Criticism of the Narrative Self Sample Clauses

Criticism of the Narrative Self. The notion of the narrative self is not without its critics, and in the interest of understanding and countering some of the most prominent criticisms, I will now turn to some crucial points made by a key adversary of the narrative view, Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx, in Against Narrativity. He argues against two popular claims among those who defend the narrative view of the self. The first he calls the psychological narrativity thesis, “a straightforwardly empirical, descriptive thesis about the way ordinary human beings actually experience their lives. This is how we are, it says, this is our nature” (Strawson, 2004). The thrust of his argument against this thesis is that he does not experience his life in the form of a conventional narrative. Where the narrative thesis requires individuals to experience their daily lives as diachronic, he experiences life as episodic. These “styles of being are radically opposed,” and his life experience is decidedly episodic. The basis for these two styles, furthermore, is genetics, as he states “I take it that the fundamentals of temporal temperament are genetically determined and that we have to do here with a deep ‘individual difference variable’” (Strawson, 2004). (We will return to the topic of temporal disposition in the next section when we discuss the I have absolutely no sense of my life as a narrative with form, or indeed as a narrative without form. Absolutely none. Nor do I have any great or special interest in my past. Nor do I have a great deal of concern for my future (Strawson, 2004). This blanket disavowal of the diachronic temperament is naturally at odds with four versions of the narrative self discussed above. The second aspect of the narrative self that Strawson disagrees with is called the ethical narrativity thesis, which naturally places him in opposition to the Hermeneutic Views of Ricoeur, Xxxxxx and XxxXxxxxx. This thesis states “that experiencing or conceiving of one’s life as a narrative is a good thing; a richly narrative outlook is essential to a well-lived life, to true or full personhood” (Strawson, 2004). He sees these accounts as profoundly chauvinist and motivated by their own sense of self-importance, noting that many ethical accounts “are wrapped up in forms of religious belief that are – like almost all religious belief – really all about self” (Strawson, 2004). He takes particular opposition to a passage from Xxxxxx, who writes, Because we cannot but orient ourselves to the good, and hence det...