A Philosopher’s view
In his article Against Narrativity, Galen Strawson (2004) argues against two claims that are popular in many scientific disciplines. The first one is the Psychological Narrativity Thesis, which means that humans naturally tend to see their lives as narratives, or as collections of stories. The second claim that Strawson (2004) refutes is the Ethical Narrativity Thesis, which states that it is essential for a well-lived life and for the full development of an identity and personhood to see one’s life as a narrative. Strawson (2004) argues against these claims by illustrating that there are alternatives to seeing one’s life as a narrative, and these alternatives may still lead to a meaningful life.
The main distinction he makes is the distinction between Diachronic and Episodic self-experience. From a Diachronic perspective, “one naturally figures oneself, considered as a self, as something that was there in the (further) past and will be there in the (further) future” (Strawson, 2004, p. 430). The idea of the self thus persists over a long stretch of time. The Episodic self-experience is the opposite. A person with an Episodic view does not experience the self as one that was there in the past and will be there in the future, although they are aware that there is a continuity in the life of a human being. Episodic people acknowledge that the past shaped the present, but they do not experience the past as being alive in the present. For example, a poet might write a poem based on past emotions, but an episodic VB poet does not identify with the person in the past while writing the poem. Instead they write the poem on the basis of the self in the present, that is formed by past experiences.
Strawson (2004) argues that, although the phenomena can exist separately, people with a mostly Diachronic self-experience are often Narrative in their outlook on life, while Episodic people do not have the tendency to see their lives as narratives. Therefore, there are people who do not fit the Psychological Narrative Thesis. In the rest of the text he explains why this is not a bad view on life, thereby refuting the Ethical Narrativity Thesis.
