%0 Journal Article %1 Pleh03 %A Pléh, Csaba %D 2003 %J Neohelicon %K cognition construction identity narrative philosophy rhiz08 %N 1 %P 187–205 %T Narrativity in Text Construction and Self Construction %U http://www.plehcsaba.hu/Cikkek/PlehNarrative.pdf %V 30 %X The paper tries to suggest parallels between the study of narrative organization in psychology and the philosophical trends towards a decomposed view of the human mind. It starts off from an analysis of narrative organization in modern memory research. The substantial message of this research from the point of view of narrative studies is threefold: it emphasizes the importance of schematization in memory, as opposed to mere associative structures; it shows that among the possible schemata narrative organization is the most available and most universal one; as to the content of narrative schemata it shows that they are closely tied to our naive theories of human action. In a psychological sense, the cohesion of narratives is tied to their use of intentional attribution. We apply our schemata of human action to understand the plot of narratives. The Hume-Mach style empiricists, and later on modern novelists have been struggling for a long time with the place of Subjects in a totally decomposed vision of the world and the mind. This modern emphasis on a lack of coherence is recently becoming connected to the issue of narrativity in non-trivial ways by philosophers like Daniel Dennett. This trend accepts the idea of decomposing the self and other unifying constructions. However, the human need for coherence is accepted by them, and rather than proposing cohesion based on solid Egos, they propose different varieties of narrative theories regarding the self. These proposals have a strong Humeian flavor with their emphasis on the constructed but useful nature of the self concept. Their intellectual novelty is, however, that they try to find the sources for constructed coherence in narrativity. The paper argues that the philosophical and psychological narrative theories of the self have relevance to the study of literary narratives. Part of modern literature in this regard can be seen as a human experiment in facing the lability and soft construal of human integrity.

@article{Pleh03, abstract = {The paper tries to suggest parallels between the study of narrative organization in psychology and the philosophical trends towards a decomposed view of the human mind. It starts off from an analysis of narrative organization in modern memory research. The substantial message of this research from the point of view of narrative studies is threefold: it emphasizes the importance of schematization in memory, as opposed to mere associative structures; it shows that among the possible schemata narrative organization is the most available and most universal one; as to the content of narrative schemata it shows that they are closely tied to our naive theories of human action. In a psychological sense, the cohesion of narratives is tied to their use of intentional attribution. We apply our schemata of human action to understand the plot of narratives. The Hume-Mach style empiricists, and later on modern novelists have been struggling for a long time with the place of Subjects in a totally decomposed vision of the world and the mind. This modern emphasis on a lack of coherence is recently becoming connected to the issue of narrativity in non-trivial ways by philosophers like Daniel Dennett. This trend accepts the idea of decomposing the self and other unifying constructions. However, the human need for coherence is accepted by them, and rather than proposing cohesion based on solid Egos, they propose different varieties of narrative theories regarding the self. These proposals have a strong Humeian flavor with their emphasis on the constructed but useful nature of the self concept. Their intellectual novelty is, however, that they try to find the sources for constructed coherence in narrativity. The paper argues that the philosophical and psychological narrative theories of the self have relevance to the study of literary narratives. Part of modern literature in this regard can be seen as a human experiment in facing the lability and soft construal of human integrity.}, added-at = {2009-06-22T13:19:25.000+0200}, author = {Pléh, Csaba}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2d9eef255d42acefff227ab162d785060/stevenw}, interhash = {e3bfa4f2dd1ff83c674f1e58b4f81738}, intrahash = {d9eef255d42acefff227ab162d785060}, journal = {Neohelicon}, keywords = {cognition construction identity narrative philosophy rhiz08}, number = 1, pages = {187–205}, timestamp = {2009-06-22T13:19:25.000+0200}, title = {Narrativity in Text Construction and Self Construction}, url = {http://www.plehcsaba.hu/Cikkek/PlehNarrative.pdf}, volume = 30, year = 2003 }