TY - JOUR
T1 - Realist Versus Anti-Realist Selves - And the Irrelevance of Narrativism
AU - Kristjánsson, K.
N1 - Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2009/6/1
Y1 - 2009/6/1
N2 - This paper has three aims. The first is to subject to critical analysis the intractable debate between realists and anti-realists about the status of the so-called (moral) self, a debate that traverses various academic disciplines and discursive fields. Realism about selves has fallen on hard times of late, and the second aim of this paper is to get it back on track. Traditional substantive conceptions of the self contain ontological baggage that many moderns will be loath to carry. This paper settles for a more moderate aim, a "softer" kind of self-realism derived from an unlikely source - Hume - and outlines the Humean moral self and its possible advantages. The third and subsidiary aim is to challenge the view that recent "narrative" conceptions of selfhood have made the old realism versus anti-realism debate redundant. "Narrativism" about selves turns out to do little more than recycle old arguments in fancy new packages.
AB - This paper has three aims. The first is to subject to critical analysis the intractable debate between realists and anti-realists about the status of the so-called (moral) self, a debate that traverses various academic disciplines and discursive fields. Realism about selves has fallen on hard times of late, and the second aim of this paper is to get it back on track. Traditional substantive conceptions of the self contain ontological baggage that many moderns will be loath to carry. This paper settles for a more moderate aim, a "softer" kind of self-realism derived from an unlikely source - Hume - and outlines the Humean moral self and its possible advantages. The third and subsidiary aim is to challenge the view that recent "narrative" conceptions of selfhood have made the old realism versus anti-realism debate redundant. "Narrativism" about selves turns out to do little more than recycle old arguments in fancy new packages.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?partnerID=yv4JPVwI&eid=2-s2.0-66749099573&md5=02be413e4a74d8dedd494384b8030c9b
U2 - 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2009.00401.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2009.00401.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:66749099573
SN - 0021-8308
VL - 39
SP - 167
EP - 187
JO - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
JF - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
IS - 2
ER -