Narrative Identity and the Three Fundamental Theses of the Hermeneutics of the Self

The article aims to show how the three fundamental theses underlying Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self can be reformulated at the narrative level. Thanks to this reformulation, the notion of narrative identity appears grounded in a conception of the subject that is equally distant from the postmodern destitution of the “I” and from its exaltation in modern transcendental egologies. The first thesis (reflection is always mediated) is reformulated by showing that narrative is the principal means through which self-understanding is achieved. The second thesis (selfhood is different from sameness) is reformulated by showing how narrative clarifies the temporality of character and of the promise. The third thesis (otherness is constitutive of the self) is reformulated by showing that the three forms of otherness distinguished by Ricoeur (the otherness of the body, intersubjective otherness, and the otherness of moral conscience) have a precise counterpart at the narrative level.