The narrative sense of self
The narrative sense of self
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1365-2753.2012.01918.x
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发表时间：
2012-10-01
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Goldie, Peter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Goldie, Peter
叙述性思维在我们与自己的过去和未来的接触中起着核心作用。在这篇文章中，我想讨论的问题是自我的叙事意识是如何与其他自我概念联系起来的，其中包括三个特别的概念：个人同一性的概念，关注的是什么使一个人随着时间的推移成为同一个人的形而上学问题；生存的理念；稳定自我的概念，随着时间的推移，其特征保持相对稳定。我会试着说明，自我叙事意识和个人同一性之间的关系并不像人们有时想象的那样简单：，我认为，一个人的自我叙事意识，实际上与一个人的身份这一形而上学问题没有直接的联系。叙述性的自我意识也没有任何直接的暗示来回答什么构成了长期生存的问题。至于稳定的自我，二者的关系又是极不密切的。玛丽亚·谢赫特曼（maria Schechtman）认为，随着时间的推移，拥有一个稳定的自我是一个人身份和生存的条件，这是她关于叙事和自我的重要而有影响力的著作的一部分。她认为，为了让我过去的行为成为我的叙述的一部分，我必须能够认同它们，或者有她所谓的移情访问它们，这是我个人身份和生存的必要条件。这是她的叙事自我构成或叙事自我理解概念的核心[1-4]。我将给出理由来反对谢克特曼的观点。其中一个原因是，对一个人过去的共情访问的生存要求实际上阻碍了通过激进改变实现深刻个人进步的可能性。在我看来，相比之下，一个人可以对自己的过去有一系列自我导向的反应性态度和情绪，其中许多态度和情绪预设了一个人作为一个人的连续性的深刻感觉；自我宽恕就是其中之一。我承认随着时间的推移，拥有相对稳定的定义特征的重要性，并同意一个人的定义特征的彻底改变不是经常发生的事情。然而，当它发生时，在精神冲突和困惑的时候，个人的进步可以得到实现，这样一个人就可以成为一个更好的人。自传体叙事在这里的作用尤为尖锐。21本文是Peter Goldie的第六章的编辑版，The Mess Inside，牛津：牛津大学出版社[5]。本文的一个版本于2011年3月18日在国王学院/人文与健康中心关于医学中的人格和身份的讲习班上提出。本期还发表了关于该研讨会[6]的报告和该研讨会[7]的另一篇论文。Peter Goldie在研讨会结束后不久就去世了，Elselijn M. Kingma博士编辑了这篇论文，并得到了他的遗孀Sophie Hamilton和OUP的许可。
Narrative thinking plays a central part in our engagement with our own past and future. In this essay, I want to address the question of how the narrative sense of self relates to other ideas of selfhood, including three in particular: the idea of personal identity, concerned with the metaphysical question of what it is that makes someone the very same person over time; the idea of survival; and the idea of a stable self, whose defining traits remain relatively stable over time. I will try to show that the relationship between the narrative sense of self and personal identity is not as straightforward as might sometimes be supposed: one’s narrative sense of self as I conceive it really has no direct connection with the metaphysical question of one’s identity over time. Nor does the narrative sense of self have any direct implications for the question of what constitutes survival over time. And so far as concerns the stable self, again the relation is highly oblique. Marya Schechtman has argued that having a stable self over time is a condition of one’s identity and survival, as part of her important and influential work on narrative and the self. For my past actions to be part of my narrative, she argues, I must be able to identify with them, or have what she calls empathic access to them, which is a necessary condition for my personal identity and survival. This is at the heart of her notion of narrative selfconstitution or narrative self-understanding [1–4]. I will give reasons to reject Schechtman’s view. One such reason is that the requirement for survival of empathic access to one’s past in effect blocks off the possibility of profound personal progress through radical change. On my account, by contrast, one can have a whole gamut of self-directed reactive attitudes and emotions towards one’s past where many of these attitudes and emotions presuppose a profound sense of one’s continuity as a person; self-forgiveness is just one such. I acknowledge the importance of having relatively stable defining traits over time, and agree that radical change in one’s defining traits is not something that can happen often. Nevertheless, when it does, at times of mental conflict and confusion, personal progress can be made, so that one can emerge as a better person. The role of autobiographical narratives is especially poignant here. 21 This paper is an edited version of Chapter 6 of Peter Goldie, The Mess Inside, Oxford: Oxford University Press [5]. A version of this paper was presented on 18 March 2011 at the King’s College/Centre for Humanities and Health Workshop on Personhood and Identity in Medicine. A report on this workshop [6] and one other paper from it [7] are also published in this issue. Peter Goldie died shortly after that workshop and this paper has been edited for inclusion in this issue by Dr Elselijn M. Kingma, with permission from his widow Sophie Hamilton and the OUP.