Practical Identity and Narrative Agency [Paperback]

The essays collected in this volume address a range of issues that arise when the focus of philosophical reflection on identity is shifted from metaphysical to practical and evaluative concerns. They also explore the usefulness of the notion of narrative for articulating and responding to these issues.

The chapters, written by an outstanding roster of international scholars, address a range of complex philosophical issues concerning the relationship between practical and metaphysical identity, the embodied dimensions of the first-personal perspective, the kind of reflexive agency involved in the self-constitution of ones practical identity, the relationship between practical identity and normativity, and the temporal dimensions of identity and selfhood. In addressing these issues, contributors engage with debates in the literatures on personal identity, phenomenology, moral psychology, action theory, normative ethical theory, and feminist philosophy.

Contributors

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Practical Identity and Narrative Agency

Catriona Mackenzie

Part I: Personal Identity and Continuity

2. Staying Alive: Personal Continuation and a Life Worth Having

Marya Schechtman

3. Personal Identity: Practical or Metaphysical?

Caroline West

4. Narrative Identity and Embodied Continuity

Kim Atkins

Part II: Practical Identity and Practical Deliberation

5. Personal Identity Management

Jan Bransen

6. Imagination, Identity and Self-Transformation

Catriona Mackenzie

7. Why Search for Lost Time: Memory, Autonomy, and Practical Reason

John Christman

Part III: Selfhood and Normative Agency

8. The Way of the Wanton

J. David Velleman

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