This article presents a critical assesment of Dennett’s narrative self theory as a personal identity theory. First it is contextualized in regard to the debate on personal identity in the decade of 1980, then Dennett’s theory is presented in the light of Strawson’s analysis of Narrativity, the criticisms received by Dennett’s theory and by narrative theories in general are put in relationship, and finally it is shown how Dennett’s theory could help the actual supporters of narrative identity theories to reformulate (...) their arguments in defense to the received criticisms. Thus I hope to contribute to a better understanding of Dennett’s theory and to claim for its relevance in the actual debate about personal identity in analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The relation between narratives and agency can be sometimes considered as mutually constitutive. There are cases in which telling a story expresses higher degrees of agency, and respectively, agency is shaped as a narrative that expresses the agent’s reasons. From henceforth, I will contend that a narrative theory, beyond the personal identity problem, can also enlighten how the agent attains giving reasons for the action by making sense of sequences of events. In order to explain how agency is constituted from (...) understanding and control, we must assume a primitive competence for narratives. Agency supposes an ordering that cannot be reduced to temporality, but expresses a certain sense of accomplishment that can be narratively constituted. In this context, I will examine Welleman’s theory of emotions as an ordering framework of the events in structures of means-ends. A possible objection to his explanation of the agential narratives is that emotions themselves need to be understood as narrative processes. I suggest then that an enactivist approach would be a way of explaining the narrative constitution of agency. One virtue of this approach is that it harmonizes the biological and cultural components of the agency from the most basic layers to the ordinary folk-psychological narratives. (shrink)