Abstract

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the philosophical implications of autobiographical writing and to solve the problems first-person writing occasions. I focus particular attention on autobiographies written by philosophers because philosophers are more directly aware of the problems associated with first-person writing than are other writers. These problems include: Dubious metaphysical accounts of the self. Ambiguous usages of the 'subject,' 'writer,' and 'author.' Complex and unclear textual relations between the 'subject,' 'writer,' and 'author.' Changes in autobiographical writing over time . And Masking of the self, subject, and/or text . To solve these problems, I propose the continued use and development of hermeneutics as a formal philosophical tradition along lines proffered by Jorge Gracia and Hans-Georg Gadamer. In elucidating the implications of autobiographical writing, I trace the genealogy of the self and the subject through the following first-person accounts: St. Augustine's Confessions, Rene Descartes' Meditations, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Confessions, Friedrich Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, and Hazel Barnes, The Story I Tell Myself