Final Report Summary - SELVESINTIME (Selves in time: temporal emplacement and affective identification in personal identity theory)
The last 50 years have seen an explosion of interest in philosophy in the question of what it is to be a self, and in the related question of what it is to be a unified self across time. While traditional metaphysics has treated the self as just another object (albeit one of a rather unusual kind), with specifiable identity and persistence conditions just like other objects, philosophers have more recently begun to appreciate that selfhood has something irreducibly subjective and first-personal about it. Yet it has not yet made the further move of considering the temporal aspects of this first-personal, 'from-the-inside' character of selfhood: the fact that questions about personal identity are never asked from an atemporal 'nowhen' but always from the present moment. If this is true, then selves are always 'tensed' in a way that alters the focus for discussions of the problems of personal identity. Instead of asking about a single entity stretched across time, questions about 'the self' now refer to the way this always-present-tense entity interacts - not just cognitively, but emotionally - with events in the past and future.
Taking this temporal fact as its point of departure, SELVESINTIME developed a new approach to the problem of personal identity, establishing a productive new avenue of investigation for this important and highly contested branch of philosophy. The project aims were to develop and test a framework for discussing personal identity that attempted to give temporal factors their due, and then apply this framework to three specific problem areas within the literature on personal identity: the relation of self-interested concern (including our concern for survival) to identity; problem scenarios in which the identity of individual human beings and the object of their subjective self-regarding concern seem to come apart; and the object of self-reflexive emotions such as remorse, pride and guilt.
The project involved considerable literature review and the preparation of a number of articles and book reviews. These writings contributed to developing the theoretical framework of the project, examining its historical antecedents, using it to critique contemporary positions within the philosophy of personal identity, and applying it to some of the many problems discussed in the literature on identity. A highly successful conference held under the auspices of the project, Narrative, Identity, and the Kierkegaardian Self took place at the University of Hertfordshire in November 2011 and attracted leading figures in the debate over the 'narrative' selfhood, and some fifty attendees from across Europe, North America and Australasia.
The key results of this project are:
- The project helped to identify a very serious objection to key claims made by proponents of narrative identity theory, one of the major theories of selfhood offered in recent years. This finding is presented in a paper forthcoming in the prestigious European Journal of Philosophy.
- Despite this objection, the project has also helped to identify the future directions in which narrative identity theory will need to move (and shows how the work of 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard contains useful resources for helping us to make such a move). A paper on this topic was presented at the Narrative, Identity and the Kierkegaardian Self conference, and will appear in a journal special issue on that topic.
- The approach explored by this project helped to develop a critique of the work of three leading contemporary philosophers working in this field (Barry Dainton, Galen Strawson and Dan Zahavi). Despite working in very different philosophical traditions, it was shown that all three end up making similar problematic philosophical moves that can be avoided by careful attention to the temporal aspects of selfhood. These results are presented in a paper currently under submission at a leading academic journal.
- The project also considered specific questions in the neo-Lockean literature on selfhood - namely questions around the circumstances under which a given person can be said to survive into the future. A paper on the heavily-discussed problem of self-regarding concern, which argues that keeping temporal perspectives on the self-separate largely dissolves these problems, is currently under review at a leading academic journal. Though concerned primarily with theoretical questions, the problems discussed in this paper do relate to, for instance, our understanding of issues of identity in cases such as those of patients suffering diseases such as severe anterograde amnesia.
- A further finding, which has already attracted media interest (leading to an interview in high-profile United-States (US) magazine The Atlantic and further radio and print media attention in Australia) concerns emerging practices relating to death and mourning in an era where online social networks have become an increasingly central part of daily communication and identity construction. In an interdisciplinary conference paper, subsequently accepted for publication in Philosophy and Technology, the project fellow argues that there is an important sense in which the dead persist as objects of moral duty via their surviving social network presences, and considers ways in which advances in technology may continue to enhance this form of posthumous survival. Yet he also argues that from a first-personal perspective we do not survive in this form, thus further demonstrating the importance of keeping first and third person, temporal and atemporal perspectives separate in philosophical discourse.
During the course of the project, the Fellow was successful in attaining a permanent academic appointment at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. While this has caused the project to conclude several months earlier than planned, the fellow and scientist-in-charge will continue to collaborate on these topics (particularly on the remaining topic of self-reflexive emotions), helping to open up a new avenue of research collaboration between the European research area and Australia. This collaboration will include a new paper on the moral value of guilt, and a possible future conference on related topics.
Further information can be found at the project website: http://www.patrickstokes.com/selvesintime.html
Taking this temporal fact as its point of departure, SELVESINTIME developed a new approach to the problem of personal identity, establishing a productive new avenue of investigation for this important and highly contested branch of philosophy. The project aims were to develop and test a framework for discussing personal identity that attempted to give temporal factors their due, and then apply this framework to three specific problem areas within the literature on personal identity: the relation of self-interested concern (including our concern for survival) to identity; problem scenarios in which the identity of individual human beings and the object of their subjective self-regarding concern seem to come apart; and the object of self-reflexive emotions such as remorse, pride and guilt.
The project involved considerable literature review and the preparation of a number of articles and book reviews. These writings contributed to developing the theoretical framework of the project, examining its historical antecedents, using it to critique contemporary positions within the philosophy of personal identity, and applying it to some of the many problems discussed in the literature on identity. A highly successful conference held under the auspices of the project, Narrative, Identity, and the Kierkegaardian Self took place at the University of Hertfordshire in November 2011 and attracted leading figures in the debate over the 'narrative' selfhood, and some fifty attendees from across Europe, North America and Australasia.
The key results of this project are:
- The project helped to identify a very serious objection to key claims made by proponents of narrative identity theory, one of the major theories of selfhood offered in recent years. This finding is presented in a paper forthcoming in the prestigious European Journal of Philosophy.
- Despite this objection, the project has also helped to identify the future directions in which narrative identity theory will need to move (and shows how the work of 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard contains useful resources for helping us to make such a move). A paper on this topic was presented at the Narrative, Identity and the Kierkegaardian Self conference, and will appear in a journal special issue on that topic.
- The approach explored by this project helped to develop a critique of the work of three leading contemporary philosophers working in this field (Barry Dainton, Galen Strawson and Dan Zahavi). Despite working in very different philosophical traditions, it was shown that all three end up making similar problematic philosophical moves that can be avoided by careful attention to the temporal aspects of selfhood. These results are presented in a paper currently under submission at a leading academic journal.
- The project also considered specific questions in the neo-Lockean literature on selfhood - namely questions around the circumstances under which a given person can be said to survive into the future. A paper on the heavily-discussed problem of self-regarding concern, which argues that keeping temporal perspectives on the self-separate largely dissolves these problems, is currently under review at a leading academic journal. Though concerned primarily with theoretical questions, the problems discussed in this paper do relate to, for instance, our understanding of issues of identity in cases such as those of patients suffering diseases such as severe anterograde amnesia.
- A further finding, which has already attracted media interest (leading to an interview in high-profile United-States (US) magazine The Atlantic and further radio and print media attention in Australia) concerns emerging practices relating to death and mourning in an era where online social networks have become an increasingly central part of daily communication and identity construction. In an interdisciplinary conference paper, subsequently accepted for publication in Philosophy and Technology, the project fellow argues that there is an important sense in which the dead persist as objects of moral duty via their surviving social network presences, and considers ways in which advances in technology may continue to enhance this form of posthumous survival. Yet he also argues that from a first-personal perspective we do not survive in this form, thus further demonstrating the importance of keeping first and third person, temporal and atemporal perspectives separate in philosophical discourse.
During the course of the project, the Fellow was successful in attaining a permanent academic appointment at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. While this has caused the project to conclude several months earlier than planned, the fellow and scientist-in-charge will continue to collaborate on these topics (particularly on the remaining topic of self-reflexive emotions), helping to open up a new avenue of research collaboration between the European research area and Australia. This collaboration will include a new paper on the moral value of guilt, and a possible future conference on related topics.
Further information can be found at the project website: http://www.patrickstokes.com/selvesintime.html