The presence of mind An investigation and defense of commonsense psychology

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX177166 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

The story of the self: the narrative basis of self-development

There is an ongoing debate between those who believe selves are stable kinds of pre-linguistic entity, and those who maintain that selves are themselves, formed by our linguistic practices - specifically our capacity to compose stories and appreciate narratives. The latter view is usually advanced under the auspices of a particular vision of the nature of language. The essence of that vision, which rejects the idea that language serves a purely referential function, is nicely expressed by Kerby when he writes: Language is viewed not simply as a tool for communicating or mirroring back what we otherwise discover in our reality, but is itself an important formative part of that reality, part of its very texture