On Narrative: Psychopathology Informing Philosophy

In “Whole Life Narratives and the Self” David Lumsden (2013) has provided us with a clear review of the debate over narrative and personal identity and has staked out his own position in that debate. Arguing against neo-Lockean views of an atomistic self, he defends a narrative component in personal identity. Specifically, he argues that personal identity or self involves “a bundle of narrative threads” (p. 1), but does not require the grand unity of a master narrative—a whole life narrative. It follows for him that the understanding—and treatment—of fragmented psychiatric states does not require whole life narratives. In his analysis, he is both defending a philosophical position regarding narrative and personal ..