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Articles

Spinning Narratives, Spinning Selves

Pauline O’Flynn tells stories of how our language makes our selves, with contributions from Arendt, Ngugi, Dennett and Merleau-Ponty.

The ‘narrative self’ is now widely accepted by philosophers as an appropriate metaphor for the self. Philo sophical interest in narrative as representative of human lives was strongly influenced by Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958). In this book, Arendt, a political philosopher, proposes that the individual discloses his/her self to the world and to themselves through both action and speech:

“Action and speech are so closely related because the primordial and specifically human act must at the same time contain the answer to the question asked of every newcomer: “Who are you?” This disclosure of who someone is, is implicit in both his words and his deeds… This disclosure of ‘who’ in contradistinction to ‘what’ somebody is – his qualities, gifts, talents, and shortcomings, which he may display or hide – is implicit in everything somebody says and does. It can be hidden only in complete silence and perfect passivity.” (pp.

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