Omowumi Omoyemi Ogunyemi -The unity of autobiographical temporality of the narrative self (En/ita)

The problem of the permanence of the “I” in time is a condition for identity and continuity of human life. The quest for unity in life, manifested in a more or less conscious search for long-term meaning, and seeking to grasp the relevance of each action, is a contemporary topic. Humans seek the stability which comes with having a defined personal identity. Oftentimes, a zealous search for meaning underlies a person’s ambitions, his1 efforts to attain self-fulfilment in varied ways, his attempts to achieve set targets, and his search for recognition by others. The temporal dispersion of each action of a person throughout his life, makes their unification and stability in purpose challenging, as such temporal separation of human actions makes it difficult to view the effects and significance of particular acts, and their long-term impact.

Fortunately, narrative self-understanding and autobiographical thinking in orienting the whole human life, resolves the challenge posed by time. Narrativity is a solution for temporal dispersion, a challenge often noticeable in contemporary society.

The narrative conception of the self may not be as unfamiliar as it seems at first. It played a key part in cultures which are predecessors of ours but now its presence in our many ways of thinking and acting goes unacknowledged. “Hence it is not inappropriate to begin by scrutinizing some of our most taken-for-granted, but clearly correct conceptual insights about human actions and selfhood in order to show how natural it is to think of the self in a narrative mode.”2 Such scrutiny is a philosophical task that is also shared by other fields such as psychology, which originated within philosophy, and contemporary neurosciences. 

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