Telling habits: a habit-based approach to narrative identity

Abstract

Personhood and personal identity constitute long-standing problems in philosophical discussion, as the concepts of what is a person and how persons persist through time lie at the dead centre of many issues, and especially of metaphysical and ethical ones. Among the incredible variety and richness of problems that persons display, there is one issues this thesis focus on: the relation between the notion of person and personal identity, and the embodied condition of persons. It’s a relation that has long been in the focus of philosophical analysis, and indeed constitutes perhaps one of the thorniest problems that persons present: while psychological and cognitive features are often taken for granted in the concept of person, the embodied condition of persons has often been cast as less relevant to understanding the concept. The goal of this thesis is to establish a conceptual connection between the notion of person and personal identity, and the embodied dimension of persons. Chapter One, “Framing the problems of persons”, introduces the main conceptual points developed in the recent philosophical debate with regard to the notion of personhood and personal identity. It first offers an overview of the principal solutions that have been offered to the problem of how personal identity persist through time, and of the discussion pertaining the criteria of personhood. The analysis then follows the evolution of the debate by introducing the notions of practical and metaphysical identity and reconstructing the conceptual steps that underlie their separation; it further explores the consequences of this distinction, in particular in terms of the role played by conventions and the social dimension in the constitution of the concept of a person. The goal of the chapter is to both reconstruct the logic(s) according to which the debate moves, and to problematize some of its aspects, in particular the disparaged role the body is assigned in many conceptual solutions. The chapter concludes by endorsing a notion of person that emphasizes its practical and socially-informed dimension, while arguing that this notion still falls short of offering a view of personal identity adequately connected to the embodied dimension of the person. Chapter Two, “A narrative approach to personal identity”, introduces the narrative approach as particularly well-suited to respond to the problems of personal identity, especially as they emerged within the psychological paradigm that has ruled much of the debate. In the first place, the concept of narrative is introduced by means of Marya Schechtman’s The constitution of the selves (1996), an influential narrative approach to personal identity. Schechtman’s work allows to structure a notion of personal identity both practical and socially-informed, but that still falls short of being deeply embodied. Next, the narrative approach is briefly contextualixed with respect to its genesis and the evolution of the concept of narrative; the analysis then focusses on the continuity thesis, the thesis that narrative identity is structured in continuity with the dimension of action and experience, as it can be reconstructed through the work of Paul Ricoeur (1984) and David Carr (1986). In order to better contextualize the narrative paradigm at hand, some of the main objections that have been moved against it are presented. Schechtman’s work is then again taken under consideration through an analysis of Staying alive (2014), in which Schechtman futher refines her approach to personal identity, moving from a theory of narrative self-constitution to the notion of person-life. The complex architecture of her work is discussed in light of the continuity thesis, and in particular to the way narrative self-conceptions interact with the embodied levels of personal identity. This brings the discussion on to the themes of how embodied experience is related to narrative self-conceptions; and in particular, how such relation fails to be concretized in narrative agency, and how such shortcoming is connected to failure to fully embody personal identity. Chapter Three, “Telling habits”, intends to answer some of the problems that have emerged within the relation of narrative identity, narrative agency, and embodied dimension of action and experience. It does so by way of the concept of habits and habitual agency developed in the pragmatist tradition, and in particular by John Dewey. The chapter offers an overview of the pragmatist concept of habit; in particular, the notion of habitual agency is defended as a form of agency that is rooted in the agent’s embodiment and embedded in the social context. Next, it is argued that habitual agency offers a fitting notion to some of the problems of narrative agency, and in particular, of how narrative agency and narrative actions come about and are actualized. Habitual agency can both be employed in service of narrative agency, but also autonomously contribute to it. The notion of narrative agency as habitually informed translates to a strongly embodied and socially embedded notion of the person.