Laitinen, Arto - Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur on Self-Interpretations and Narrative Identity.pdf - psL - DarkDream

Arto Laitinen:

Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur on Self-Interpretations and Narrative Identity

In this chapter I discuss Charles Taylor's and Paul Ricoeur's theories of narrative identity

and narratives as a central form of self-interpretation. 1 Both Taylor and Ricoeur think that

self-identity is a matter of culturally and socially mediated self-definitions, which are

practically relevant for one's orientation in life. 2 First, I will go through various

characterisations that Ricoeur gives of his theory, and try to show to what extent they also

apply to Taylor's theory. Then, I will analyse more closely Charles Taylor's, and in

section three, Paul Ricoeur's views on narrative identity.

1. The various mediating roles of narrative identity

The most general point that unites Ricoeur and Taylor is that they both have very strong

intuitions against one-sided reductions. From Ricoeur's texts we can find as many as

eight different characterisations of narrative identity as playing some kind of mediating

role:

1) Narrative identity contains both harmony and dissonance . Narratives mediate

between discordance and concordance and bring about "discordant concordance" or

"concordant discordance" to our identities, especially when the discordance in

question is temporal. (Ricoeur 1984, pp. 4, 21, 31, 42, 43, 49, 60, 69-73, 151, 161,

168, 229)

2) Narratives are both lived and told . Narrative configurations mediate between the

world of action and the world of the reader. (Ricoeur 1984, ch.2, ch.3; Ricoeur 1991;

Carr 1986; Kaunismaa & Laitinen 1998)

1 "Self-understanding is an interpretation; interpretation of the self, in turn, finds in the narrative, among

other signs and symbols, a privileged form of mediation; the latter borrows from history as well as from

fiction, making a life story a fictional history or, if one prefers, a historical fiction, interweaving the

historiographic style of biographies with the novelistic style of autobiographies." Ricoeur (1992, 114, fn1)

2 Both Taylor and Ricoeur distinguish self-identity from various forms of idem-identity that apply to non-

persons as well: sameness as synchronous unity, sameness as diachronous persistence and similarity.

(Ricoeur 1992, ch 5 &6.)

3) Narratives are both innovative and based on established views. Narrativity, in the

manner of traditions, includes a dialectic of innovation and sedimentation .(Ricoeur

1984, pp. 68, 69, 77, 79, 166, 208, 229).

4) Narratives combine fact and fiction . Narrative identity occupies a central position

between historical narratives and narratives of literary fiction (Ricoeur 1987, 244-9). 3

5) Narrative identity mediates between "what is" and "what ought to be" . Narration

occupies a middle ground between neutral description and ethical prescription. (1992,

114-5, 152-168). Narrative identity is not reducible to neutral description although, on

the other hand, ethical identity is also not reducible to narrative identity. 4

6) Narrative identity mediates between two kinds of permanence in time, between two

poles of self-identity (or " ipse -identity"). These two poles are, first, "selfhood without

support from sameness" ("pure ipse "), which Ricoeur illustrates by the phenomenon

of "keeping one's word". The second pole is "selfhood as supported by sameness"

(" ipse as supported by idem "), which Ricoeur illustrates with the phenomenon of

character. This opens up a space for "an intervention of narrative identity in the

conceptual constitution of personal identity in the manner of a specific mediator

between the pole of character, where idem and ipse tend to coincide, and the pole of

self-maintenance, where selfhood frees itself from sameness." (Ricoeur 1992, 119, cf.

also pp. 1-3, 113-125, 140-151.)

7) Theories of narrative identity are located between an affirmation of a certain and

indubitable "I" and a total rejection of an "I". The hermeneutical approach to selfhood

occupies a central position between Cartesian cogito-philosophy and the Nietzschean

3 "The fragile offshoot issuing from the union of history and fiction is the assignment to an individual or a

community of a specific identity that we can call their narrative identity" (Ricoeur 1987, 246). "[T]he

historical component of a narrative about oneself draws this narrative toward the side of a chronicle

submitted to the same documentary verifications as any other historical narration, while the fictional

component draws it towards those imaginative variations that destabilize narrative identity. In this sense,

narrative identity continues to make and unmake itself." (1987, 249)

4 "Narrative identity does not exhaust the question of the self-constancy of a subject, whether this be a

particular individual or a community of individuals. … [T]he practice of narrative lies in a thought

experiment by means of which we try to inhabit worlds foreign to us. In this sense, narrative exercises

imagination more than the will, even though it remains a category of action. … [R]eading also includes a

moment of impetus. This is when reading becomes a provocation to be and to act differently. However this

impetus is transformed into action only through a decision whereby a person says: Here I stand! So

narrative identity is not equivalent to true self-constancy except through this decisive moment, which

makes ethical responsibility the highest factor in self-constancy. … It is at this point that the notion of

philosophy of "the shattered cogito" (Ricoeur 1992, 1-25). Narrative identity helps to

solve the antinomical oscillation these polar opposites create. 5 Narrative identity

neither presupposes nor fully rejects a cogito .

8) In narrative identity, the person is not merely the one who tells the story, or merely

the one about whom the story is told, but she "appears both as a reader and the writer

of its own life" (1987, 246). Thus, the individual is both the interpreter and the

interpreted , as well as the recipient of the interpretations.

Typically of Ricoeur, all of these characterisations illustrate how narrative identity

mediates between two extremes: harmony and dissonance, lived and told , innovation and

sedimentation, fact and fiction , "what is" and "what ought to be", voluntary and

involuntary , exalted cogito and "shattered cogito" , the author and the reader. 6 Taylor has

a similar taste for avoiding extremes, and his position is in substantial agreement with

Ricoeur's on many points.

Nevertheless, Charles Taylor would not agree with all of the mentioned points. The

central difference between the two is that Ricoeur favours indirect hermeneutics, whereas

Taylor seems to opt for direct hermeneutics. 7 In connection to narrative identity, this

means that Ricoeur's analysis contains a detour through a structural analysis of narration

as emplotment. Taylor also locates narratives directly on the ethical level, whereas

Ricoeur says that narratives mediate between the ethical and descriptive perspectives.

narrative identity encounters its limit and has to link up with the nonnarrative components in the formation

of an acting subject." (Ricoeur 1987, 249).

5 "Without the recourse to narration, the problem of personal identity would in fact be condemned to an

antinomy with no solution. Either we must posit a subject identical with itself through the diversity of its

different states, or, following Hume and Nietzsche, we must hold that this identical subject is nothing more

than a substantialist illusion, whose elimination merely brings to light a pure manifold of cognitions,

emotions, and volitions." (Ricoeur 1987, 246).

6 One could add even more characterizations of the same kind. For example narrative 'retrograde' necessity

of events (and actions) occupies a middle position between strict necessity and pure contingency , or

between identity and diversity: "the narrative operation has developed an entirely original concept of

dynamic identity which reconciles the same categories which Locke took as contraries: identity and

diversity."(Ricoeur 1992, 143)

7 According to Ricoeur (1974, 3-24), Heidegger and Gadamer represent direct hermeneutics, but Taylor fits

the description well. Another difference between Ricoeur and other hermeneutic thinkers is Ricoeur's

strong emphasis on detours through texts instead of a more direct dialogical understanding. For a

discussion on this aspect, see Kaunismaa & Laitinen 1998.

Further, Taylor does not draw a distinction between the two poles of self-identity, but

instead tends to focus on the side of what Ricoeur calls "character".

Paul Ricoeur analyses narrative identity from the viewpoint of his general analysis of

narrativity as an emplotment and imitation of action. The analysis applies both to

historical and fictive narratives. Taylor does not pay attention to narrativity in the

technical sense. Nevertheless, one can say that from the Aristotelian elements of tragic

poetry, Ricoeur stresses the notion of plot, whereas the center of Taylor's analysis is the

"thought" or theme of the narrative. He is interested in "the thematic unity of life", or the

sense of direction in human lives. This direction or orientation is defined by one's ethical

commitments. The spatial metaphors of "direction" and "orientation" refer both to the

choices of our fundamental goals and our sense of being closer to or further from

achieving them. 8

Charles Taylor connects narratives to the idea that human beings inevitably orient

themselves in life by means of strong evaluations. The movement toward or away from

the valuable ends is the topic of our biographies. According to Ricoeur, narratives are a

central form of self-interpretation, whereas for Taylor the notion of strong evaluations is

the focal point. Taylor thinks there is a variety of forms in which strong evaluations can

be expressed, but nevertheless contends that among them, narrativity is an inescapable

form of self-interpretation. On the other hand, Ricoeur says that whereas narratives stir

the imagination, taking an ethical stand and committing oneself are the final steps in self-

determination. Thus, we can say that both Ricoeur and Taylor think that both ethical and

narrative aspects are necessary in the process of creating and sustaining one's identity. 9

2. Charles Taylor on strong evaluations and narratives

For Charles Taylor, strong evaluations are the central issue in self-interpretations . 10

Strong evaluations refer to qualitative distinctions concerning the "worth" of different

8 Taylor 1989, 25-52.

9 Ibid ; Ricoeur 1987, 249.

10 Ricoeur (1992; 2000), too, adopts Taylor's notion of strong evaluations.

desires, feelings, actions or modes of life. Our identities are partly constituted by what we

value. We aspire to, respect, care about and admire certain modes of life more than others

(Taylor 1985a, 15-45). Internalising an ideal directly contributes to what I am like. I am

partially defined by my strong evaluations or orientations. "To know who I am is a

species of knowing where I stand" (Taylor 1989, 27).

But strong evaluations are also relevant indirectly , by offering the standards by which we

evaluate what we are and which guide our "identifications-with". We identity with some

of our desires and feelings, namely those we evaluate strongly enough. On the basis of

these ideals we can answer the question "when are we ourselves?". For example, different

brute desires or addictions (e.g. a drug addiction) may be something that I do not consider

as truly mine. Nothing would be lost if I were to lose these brute desires. Yet some other

brute desires, like the desire for Peking Duck, might be something that would cause me to

feel as though I had lost something important if I were to lose it. What makes the

difference is the content of the desire, not the fact that it may be a brute desire rooted in

my economy of inclinations. Our "identifications-with" are based on our strong

evaluations. 11

2.1. The implicit, the articulated, the re-appropriated

Self-interpretations consist not only of our explicit answers to the question "who am I"

but also of our implicit orientations in life. There are two levels in our identity, the

implicit level of reactions, motivations and actions and the explicit level of linguistic

articulations. Even before the question "what kind of person am I" enters our

consciousness, we are living one answer or another.

Charles Taylor (as well as Paul Ricoeur) stresses that while the explicit level is dependent

on the implicit level, the implicit level is also altered by our explicit formulations.

11 Taylor, "What's wrong with negative liberty", in 1985b. Compare to Joseph Raz: "When are we

ourselves" in 1999.

Laitinen, Arto - Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur on Self-Interpretations and Narrative Identity.pdf

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