Marya Schechtman

The truth about memory

Abstract Contemporary philosophical discussion of personal identity has centered on refinements and defenses of the “psychological continuity theory”—the view that identity is created by the links between present and past provided by autobiographical experience memories. This view is structured in such a way that these memories must be seen as providing simple connections between two discrete, well‐defined moments of consciousness. There is, however, a great deal of evidence—both introspective and empirical—that autobiographical memory often does not provide such links, but instead summarizes, and condenses life experiences into, a coherent narrative. A brief exploration of some of the mechanisms of this summarizing and condensing work furthers the philosophical discussion of personal identity by showing why a view with the structure of the psychological continuity theory will not work, and by illuminating the role of autobiographical memory in the constitution of personal identity.

The brain/body problem

Abstract It is a commonplace of contemporary thought that the mind is located in the brain. Although there have been some challenges to this view, it has remained mainstream outside of a few specialized discussions, and plays a prominent role in a wide variety of philosophical arguments. It is further assumed that the source of this view is empirical. I argue it is not. Empirical discoveries show conclusively that the brain is the central organ of mental life, but do not show that it is the minds location. The data are just as compatible with a view where mentality is a human capacity on the model of circulation or respiration, with the brain playing the same kind of role as the heart or lungs. The standard conception of the brain as the locus of mind stems, I claim, from the imposition of a Cartesian conception of the self on a materialist ontology. Recognizing that the empirical data do not justify such a move casts doubt on the foundations of a number of philosophical discussions and raises new questi...

Personhood and the practical

Traditionally, it has been assumed that metaphysical and practical questions about personhood and personal identity are inherently linked. Neo-Lockean views that draw such a link have been problematic, leading to an opposing view that metaphysical and ethical questions about persons should be sharply distinguished. This paper argues that consideration of this issue suffers from an overly narrow conception of the practical concerns associated with persons that focuses on higher-order capacities and fails to appreciate basic practical concerns more directly connected to our animality. A more inclusive alternative is proposed.

Making the Truth: Self-Understanding, Self-Constitution, Neuroscience, and Narrative

“Neuroscience, Self-Understanding, and Narrative Truth” (Walker 2012) provides a clear and helpful picture of where things stand with narrative accounts of self-understanding. Neuroscientific results reinforce the already-existing worry that the very features that draw us to a narrative account of self guarantee that a narrative self-understanding will be incomplete and/or inaccurate. Philosophers are, however, aware of these worries and have offered responses to them. Walker argues convincingly that engaging the philosophical literature when interpreting empirical results will help avoid prematurely dismissing the possibility of legitimate narrative self-understanding. I enthusiastically endorse Walker’s proposal, but urge taking it a step further. She alludes to the fact that some narrative accounts (including my own) hold that self-narratives play a role in constituting the self, but does not pursue this aspect of the narrative approach very far. A full treatment of the issues she raises demands a more detailed consideration of this possibility. The standard arguments that the selective and reconstructive aspects of narrative formation preclude accurate self-understanding assume a prenarrative truth about the self that narrative fails to capture. If persons constitute themselves via their self-narratives, this assumption does not hold. Many of the strategies Walker describes for responding to the worry that narratives distort self-understanding thus become even more forceful in the context of a self-constitution model. To determine the implications of the claim that persons are self-constituting for questions of narrative accuracy, we need first to have a better understanding of just what this claim involves. Walker emphasizes the fact that according to some theorists a person’s narrative self-understanding can influence behavior, causing that person to enact her or his self-conception in a way that engenders its truth. This is an important aspect of self-constitution, but it is not the whole of it. Many philosophers who hold that persons are self-constituting suggest that being a self requires active unification, interpretation, and structuring of one’s psychological life (Frankfurt 1999; Korsgaard 2009; Schechtman

Loving Eyes of My Own: Love, Particularity, and Necessity

Harry Frankfurt has argued that there is a kind of practical necessity that has not received sufficient attention—necessitation by what we care about or love. This kind of practical necessity differs in important ways from necessity connected with morality and rationality. It involves a normative claim, which can be specific to an individual rather than universal. And, love creates, rather than responds to, value. Something seems undeniably right about Frankfurt’s “necessity of love.” His analysis of this phenomenon has, however, been widely seen as problematic and vulnerable to troubling counterexamples. The main difficulties stem from his insistence that one can be autonomously compelled by love while judging the beloved to be “utterly bad” in itself. This chapter seeks to identify and salvage what is compelling in Frankfurt’s analysis. Through reflection on the salient characteristics of Luther’s stand against the church (which Frankfurt invokes as a defining instance of practical necessity) and an analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work on self-reliance, the chapter sketches a view in which autonomous necessitation by love rests on a particular kind of perception of intrinsic value in the beloved, which is not available to everyone. This means motivation by love requires a known assumption of a particular kind of epistemic and agential risk. This picture, it is argued, captures the special nature of love as a form of practical necessity without falling prey to the difficulties that beset Frankfurt’s view. The possible implications for more general issues in practical reasoning are also considered.

“The Size of the Self”: Minimalist Selves and Narrative Self-Constitution

This essay responds to skeptical queries directed against narrative by examining two views of the self in contemporary philosophical literature which can be traced back to two differing interpretations of Locke’s account of the relation between persons and selves. On the first (or “narrative self-constitution”) view, a persisting subject exists only by its (essentially, even if only implicitly, narrative) appropriation of different experiences over time. On the other (“minimalist”) view, selfhood is not something actively accomplished, but rather a (pre-reflective, pre-linguistic, pre-narrative) given of some sort, one that is shared not merely by self-conscious adult human beings but also by animals, children and the cognitively impaired; on this view, selfhood in this more restricted sense is a necessary precursor of, but not coextensive with, personhood, which requires in addition some form of higher-order cognition or reflection.