Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/196238
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- Title
- Neuroscience, self-understanding, and narrative truth
- Related
- AJOB neuroscience, Vol. 3, No. 4, (2012), p.63-74
- DOI
- 10.1080/21507740.2012.712603
- Publisher
- Taylor and Francis
- Date
- 2012
- Author/Creator
- Walker, Mary Jean
- Description
- Recent evidence from the neurosciences and cognitive sciences provides some support for a narrative theory of self-understanding. However, it also suggests that narrative self-understanding is unlikely to be accurate, and challenges its claims to truth. This article examines a range of this empirical evidence, explaining how it supports a narrative theory of self-understanding while raising questions of these narrative's accuracy and veridicality. I argue that this evidence does not provide sufficient reason to dismiss the possibility of truth in narrative self-understanding. Challenges to the possibility of attaining true, accurate self-knowledge through a self-narrative have previously been made on the basis of the epistemological features of narrative. I show how the empirical evidence is consistent with the epistemological concerns, and provide three ways to defend the notion of narrative truth. I also aim to show that neuroethical discussions of self-understanding would benefit from further engagement with the philosophical literature on narrative truth.
- Description
- 12 page(s)
- Subject Keyword
- memory
- Subject Keyword
- neuroethics
- Subject Keyword
- persons
- Subject Keyword
- self
- Subject Keyword
- truth
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Organisation
- Macquarie University. Dept. of Philosophy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/196238
- Identifier
- ISSN:2150-7740
- Identifier
- mq_res-ext-2-s2.0-84867315266
- Language
- eng
