scholarly journals Saying no (to a story): personal identity and negativity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tereza Matějčková
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
The Self ◽  
Birth Certificates ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
Phenomenological Tradition ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe concept of narrativity and narrative identity has two birth certificates: it is linked to the phenomenological tradition—beginning with Arendt’s “political phenomenology” —and to the tradition of German Idealism gradually slipping into existentialism. In this article, the author focuses on the latter tradition that helped to pave the way of the concept of narrative self. Key among the thinkers of Classical German Idealism has been Hegel, often considered the philosophical storyteller. Yet the author argues that Hegel’s concept of narrativity is not exclusively applied to the self and has hardly any role in the constitution of consciousness. This is the reason why Hegel (rather than thinkers who place the core of personal identity into narrativity) has the means to formulate a more convincing concept of the self and personal identity. The author does not deny that narrativity is seminal, both for leading a life as a human being and as a concrete person; however, originally consciousness and self-hood are born out of negativity. One enacts one’s selfhood, once one realizes that one has to interrupt narrativity, step in, refuse to live by it, or just ordinarily rephrase it consciously and by this appropriate it.

scholarly journals The theory on “eide” according to Nicholas of Methone

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 551-568
Author(s):  
Christos Terezis ◽  
Lydia Petridou
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
The Core ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Divine Mind ◽  
The Way

In this study, we are discussing the theory on “eide” and their relation to the “matter” according to Nicholas of Methone. This is a topic that shows the way in which God, as the supreme and only Principle, is connected to the natural world and human being. In this attempt of ours we move both historically and systemati­cally. Thus, we first point out the differences on this issue between the ancient Greek thought, which moves towards dualism, and Christianity, which accepts only monism; we then explain the monistic reconstruction of the ancient Greek ontology by the Neoplatonists. Nicholas of Methone’s views and the Christian readings of ontology constitute the core of our approaches, of which it is high­lighted that “eide” are the content of the divine Mind and that they are the good divine volitions. The question is also put in view of the unions and distinctions, since “eide” are a unified but internally differentiated whole in God. At the level of the sensible world, it is shown that “matter” is not considered independently from “eide”. The main conclusion that comes to the fore is that Nicholas of Methone makes a philosophical reading of the Christian theory on triune God’s energies, remaining consistent with Christian realism and rejecting the self-existent charac­ter of the “eide”.

scholarly journals The Role of Time in the Theory of Narrative Identity in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-494
Author(s):  
Michał Kumorek
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Core ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
New Models ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Time has a very important function in considering the identity of a person. It is the factor that brings identity into question. The core of the problem is the question of whether the person is the same as he or she was at another time. The problem of personal identity was one of the most important issues in Paul Ricoeurs philosophy. He considers this problem in the context of time and notes that traditional models of identity as sameness and as selfhood have been entangled in various aporias. He, therefore, proposes two new models of identity that are related in different ways to temporality: character and promise. Character is a model that changes over time through the acquisition or loss of various traits. The promise, on the other hand, is a model that resists the pressure of time attempts to keep a given word. In this way, these two different models create the framework for Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity. In this concept, time enables the development of action in a story. It allows the action to turn around, but it also allows the human being to look at the story of his or her life. Character and promise are models that allow the human being to look at his or her life as a certain temporal entity that is constantly threatened by unforeseen accidents and events but also constantly absorbs them and, through to time, gives the possibility of retrospection leading to synthesis. This synthesis allows us to look at a single life as a whole, belonging to the same person endowed with the character and challenge of keeping a promise.

Kierkegaard, Metaphysics, and Love

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gabriel Marcel ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Alternative Reading ◽  
The Way

AbstractNoting Heidegger’s critique of Kierkegaard’s way of relating time and eternity, the paper offers an alternative reading of Kierkegaard that suggests Heidegger has overlooked crucial elements in the Kierkegaardian account. Gabriel Marcel and Sharon Krishek are used to counter Heidegger’s minimizing of the deaths of others and to show how the deaths of others may become integral to our sense of self. This prepares the way for revisiting Kierkegaard’s discourse on the work of love in remembering the dead. Against the criticism that this reveals the absence of the other in Kierkegaardian love, the paper argues that, on the contrary, it shows how Kierkegaard conceives the self as inseparable from the core relationships of love that, despite of death, constitute it as the self that it is.

Rosenzweig, Franz (1886–1929)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myriam Bienenstock
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Standard Work ◽  
I And Thou ◽  
New Thinking

An outstanding Hegel scholar – his Hegel und der Staat (Hegel and the State) (1920) remains a standard work on Hegel’s political philosophy – Franz Rosenzweig elaborated, in Der Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption) (1921) and several articles – notably, his 1925 article ‘Das neue Denken’ (’The New Thinking’) – a philosophy of revelation that breaks with the systematic and rationalistic premises of German Idealism. The nisus of Rosenzweig’s New Thinking was formulated as early as 1917, in a letter containing the germ (Urzelle) of Der Stern: ‘after reason, ‘‘philosophical reason’’, has absorbed everything in itself’, Rosenzweig writes, ‘after it has proclaimed its sole existence, man suddenly discovers that he is still here, although he was digested long ago…. I am still here, I – plain, private subject, with first and last name, I – dust and ashes…. Individuum ineffabile triumphans’. How can this be? The human being, Rosenzweig explains, can acquire personal identity as an individual only through the call, that is, the revelation of the Other: God – but also, some other human being. Dialogue, communication in language, comes to the fore in this philosophy, developed around the same time as Martin Buber’s Ich und Du (I and Thou) (1923). Often treated as a common ground and basis for understanding between Jews and Christians, Der Stern der Erlösung is a major source of inspiration for such contemporary philosophers as Lévinas and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Jewish philosophy.

Story and Identity

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-181
Author(s):  
Karen E. Shackleford ◽  
Cynthia Vinney
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the way fictional stories impact personal identity. It discusses how identity develops with a particular focus on adolescence. Then, it sheds light on how fiction contributes to identity construction as teens gain insight into things like careers, relationships, values, and beliefs through stories and how these insights can impact their choices for their futures. The chapter also looks at the way people’s emotional investments in their favorite stories can cause them to become extensions of themselves and how this may lead them to use these stories as symbols of who they are. Finally, it explores the topic of narrative identity—the internalized, constantly evolving life story each person tells of himself or herself—and how fiction influences and becomes incorporated into people’s life stories.

Strange Cases: Jekyll & Hyde Narratives as Rhetorical Strategy in Sir Alexander Morison’s Physiognomy of Mental Diseases

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-170
Author(s):  
Madeline Bourque Kearin
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Fluid Dynamic ◽  
Physical Symptoms ◽  
The Self ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Mental Diseases ◽  
Radical Transformation ◽  
The Way

Abstract Sir Alexander Morison’s Physiognomy of Mental Diseases (1838) was created as a didactic tool for physicians, depicting lunatics in both the active and dormant states of disease. Through the act of juxtaposition, Morison constituted his subjects as their own Jekylls and Hydes, capable of radical transformation. In doing so, he marshaled artistic and clinical, visual and textual approaches in order to pose a particular argument about madness as a temporally manifested, visually distinguishable state defined by its contrast with reason. This argument served a crucial function in legitimizing the emergent discipline of psychiatry by applying biomedical methodologies to the observation and classification of distinctly physical symptoms. Robert Louis Stevenson’s “quintessentially Victorian parable” serves as a metaphor for the way 19th-century alienists conceptualized insanity, while the theme of duality at the core of Stevenson’s story serves as a framework for conceptualizing both psychiatry and the subjects it generates. It was (and is) a discipline formulated around narrative as the primary organizing structure for its particular set of paradoxes, and specifically, narratives of the self as a fluid, dynamic, and contradictory entity.

The political and conception of the self – a Wittgensteinian approach to political thought/ Polityka bez podmiotu – wittgensteinowska perspektywa w myśli politycznej

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Krzynówek-Arndt
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe paper proposes to examine the variety of ways political theorists understand the political importance of Wittgenstein’s thought. Any analysis of Wittgensteinian political philosophy start from different understanding of this philosophy of language and possible ends of philosophical activity. However, each attempt to interpret the significance of Wittgenstein’s work to political thought anticipates or is linked to a particular conception of the self, a particular conception of the human being that is not easy to reconcile with the Wittgenstein of Tractatus and the Wittgenstein of Philosophical Investigations. For that reasons any Wittgensteinian approach to political thought should make an attention to the way Wittgenstein discusses on the self, the “I”, the way we use the word “I”.

scholarly journals Self-remembering: Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1870-1949) & his legacy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Joanna Nicholls-Parker
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Spiritual Legacy ◽  
Contemplative Neuroscience ◽  
The Way

<p>The subject of this thesis is the spiritual practices taught by Gurdjieff (1870-1949) and the legacy of these teachings in the major spiritual groups that have aspired to follow his path. I argue that at the core of these spiritual techniques are the practices that Gurdjieff referred to as “self-remembering” and “transition” and that by an analysis of these it is possible to articulate Gurdjieff’s spiritual system in a novel fashion. This articulation is then utilized to explore the different ways in which his system was developed by his disciples. The more recent studies of spirituality and spiritual techniques allow us to critically reconsider Gurdjieff and his legacy in a systemic and academic fashion. The thesis concludes that while Gurdjieff was a man and teacher of his time many of the themes of his teachings continue to resonate in contemporary spiritual movements and that his influence has been wider than is often acknowledged, and that at the centre of this legacy are his spiritual techniques. Gurdjieff used storytelling to advance an in-depth understanding of his teaching to his principal followers and it is through an evaluation of this investment that the promotion of self-awareness is seen as pivotal and central to any evaluation of the spiritual legacy. The way to distinguish Gurdjieff’s teaching from other of his principal followers, now 100 years on, is evident when contemporary literature can provide a valuable and insightful means to differentiate influence. The key contribution offered in the name of contemplative neuroscience in this thesis reveals that Gurdjieff taught by employing a narrative self-focus, while his principal followers taught by employing a self-reverential devotional focus. This sets the benchmark of the legacy up anew as reflecting at least two different theological approaches: self-focused or self-reverential. My critical analysis of Gurdjieff’s techniques will differ from a number of academic appraisals in that essentially hagiography is offered as a replacement for biography, and in this way with the assistance of phenomenology the legacy can be explained in a more true and reasonable fashion. This is because the lesser weight on biography allows the phenomenological perspectives to assist the teachings arrival at the ethereal state crystallization, revealing Gurdjieff’s personal agenda and indicating his means of delivery.</p>

scholarly journals Redesign Me: Virtual Reality Experience of the Line of Life and Its Connection to a Healthier Self

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iva Georgieva ◽  
Georgi V. Georgiev
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
The Self ◽  
Life Narratives ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Scenarios ◽  
The Way

Virtual Reality is used in various ways for creating a storytelling experience. It gives us the opportunity to imagine one’s life events as a story, and in settings that are intended to aid the self, such as treatment of trauma, anxiety, phobia, etc. This paper discusses the ways that challenging experiences change the way people perceive their life narratives and form their memories. This paper suggests that virtual reality (VR) can be used for the exploration of alternative scenarios in order to see one’s overall line of life in a new and healthier way. Considering the theoretical background of the narrative self, this research proposes a novel view of VR immersion as a medium for constructing a new storyline and attitude to the past. The approach would also influence attitudes regarding the present and future, and thus better shape the narrative of the self, which can lead to healthier life experiences.

Personal Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Individual Substance ◽  
Past Time ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines John Locke's idea of personal identity by focusing on the canonical personal identity question: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of the truth of the claim that a person considered now at time t₂, whom we may call [P], is the same person as a person considered at a different past time t₁, whom we may call [Pₓ]? What has to be true if it is to be true that [Pₓ] is the same person as [P]? The canonical question assumes that “person” denotes a thing or object or substance that is a standard temporal continuant in the way that a human being or person1 is (or an immaterial soul, on most conceptions of what an immaterial soul is). The chapter considers how Locke's person differs both from human being (man) and from (individual) substance, material or immaterial, on the same ground, as well as his concept of the field of consciousness in relation to personhood.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document