Tomsk, Kievskaya str., 60 v.v.babich@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

The concept of "value" is difficult to operationalize ^[15]. This is due not only to the many variants of the definition of this concept in the history of philosophy, but also to the fact that in empirical studies, the subjects themselves, when trying to determine the basis of values, often cannot do this. Opinions are expressed that due to the complexity of the operationalization of the concept of "value", it should be replaced by the concepts of "preference", "practice", "culture", "norm" ^[21]. This allows us to talk about serious internal contradictions in axiology and to state the methodological chaos that reigns in the definitions of the concept of "value" itself. At the same time, discussions of the potential of the narrative as a special constructed space between culture and the subject, a space in which the subject structures an understanding of himself, his life experience, values and the environment, are actualized. Narrative, considered as a special practice through which human values and identity are capable of change, allows us to bring the understanding of the role of narrative beyond the content of history, raising questions about the emergence of narrative and the role it plays in the structure of social interaction and the formation of values ^[10].

Attempts at a theoretical definition of the concept of "value" often proceed from the following assumptions:

1. Values are inscribed in one or another consistent and logical theoretical system.

2. The value system is stable in time and in the contexts in which it manifests itself.

3. People's behavior directly follows from these values.

Acceptance of these assumptions leads to the understanding that values in our experience are presented hierarchically, are something external, separated from other ways of communicating with the world and the determinants of behavior. Thus, axiology appears to be a highly abstract, rigidly codified theoretical construction that claims to be a universal explanation of social reality. In such a model, the values are analytical constructions isolated from culture, which are then declared responsible for the formation of culturally determined forms of human actions and institutions.

Such a thought can be expressed in the following model: the general system of values in the process of institutionalization determines moral and legal norms, through interiorization they are embedded in the structure of personality, forming object-oriented structures of attraction (intentionality), opposite to biological predispositions ^[14]. In this scheme, the acting subject exists in a culture permeated with discursive hierarchical constructs — independent symbolic and axiological realities. Where the subject is only a derivative of the dynamics of hierarchical discourses. It is a discursive function that is not something integral, self-identical and stable. Values are ontologized not in the subject, but in an abstract deductive system, which is understood as a reflection of culture.

This deductive system does not clarify how values are realized in specific situational actions, correlate with the practice of self-description of the subject, and the question remains open about the role of the subject in accepting values or rejecting them ^[18]. Such arguments are largely determined by the problematic field of the tradition of postmodern philosophy. Is it possible to think of the individual (subject) as pre- or extra-social, or is subjectivity possible only as a discursive construct created under the influence of a common language, culture and values, where the individual is constructed within the social, through the repetition of normative acts and statements.

Speaking about philosophical reflection, united in the concept of "postmodern", we will consider the statements of R. Rorty regarding his criticism of the classical understanding of the theory of values and identity, suggesting to abandon the interpretation of personality as a substantial entity and recognize the contingency of our existence. Arguing with the classical tradition of philosophical anthropology, the philosopher argues that "... the traditional view paints an image of people, according to which they are not just a network of beliefs and desires, but some entities with such beliefs and desires. The traditional view is that there is a core of the self that can consider, choose, use and express itself through these beliefs and desires." R. Rorty rejects the assumption of the existence of an essential core of personality and suggests understanding subjectivity as "idiosyncratic conglomerates of motives" without any center and identity-forming values. In accordance with this understanding of personality, an alternative principle of solidarity is put forward, which is based on the ethics of avoiding cruelty and protection from humiliation, rather than the search for common goals and values ^[17].

Such a statement of the question reveals a contradiction between understanding the subject as a set of idiosyncratic conglomerates of motives and self-esteem. It becomes difficult to explain the fact that we are able to experience moral torment for a long time from our own actions that are not consistent with our values if we do not have a "center" containing our values, experienced as something internal and identical ^[6].

Thus, we consider the problem of values as a problem of consistency of structures that can be represented in two aspects in relation to the subject: "external consistency" (I am another; I am culture) and "internal consistency" (desires — values — actions).

Narrative and solidarity

Any society cannot exist in a stable state without uniting around a basic minimum of values. Even postmodernists, criticizing classical axiology, do not abandon values, but only offer alternative models ^[4].

The process of forming, changing and spreading values is dynamic. If we imagine the axiological horizon as something that can be expressed clearly, then the dynamics of change, acceptance and rejection of values should be articulate ^[3].

Tsch. Taylor considers articulation as a mechanism that forms a link between the emergence of values and the formation of identity by the subject: "When it comes to human affairs, do we know more adequate criteria of reality than those concepts that, as a result of critical reflection and correction of identified errors, best explain our life?" ^[31]. By Ch . According to Taylor, articulation of life experience is impossible without reference to values, which are the bases of intentional states, orientations and motives that guide behavior. Criticism of articulation or gaining new experience can be the reasons for changes in values. As a result, one articulation turns into another, the most preferred for the subject, thereby generating a new narrative. Such dynamics Ch . Taylor defines as the principle of "the best possible articulation of experience" (Best Account) ^[30]. According to this principle, values, their perception, transformation and transmission are unthinkable outside of the experience of self-understanding of the individual.

The value is not any preference or desire, but only one that, in the opinion of the subject, needs justification (rational articulation). Value is something with which we can evaluate our desires not only in the meaning of their practical implementation, but also with the help of criteria that differ from the desires themselves.

Not all articulation is equally meaningful and rational, but it can be advanced only by constructing a new narrative that reflects a better interpretation of experience. In the course of discovering the best articulation of experience, it becomes obvious that we cannot make our own self-description and identify our aspirations without mentioning certain values. It is in this necessity that the reality of values is revealed, their ontologization in the horizon of the subject.

The ontologization of values occurs through reflection, the empirical consequence of which are axiologically determined actions and rational articulation, which is a necessary condition for the emergence of solidarity. Such solidarity should be perceived as an expression of a common narrative or as the formation of a common language that facilitates the justification of values. Articulation acts as a method of reflexive reflection, during which we do not assert a priori "eternal values", but, taking into account additional facts, consistently resolve the contradictions that arise, thereby forming the "best possible articulation of experience", which corresponds to the principle of fallibilism, which asserts that any statement about the subject of judgment is not exhaustive and final and implies replacement for a better interpretation in the future.

Reflection, as a necessary condition for internalization, determines the difference between "value" and "norm". Value is internalized restrictive-binding or attractive-motivating attitudes, realized as determinants of behavior, allowing to perceive actions as the result of one's own activity. The norm is external prescriptions that are not realized as an internal motivation for action. Articulating the experience of experiencing values, I act as a sufficient basis for the criteria of judgments about the good that are meaningful to me as a subject. In the case of norms, I can only be aware of the fact that I represent this or that judgment about the good, but the criteria of my judgment are outside of me. Internalization simultaneously acts as a necessary condition for overcoming the distance between the imperative nature of norms and the attractive nature of values, removing contradictions between internal attitudes and external normative requirements of culture.

Another important aspect of the process of articulating values is its immanent dialogicity, understood as a dialogue with Another (the result is solidarity) and a dialogue with Oneself (the result is internalization). M. M. Bakhtin's concept of dialogicity allows us to consider the principle of "the best possible articulation of experience" as a "decentralized linguistic consciousness", a dynamic process of constructing meanings and values, an alternative to authoritarian discourse, capable of reconciling the individual and collective ^[1].

The principle of "the best possible articulation of experience", based on the method of reflexive reflection, fallibilism and dialogicity, is an alternative to authoritarian discourse, what M. M. Bakhtin defined as an "authoritarian word". According to M. M. Bakhtin, the "authoritarian word" is a discourse around an external, unquestionable idea, it is perceived as unchangeable and unquestionable, it is something that is organically connected with the past, a presupposed word, it does not have to be chosen among the same equals. Authoritarian discourse can be expressed in religious and political dogma, in the discourse of the fathers, in what has already been recognized in the past. It excludes doubt, reflection and dialogue — "it requires recognition and assimilation, is imposed on us regardless of the degree of its internal persuasiveness for us," thereby eliminating the subject ^{[1, pp. 155-156]}. Reflection, on the other hand, forms an "inner persuasiveness", revealing the meaning and significance of value for the subject, thereby returning him to Cartesian self-discovery. The absence of reflection impoverishes the personality not only epistemologically, but also axiologically. Without reflection, any perception remains limited, and any normative requirements of culture (disciplines and rules) turn into a simple suppression.

M. M. Bakhtin's alternative to authoritarian discourse is "decentralized linguistic consciousness based on social diversity." The dialogue according to M. M. Bakhtin takes place on the border of the meeting between the Other and the Self. This meeting implies the presence of the intention of the Other and the intention of the Self, in which "society" and "culture" are represented for the subject ^[2]. "Every time in the process of dialogical communication we deal with a person (individual), but we perceive him as a representative of a certain structure (collective), as a social agent" ^[16]. The statements coordinate the individual and collective, the subject and culture in the dialogue, resulting in a movement towards solidarity. The forces of such social solidarity can generate and regenerate axiological space in the forms of communicative practices of self-determination ^[22]. The dialogue shows what people feel evaluative attraction to, it is this that acts as one of the main motivations to participate in it.

Values, desires, emotions and actions

The question of how values become the subject of reflection and articulation leads to the problem of the possibility of a semantic relationship of values, desires, emotions and actions. Speaking about the experience of experiencing the value load of our existence, the history of philosophy explicates its diversity, defining the main horizons in which it is realized. As a rule, we are talking about the cognitive and emotional nature of the experience of experiencing values, correlated with the empirical horizon of actions.

Our evaluation of desires takes place not only in the context of situational and pragmatic reflections on the achievement of goals and the realization of desires. In the experience of reflection, we realize that in addition to our desires, interests and preferences, there is something different from them, what we can call values. They are the internal criteria for evaluating our desires and actions. The ratio of our desires, values and actions is not emotionally neutral. We are capable of experiencing a wide range of feelings: from outrage, guilt or shame to awe, admiration and self-esteem. "These feelings are an emotional expression of a qualitative assessment applied to our desires and actions. They cannot be eliminated, even if we ourselves would like to be free from them" ^[29].

Values are given to us not only in the emotional experience of evaluating our own desires and actions, we find them in the experience of identity formation. Articulating our identity, we discover a set of value criteria in which our perception of ourselves, as well as other people, and our actions are embedded. The language we use to communicate with ourselves and with other people already contains similar qualitative criteria. Culture carries a spectrum of possible axiological alternatives (given to the subject) for constructing oneself, within which identity formation takes place. The axiological framework of culture acts as a necessary condition for the fundamental possibility of making a meaningful choice, determining one's identity based on already existing narratives. Without a discourse that organizes the variety of alternatives (the definition of qualitative axiological differences), a conscious choice would be equivalent to a random one and would have no consequences both for the formation of our identity and for determining our actions ^[7]. Thus, the impossibility of neutral self-description asserts the impossibility of axiological neutrality of action, which determines the semantic relationship between values, desires, emotions and actions, forming an internal "topography" of morality.

If we become aware of our values through reflection, then we inevitably periodically ask ourselves: "Where am I relative to my values?" ^[19]. Observing the dynamics of our life, we can assess in which direction it is developing, can it be interpreted as the result of aspirations for the realization of certain values and how successful is this realization? ^[13]. Articulating our own life story, creating our own narrative helps us to determine at which point along the trajectory of our aspiration we are. To feel who we are, we need an understanding of how we became like this and what we strive for.

Moral feelings differ from other feelings in their connection with values and the perception of our identity. Our moral feelings express our attitude towards ourselves: taking responsibility, experiencing guilt or shame become clear when they are correlated with what we consider "right" from the point of view of our ethical attitudes ^[20]. The world in which we try to understand ourselves is perceived by us through a set of certain values and ideas that are expressed in our moral feelings. Our identity expects us to coordinate our actions with its values and requirements.

The problem of interrelation and balance between the experience of experiencing values, a multidirectional spectrum of desires, moral feelings and actions performed is inseparable from the issue of self-determination of the subject and the formation of his identity.

If we understand the "imaginary" not as a reflected image of something, but as a basic creative principle capable of constructing and changing anthropological reality, then "imaginary" values can act as an integrating principle of our Self ^{[27, 8]}. The construction of values through the creative work of imagination is able to assemble the "I" into a single whole based on the acceptance of the values that our imagination forms and which we evaluate as worthy of relating to them our understanding of ourselves, our desires, feelings and actions. Values are not a goal they want to achieve, but a perceived "significance" that is part of personal identity.

Hermeneutical circle and narrative identity

The integration of the structures of our Self into a single whole, with the help of reflection and imagination, does not lead to isolation from the world or to the static completion of the process of self-construction. The basis for the emergence of commitment to values is the experience of self-transcendence and identity formation ^[5]. Describing the experience of self-transcendence, C. Taylor turns to the hermeneutic method, coordinating it with the principle of "the best possible articulation of experience": "articulation of values is aimed at bridging the gap between emotions (moral feelings) and perceived values. When we articulate values, we give them a form that allows them to be included in the discussion, which can lead to the affirmation, denial or transformation of our values and moral feelings" ^[26]. If the values are confirmed, they continue to exist and strengthen both in the subject and in the general discourse, which gives moral feelings new strength and intensity. The denial of values by one or another narrative does not cancel the feelings experienced, but it can serve as a starting point for revision, with the help of which we determine the controversial points of our statements and try to express our feelings in such a way as to find their confirmation from other participants in the dialogue or decide to remain with their formulations, opposing the formed discourse, showing their authenticity in as a personal narrative. Since moral feelings combine self-perception and our commitment to values, a change in articulation is the cause of a change in feelings themselves.

Without taking into account the experience of the reaction of others, the structuring function of language, the experience of reflexive thinking, we would not be able to identify our own emotions and values ^[9]. Forming ourselves, we correlate existing interpretations with our own feelings, which have not yet been clarified, even before we are able to formulate our own statement and protect our feelings and values from the proposed interpretations. The dependence of self-understanding on language exchange networks is peculiar not only to the childhood period. This dependence persists throughout life ^[24].

A person cannot become a person by being alone, he paradoxically feels his identity only by being in a relationship with interlocutors. With those who played an important role in defining themselves in the past, with those who are important today for the formation of the language of self-knowledge, and those who are fundamentally different in the axiological horizon.

In the process of dialogue, the articulation of values and feelings is not a one-sided action, this process proceeds according to the principle of the hermeneutic circle. We move between different levels of existence of our values and feelings, our own experience of experiencing values and interpretations offered by culture, from dialogue to interpretation and again to dialogue ^[20]. The identity being formed includes the characteristics of the subject's sense of identity, the continuity of his existence in time and space, stable individual characteristics that allow answering the question "who am I?" ^[12]. This process can be depicted as a spiral.

Fig. 1 Hermeneutical spiral

The hermeneutic circle is not a closed cycle that takes us back to the starting point. In the process of interpretation and comprehension, values and emotions associated with them undergo changes. By articulating them, we can change our previous values, the form of their presentation, or acquire new ones. Values that are difficult to articulate due to the loss of their status in public opinion or changes in the individual interpretation of our personality, as a rule, lose their force, and the emotions associated with them weaken, which allows using this method in emotionally oriented therapy ^[23]. This means that articulation is not just an addition to our emotional experiences of values, but a form of their existence and reproduction.

The hermeneutic circle is a model of a complex process describing the interaction between the articulation of a subject and his pre—reflexive experience of emotional experience of values, on the one hand, and individual articulation and the spectrum of interpretations existing in culture, on the other. This process makes it possible to coordinate the specified levels of existence of values, but this coordination remains always dynamic, incomplete and short-lived. The narrative born in this process is a "beacon" of the subject's identity ^[25]. Narrative identity gives human life a sense of coherence of values, moral purpose in the dynamics of the temporal horizon and determines axiological deterministic actions ^[28]. In other words, narrative identity is necessary for us to ensure the consistency of our autobiographical past and anticipates the imaginary future, thereby ensuring the psychosocial unity of values and goals. It is this ability that allows us to be aware of our Self as something identical. This is an internalized and developing individual human story about how we became who we are and what we strive for.

Narrative identity, contributing to self-understanding and self-construction of the subject, helps to coordinate values, emotions and goal-setting with the social environment. The socio-cultural environment requires us to be consistent in time, for example, when we are asked to explain why our current views seem to contradict those previously expressed. The same requirement is put forward for the sequence of actions that must be consistent with the values we declare. This is necessary to create a stable impression of yourself in the minds of other people (reputation), without which long-term cooperation is impossible.

Obligations, duty, moral responsibility, institutions, property, reputation depend on the consistency of the unity of personality in the temporal horizon, which is one of the key reasons that such forms of social life are absent from our ape-like relatives. It's hard to imagine a chimpanzee reproaching another for changing her mind or not completing the task as well as last year.

Conclusions

The experience of experiencing value loading is irreducible only to the narrative practice of articulation or participation in discourse, it is a more complex process of interaction of the internal structures of the subject both among themselves and with the external cultural environment, which can be expressed in the model of the hermeneutic circle. The proposed model allows us to bring the understanding of narrative identity beyond the limits of socio-constructivist ideas.

The hermeneutical circle discovers the possibility of coordinating different levels of values in the subject and overcoming contradictions between individual and collective, desires, emotions, values and actions. The proposed model allows us to describe the coordination of these levels of existence of values, but in empirical terms it always remains incomplete and short-lived.

Values reveal their existence in a dynamic balance between pre-reflexive experience, personal narrative and the spectrum of axiological interpretations existing in a particular culture. The emergence of reflexive standards necessary for evaluating the motives embodied in our desires is unthinkable outside the categories of self-understanding of the individual. This brings the problems of the theory of values closer to the theory of personality formation.

An important aspect of the process of articulating values as part of narrative identity is its immanent dialogicity, which is able to reconcile the individual and the collective, thereby contributing to the emergence of solidarity. Such solidarity can be perceived as an expression of a common narrative or as the formation of a common language that facilitates the substantiation of values.

The second important feature of articulating values as an element of narrative identity is their reflexive awareness. Reflection as a necessary condition for internalization determines the difference between "value" and "norm" or "desire". Without reflexive awareness, value cannot be perceived as an internal motivation that encourages action. It is the process of reflexive awareness that determines the value as an articulated good and is the basis for axiologically determined actions.

Dialogue with the Other can act as a necessary experience, triggering the process of transformation of narrative identity, which is based on a change in moral feelings (empathic experiences), acting as the basis for the emergence of commitment to values, and serve as the basis for their subsequent internalization, which emphasizes the importance of emotional experience in matters of axiology.

Narrative identity gives human life a sense of coherence of values, goals and actions in the dynamics of the temporal horizon. It is this ability that allows us to be aware of our Self as something identical. At the same time, it is important to note that narrative identity is not only constructed from elements of the spectrum of axiological alternatives given to the subject, but is also presented, expressing self-respect, will and self-justification of the subject, is actualized, reproduced through an articulated narrative, or is subject to transformation, when faced with new experience or criticism of the narrative.

Thus, values are embedded in the structure of narrative identity in several ways: they form the content of the narrative, strengthen ideas about ideals through narration and form intentions.

The differences and contradictions in which we are placed, the tension between the life ideals that culture offers us, can be considered not only as a potential for conflict, but also as elements necessary for the enrichment and development of personal history. The principle of "the best articulation of experience", based on reflexive thinking, allows us to process the tension and contradiction that arise when constructing our narrative identity, forming an autonomous personality, independent of which socio-cultural categories it can answer the question "who am I", defining itself not through belonging, but through integration in itself social and cultural contexts of my life (I am me, the totality of my unique life experience) ^[11].

Narrative identity reflects the process of not only socialization, but also individualization, which determines the prospects for multidisciplinary research of narrative identity in the context of the problem of analyzing the processes of interpreting individual life experience through cultural resources (values, norms and meanings), as well as their assimilation, reproduction and changes in the construction of personal narratives.