Narrative and Understanding Persons

The human world is replete with narratives - narratives of our making that are uniquely appreciated by us. Some thinkers have afforded special importance to our capacity to generate such narratives, seeing it as variously enabling us to: exercise our imaginations in unique ways; engender an understanding of actions performed for reasons; and provide a basis for the kind of reflection and evaluation that matters vitally to moral and self development. Perhaps most radically, some hold that narratives are essential for the constitution of human selves. This volume brings together nine original contributions in which the individual authors advance, develop and challenge proposals of these kinds. They critically examine the place and importance of narratives in human lives and consider the underlying capacities that permit us to produce and utilise these special artifacts. All of the papers are written in a non-technical and accessible style.

Notes on contributors; 1. Narrative and understanding persons Daniel D. Hutto; 2. Framing narratives Gregory Currie; 3. The narrative practice hypothesis: origins and applications of folk psychology Daniel D. Hutto; 4. Dramatic irony, narrative, and the external perspective Peter Goldie; 5. Episodic ethics Galen Strawson; 6. On the distances between literary narratives and real-life narratives Peter Lamarque; 7. Reasons to be fearful: Strawson, death and narrative Kathy Behrendt; 8. Stories, lives, and basic survival: a refinement and defense of the narrative view Marya Schechtman; 9. Self and other: limits of narrative understanding Dan Zahavi; 10. Pathologies in narrative structure Shaun Gallagher.

The human world is replete with narratives. Some thinkers have afforded special importance to our capacity to generate narratives, seeing it as enabling us to exercise our imaginations in unique ways. This volume brings together nine original contributions in which the individual authors advance, develop and challenge proposals on narratives.

Daniel Hutto is the Research Leader for Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire and was Head of Philosophy from 1999 to 2005. He was a committee member of the National Committee for Philosophy and editor of its newsletter, The Gadfly, and was elected treasurer of the British Philosophical Association in October 2003.