Mythical Time, Historical Time, and The Narrative Fabric of the Self

1998 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
The Self ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
Time Experience ◽  
Life Itself

Despite the belief that narrative may serve as an important vehicle for exploring human experience and selfhood, there frequently exists the paradoxical supposition that narrative accounts cannot help but falsify life itself: Insofar as time is viewed in fundamentally linear terms and experience, in turn, is viewed as that which simply "goes on" in time, narratives may be viewed as entailing an imposition of literary form upon that which is ostensibly formless. After considering the idea of mythical time, tied to the image of the circle, and the idea of historical time, tied to the image of the line, it is suggested that human experience and selfhood are themselves woven out of the fabric of narrative. In light of contemporary understandings of the self, particularly those promoted in certain quarters of post-structuralist and social constructionist thought, it is further suggested that the narrative fabric of the self has become frayed. By rethinking the interrelationship of time, experience, and self via the idea of narrative, there emerges the opportunity to recognize more fully the profound continuities between myth and history as well as life and literature. (Hermeneutics, History, Myth, Narrative, Self, Time)

Self as One and Many Narratives

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20
Author(s):  
Joseph Ulatowski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
One And Many ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Work And Life

There are different approaches to the narrative self. I limit myself to one approach that argues narratives have an important role to play in our lives without it being true that a narrative constitutes and creates the self. My own position is broadly sympathetic with that view, but my interest lies with the question of whether there is truth in the claim that to create one’s self-narrative is to create oneself. I argue that a self-narrative may be multiply realised by the inner self—impressions and emotions—and the outer self—roles in work and life. I take an optimistic attitude to the idea that narrative provides a metaphor that may stimulate insight into the nature of self if we accept a plurality of narrative selves. This paper mines a vein of research on narratives for insights into selves without being bewitched into accepting implausible conclusions.

Metaphysical Exile

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pippin
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Detailed Interpretation ◽  
The Many ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
Late Modern

This is the first detailed interpretation of J. M. Coetzee’s “Jesus” trilogy as a whole. Robert Pippin treats the three “fictions” as a philosophical fable, in the tradition of Plato’s Republic, More’s Utopia, Rousseau’s Emile, or Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Everyone in the mythical land explored by Coetzee is an exile, removed from their homeland and transported to a strange new place, and they have all had most of the memories of their homeland “erased.” While also discussing the social and psychological dimensions of the fable, Pippin treats the literary aspects of the fictions as philosophical explorations of the implications of a deeper kind of spiritual homelessness, a version that characterizes late modern life itself, and he treats the theme of forgetting as a figure for modern historical amnesia and indifference to reflection and self-knowledge. So, the state of exile is interpreted as “metaphysical” as well as geographical. In the course of an interpretation of the central narrative about a young boy’s education, Pippin shows how a number of issues arise, are discussed and lived out by the characters, all in ways that also suggest the limitations of traditional philosophical treatments of themes like eros, beauty, social order, art, family, non-discursive forms of intelligibility, self-deception, and death. Pippin also offers an interpretation of the references to Jesus in the titles, and he traces and interprets the extensive inter-textuality of the fictions, the many references to the Christian Bible, Plato, Cervantes, Goethe, Kleist, Wittgenstein, and others. Throughout, the attempt is to show how the literary form of Coetzee’s fictions ought to be considered, just as literary—a form of philosophical reflection.

scholarly journals La fenomenología de la depresión como modificación de la experiencia del propio self: Opacidad corporal, desincronización temporal y culpa / The Phenomenology of Depression as a Modification of the Own Experience of the Self: Body Opacity, Temporal Desynchronization and Guiltiness

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Martínez Lucena
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenological Research ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Description ◽  
Melancholic Depression ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Time Experience ◽  
Patient’S Experience ◽  
The One ◽  
Illness And Disease

ABSTRACTLast years, phenomenology has demonstrated its own value in the field of medicine with useful distinctions as the one among illness and disease. It has also contributed to psychiatry. Some inter-disciplinary works about mental illnesses can be found. The phenomenological description of the melancholic depression patient has three main features: a) the transformation of his own body experience; b) a continuous feeling of guilt; and c) a time experience which is desynchronized from the otherness. This paper aims to synthetize this phenomenological research about depression, which has been considered one of the plagues of our time. Moreover, it tries to explain how these changes in the patient’s experience can imply certain modifications of his own self-experience.RESUMENEn los últimos años la fenomenología ha demostrado su valía en el campo de la medicina con útiles distinciones como la hecha entre conceptos como illness y disease. También ha hecho interesantes aportaciones en el campo de la psiquiatría donde se pueden encontrar trabajos interdisciplinarios sobre la diversas enfermedades mentales. La descripción fenomenológica de la experiencia del enfermo de depresión melancólica constaría de tres elementos fundamentales: a) la transformación de la experiencia del propio cuerpo; b) el continuo sentimiento de culpa; y c) una experiencia del tiempo desincronizada con respecto a la alteridad. Esta comunicación intenta aportar una síntesis de dicha investigación fenomenológica hecha sobre la depresión, que ha sido considerada la plaga de nuestro tiempo. Además, intenta explicar en qué sentido tales elementos de la descripción fenomenológica de la experiencia del paciente de melancolía pueden implicar ciertas modificaciones de la experiencia que éste hace de su propio self.

scholarly journals The Perceived Effect of Time on HIV/AIDS Identity Incorporation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Baumgartner
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Temporal Context ◽  
Initial Reaction ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Time ◽  
Living With Hiv ◽  
Hiv Aids

Individuals experience disease in a variety of contexts. In this study, I examined how the temporal context (e.g., historical time, social time, chronological age and the passage of time) affected the incorporation of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self. I used semi structured interviews to collect data from 36 individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Historical time did little to influence the initial reaction to the diagnosis. Chronological age shaped the initial reaction to the diagnosis for some participants. Social time affected immersion in the HIV/AIDS community and the passage of time influenced the integration of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self. The findings add depth to extant studies on the incorporation of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self.

What Do We Mean “Human Experience”?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Varela ◽  
Evan Thompson ◽  
Eleanor Rosch
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
Buddhist Doctrine ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Human Embodiment

This chapter examines human experience. It is necessary to have a disciplined perspective on human experience that can enlarge the domain of cognitive science to include direct experience. Such a perspective already exists in the form of mindfulness/awareness meditation. Mindfulness/awareness practice, phenomenological philosophy, and science are human activities; each is an expression of human embodiment. The chapter then looks at the Buddhist method of examining experience called mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness/awareness meditation can provide a natural bridge between cognitive science and human experience. Particularly impressive is the convergence among some of the main themes of Buddhist doctrine, phenomenology, and cognitive science—themes concerning the self and the relation between subject and object.

scholarly journals An Extended Car-Following Model considering the Driver’s Desire for Smooth Driving and Self-Stabilizing Control with Velocity Uncertainty

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Shihao Li ◽  
Ting Wang ◽  
Rongjun Cheng ◽  
Hongxia Ge
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Flow ◽  
Linear Stability ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
The Self ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Velocity Data ◽  
Car Following ◽  
Stabilizing Control ◽  
Car Following Model ◽  
Time Gap

In this paper, an extended car-following model with consideration of the driver’s desire for smooth driving and the self-stabilizing control in historical velocity data is constructed. Moreover, for better reflecting the reality, we also integrate the velocity uncertainty into the new model to analyze the internal characteristics of traffic flow in situation where the historical velocity data are uncertain. Then, the model’s linear stability condition is inferred by utilizing linear stability analysis, and the modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation is also obtained to depict the evolution properties of traffic congestion. According to the theoretical analysis, we observe that the degree of traffic congestion is alleviated when the control signal is considered, and the historical time gap and the velocity uncertainty also play a role in affecting the stability of traffic flow. Finally, some numerical simulation experiments are implemented and the experiments’ results demonstrate that the control signals including the self-stabilizing control, the driver’s desire for smooth driving, the historical time gap, and the velocity uncertainty are of avail to improve the traffic jam, which are consistent with the theoretical analytical results.

Jean Quigley, The grammar of autobiography: A developmental account. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. Pp. xiv, 232. Hb $49.95.

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 490-493
Author(s):  
Stanton Wortham
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
The Self ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

In The grammar of autobiography, Jean Quigley makes a claim that one often hears nowadays: that the self is constructed in autobiographical narrative discourse. Two dimensions of the work distinguish her analysis of narrative self-construction from many other treatments of the subject. First, she offers a genuinely interdisciplinary account, drawing on functional linguistics, theoretical and developmental psychology, and accounts of language development. Second, she studies a particular category of linguistic forms – modals – as the key to narrative self-construction.

Why Ethical Philosophy Needs to Be Comparative

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel J. Kupperman
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Space Time ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Ethical Philosophy ◽  
The World

AbstractPrinciples can seem as entrenched in moral experience as Kant thinks space, time, and the categories are in human experience of the world. However not all cultures have such a view. Classical Indian and Chinese philosophies treat modification of the self as central to ethics. Decisions in particular cases and underlying principles are much less discussed.Ethics needs comparative philosophy in order not to be narrow in its concerns. A broader view can give weight to how people sometimes can change who they are, in order to lead better lives.

scholarly journals THE IMAGES OF TIME IN THE EPOCH OF MULTICULTURALISM

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-138
Author(s):  
Ina Nalivaika
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Models ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Time Experience ◽  
Visual Approach ◽  
New Form

The article is devoted to the comprehension of the connection between the idea and practice of multiculturalism and images of time that define the identity of classical cultural models. To answer the question about the perspectives and the limits of multiculturalism as new form of pluralism, it is necessary to examine the origins of the idea of plurality in Western culture. This idea occurs to be deeply connected with the specific movement of subjectivation and the mode of time‐experience that defines the ontological basis of the Self. The specific feature of European mode of apprehension of the time is its visual character. The vivid call of the epoch of multiculturalism is the need for transformation of indefinite plurality into real diversity. It demands new ontology based on refusal from visual approach to time and on transition “eidetic” one into “existential”.

The Self-Erasing Word

Poetics Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-139
Author(s):  
Michael LeMahieu
Keyword(s):  
Literary Form ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Relationship

Don DeLillo’s early novels explore the relationship between formal logic and literary form. In End Zone, DeLillo uses tautology as a linguistic tactic of diminishment to advance a larger aesthetic strategy of repleteness. The novel says less to show more. As a result, End Zone, like many of DeLillo’s other early novels, frequently represents states of silence and unspeakability. DeLillo’s early fiction shares these concerns with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early philosophy, particularly the remarks on tautology, silence, and the limits of language in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In their conclusions, End Zone and the Tractatus analogously seek to undo themselves to overcome the inherent limitations of logic and language.

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