Ricoeur on personal identity

[@momenakod6399]

Just a random guy from Africa who wants to thank you for doing such an amazing job making these ideas available and easily accessible to people like me.

[@johnfowler3125]

@@chrisjin1112 @Momen Akod So let me get this straight. You're in China and Africa, watching an English video about a Frenchman who's building on the ideas of German philosophers? I applaud you in your endeavor. All this stuff must get really confusing!

[@BuddyGorey]

@@johnfowler3125china?

[@fede2]

I like this dynamic approach to identity. How centering our attention within to figure ourselves out actually redirects our search outwards: the thoughts and words we use to describe ourselves carry a ton of symbolic weight that we didn't come up with. We are a product of our dialogue with our surroundings, which in turn implies that we're traversed by the Other.

[@tangjoseph780]

Could you please do a bookshelf tour Really want to watch🥰

[@nichole_null]

OML Professor Anderson, you have no idea how happy I get to see your videos. Working on an undergrad thesis paper on a subject with identity through immortality. I will add this to my reads, thank you! Keep making quality content ❤

[@momenakod6399]

I'm so intrigued by the subject of your thesis and interested in knowing more about your ideas regarding this topic!

[@hewasfuzzywuzzy3583]

I was reading, "The Plague of Fantasies" by Slavoj Zizek, which then lead me to, "Narrative Theory" which lead me to, "Roland Barthes and Gerard Genette" which lead me to, "Paul Ricoeur" which finally lead me back to watching your video on another book/work of his. What. A. Circle. LOL I've been watching/listening to a lot of channels like yours that touch on these philosophers and their works that weave their way into connecting all of these people like you into my ever growing interest in these philosophies and their concepts. They help me a lot to better understand myself and others in this great big world and make more sense of what ... whatever it's all about. Thank you for touching on this one.

[@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd]

Identity is a useful illusion that is armed every morning and after each of our distractions. That we are comfortable with the assumption of a continuous identity does not mean that it is true. The others only have minimal access to our identity. We have minimal access to our identity and our identity lasts only until the next interaction. If one accepts that the structure and its components flow, one is closer to distinguishing oneself.

[@viljamtheninja]

Then what is the "oneself" you are getting closer to distinguishing, if identity is an illusion? The sense of identity is a practical tool for getting around in the world, and is absolutely not an "illusion", any more than say, the relation between a parent and a child is illusion. Of course, we attach a lot of cultural baggage to the concept of identity and each culture sees identity as something different due to its differing views on the relationships between human beings, but identity itself is clearly observable and real.

[@myanimationchannel]

This was strangely therapeutic. Thank you!

[@JohnB.6251]

Thanks, Dr. Ellie Anderson. Excellent summary exploration of this piece of Ricoeur's thought. I greatly appreciate your diving into difficult works and wrestling with them outloud with us. I came across Ricoeur many years ago in a far different context than now. I wrestle with a selective variety of philosophers a great deal. I love that Ricoeur highlighted the uniquely dynamic signficance of one's word and promises. So common with great philosophers whatever perspective, is to be in need of a decent editor, who ought not to work within the confines and tenure publishing requirements of academia. I am in accord with one idea partially defining "wisdom" as differentiated from "knowledge." That if you can't know it well enough to translate it into other metaphors, some at different levels of "selfhood" development - then it probably deserves to collect dust in cloistered libraries. Thanks for using your curiosity and initiative to bring these interests out into the open, wisely translating" idem and ipseity" to "sameness and selfhood" etc., for us here to listen and reflect on. Also for reintroducing Ricoeur. JB

[@matthewr7593]

Great to see you covering Ricoeur! I really enjoy his work. I got to study him at a Christian college where we focused a lot on hermeneutics and existentialism. Although I’m now an atheist I still find his work really valuable and I compare his work a lot to my favorite philosopher, Gadamer.

[@mikearchibald744]

Didn't he write Truth and Method? Is he the guy who also wrote a book on a philosophy of play?

[@williamkraemer8338]

Another cogent presentation. Thanks.

[@philliplee1500]

“I know the you who’s in the margins. I know you’re thinking hard about what you want and why- more than some people ever do. I know you can take on a challenge and kick its ass. And I know you’ve tried harder to understand me than anyone has in a long time.” - Doug Dorst

[@alexjohnson6497]

Was in the middle of working my way through this (difficult) book and this video was very helpful! I came from his studies of psychoanalysis and Freud and their connection to language. Totally agreed that he is a dry writer in comparison to someone like Kristeva whose studies of language are much more readable, but Ricoeur's writings are still very valuable. I liked Ricoeur's sort of combo analytic-continental approach to language. I tend to be more receptive to continentalists, but the analytic stuff was still fairly discernible compared to me trying to decipher the diagrams of Quine (whom I believe he mentions early in the book). There are lots of ramifications in his theories for free will, literary theory, and his own hermeneutics. It may be because I'm in a Kierkegaard phase right now, but his ipse/idem dialectic recalls for me Kierkegaard's self-as-finitude/self-as-infinitude dialectic in the sense that a self is both a constant and in motion. Thanks for the video! You condensed a lot of dense, dry linguistic theory into a short, easy-to-understand video that served as a great companion to the book.

[@grossolee]

I studied (a bit of) Ricoeur's definition of identity because it's a very interesting topic for visual communication designers, together with structural anthropology and narrative semiotics. There's an interesting essay by Jean-Marie Floch about a case of advertising analyzed with Ricoeur's identity ideas. So, I'm glad you posted a lesson about it.

[@wb5416]

Carlo, can you tell me the essay? Thanks!

[@anne-mariecallus6715]

Thanks for that succinct and clear explanation of Ricouer’s Oneself as Another

[@michaelw9680]

I was literally put on "standby" for approximately 15 years. I am now having the mindset that I did around 5 years old. I remember analyzing kindergarten songs because the lyrics were mocking different groups... This was mid eighties as well.

[@artemisXsidecross]

Thank you, I enjoyed this brief introduction. ✌

[@majorlycunningham5439]

I’m so glad I found this video! To be honest, I am in a philosophy binge since I’m writing a book about identity and I wanted to do research before adding my own thoughts. Your videos have been immensely helpful. It seems like everyone has discussed identity on some level that now there is a discussion on paring down the scope of the word ‘identity’ since it’s used so much in so many cases. If I have the time, I’ll edit later with addition of citations but I just wanted to put this out there!

[@ReynaSingh]

”Man is this plural and collective unity in which the unity of destination and the differences of destinies are to be understood through each other”

[@theory175]

@@saimbhat6243 You literally contradicted yourself by stating that it means nothing and stating that it's esoteric.

[@theory175]

@@saimbhat6243 you realize that the quote is from the book, right? Even if it was not, the irony of your comment is that you believe that one individual can generate meaning independent of the associations of signs of a community, while still adhering to the structure of said community. If we're going to look at random words that aren't associated with anything previously, or currently, duh, it will not make sense. Have you ever been able to figure out what a word means wholly by itself? The problem that you are facing is that you don't have the conceptual grounding to understand this point of the text, so who knows, maybe read the thing. Who knows, he probably covers what he means by destination and destiny since he's associating that with man; you know, like every philosopher that has ever written something has done? It's like reading Heidegger's Being and Time and skipping to division two and thinking you understood what as said.

[@theory175]

@@saimbhat6243 the nothing nothing's isn't in being and time; it's in the lectures on metaphysics, so yet again, you don't know what you're talking about.

[@theory175]

@@saimbhat6243 the reason he generates different words is that he can properly explicate the concept he's talking about without it being confused with other concepts in any other tradition. He literally defines every concept in the book; you would know this if you actually read the book.

[@theory175]

@@saimbhat6243 what the fuck are you talking about the words relating to feelings? Never knew ready-to-hand was actually the state-of-mind for Dasein. Please, how many times does Heidegger says that he's not talking about x concept in the first two chapters?

[@rquaidpro]

Excellent topic and well-presented. Thank you for your work.

[@artlessons1]

Thanks, Professor. Always interesting to hear a different perspective on the self.

[@georgepalmer5497]

This reminds me of the writer Guy de Maupassant. He sees identity like a template from which we fashion ourselves and view the world, but he also believes that template can deceive us catastrophically, and can, at times, lead to a wasted life.

[@benzbara_]

Thank u for the podcast prof. I am from Indonesia

[@stewartthomas4193]

Leonardo da Vinci said " The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions " Plato shared with us wisdom he learnt from Egypt, wisdom that was a death sentence in Greece, Rome (Christianity).. Pythagoras, Socrates and later Hypatia of Alexandria. Plato in his dialogue " The Republic " tells the parable of " The Cave " Plato starts by telling us of prisoners being held in a underground den, let us examine this den via the geometry of Bernhard Riemann and Felix Klein..Klein bottle..3rd and 4th dimensions. Plato tells us that the prisoners are bound up unable to move their heads, let us examine this bondage via the psychology of Erich Fromm..socialisation of consciousness.. aware-unaware. Plato tells us that the prisoners mistake shadows for substance, let us examine this mistake via the philosophy of Thales, Hume and Kant..synthetic a priori judgement..not thing in itself. Plato tells us that one of the prisoners is released, let us examine this release via the wisdom of T Lobsang Rampa..stilling the mind and conscious astral travel..leaving the cave/body. Plato tells us that the prisoners will reject this release, let us examine this rejection via the psychology of Stockholm Syndrome..Plato quotes Homer..forgive them for they know not what they say. Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. Mathew 23 13 31.

[@anonymoushuman8344]

I spent a bunch of time with One's Self As Another many years ago and eventually put it aside with a big mental question mark attached. It seemed like the book needed more concrete phenomenological descriptions, more examples from life and literature. Now I want to have another look at it.

[@snugglyduck6534]

It took me years to arrive at the conclusion that I am just a concept, borrowed information (genetics) on borrowed time, and I'm trying to become something. In my more angsty years I would often struggle in silence wishing someone would see the real me, but I came to get it's what I present or attempt to be that is what I end up being. So if I can never allow myself fully or trust in me, how can anyone else. There was a magical romance I had with the magical backdrop of New York City when my passionate lover remarked to me, "Do you ever notice how we all wear masks?" It is in these moments where we start to contemplate the absurdity, the masquerade ball, and tying to another video of yours on the absurd, it's as if there's this reluctance / resistance to maintain a set identity because it is binding/the mask we cannot take off unless we are in private. I would tell people it's not who you want to become, it's about having to be that which is the burden - take any celebrity and the price of stardom and having to maintain that façade/outward facing thing - becoming a living idol - having people run up to you as if familiar with you and what you represent to them and provide them when it's just a show, all the world a stage, but with that said, we can really come to embrace our chosen roles and as I say having been blessed with a quick wit, really nail our lines when the moment calls for them. If there is anything about me that is, the id, it's the experience in the now that I long to continue into the future and beyond, which I think is the only thing that really keeps us going or causes us to want to end the charade all together. The one thing that always keeps me from folding my tent is the incessant disregard of me from self-imposed thought leaders who like to dehumanize or characterize us in ways that are demeaning, and seeing they gain great reward in doing so, I start to reject the notion there is anything of value in me since we do live in a competitive world, why would the universe and the hereafter be any different. Edit: and as people get frustrated with broken promises or betrayal or infidelity and the lot as cruel and unusual, there is a sense of resistance and rebellion in all of us that makes us "not want to go" to that event we committed to because a promise is binding and restrictive of our freedom and the freedom of others we make it to. A promise is a form of time management attempting to control time to set the stage/scene so that expected events are available to step into and play in and around. And as we are eager to please, even the wicked philanderers that we all loathe so much, there is this sense that letting someone down is the death of their dream and the waste of their time and on and on which creates our desire to conceal our dissatisfaction only to exacerbate the oft inevitable conclusion when revealed. Why I am a proponent of partnership over romantic love because a promise is a contract that should be approached logically, not emotionally, and romance pursued in the confines of said partnership so expectations are more iron clad.

[@mikearchibald744]

Dude, paragraph breaks, please.

[@ceasarinvictus3857]

This Dr is very smart

[@wh8416]

Buddhism talks about two layers of truth. One linear, you are your fathers child, and non linear, you were never born and never die.

[@bryandraughn9830]

I've been trying to disassemble the concept of identity for a couple of years now and it's making me a little crazy. Lol Where continuity should connect across some moments or longer spans of time, who I was to who I am, I realize that neither of those static individuals exist. There is only the continuity. Unless, I only exist for a moment, cease to exist, and exist for another, like frames of a movie. I suspect that this illusion is so convincing only because it operates within a larger environment that is also illusory. I should read more about this. Yep. I really enjoy this channel! You always get me thinking!

[@tbwatch88]

hey Doc, you know Pepys, by any chance. would love to see more stuff on classic English lit from you.

[@nikpapado3006]

You do a great job ❤

[@mikearchibald744]

Boy this is a hell of a lot better than listening to the idiot social media 'gurus'. Biologically though, memories are stored into your synapses and 'chains' of synaptic relays. This I'm pretty sure is why you react in constant ways to different stimuli. Your memories might not be the same over time, but your 'reaction' to them will be. You can't teach an old dog new tricks they say, mainly because your synaptic relays by this time have become established. When you get old, old memories come to the surface, often of when you were a child, things you never really 'remembered' before. That seems a boring view of 'self', but it seems pretty reliable. Like Bernard Longergan would talk about 'knowledge' and not being a 'thing' but being a verb 'knowing', the self is not a thing, but a process. Anyway, I've been just getting back into Paul Ricoeur and glad to find this talk. I still haven't read oneself as another and look forword to it, if I can find it:)

[@dadsonworldwide3238]

Actions dictate perception that a community alone categorically idefines and names each other in history. Man's being idealistically is very different from man's material being. Only in recent decades have we had this self identity phase where we allow someone to name themselves. In fact most self inventories of being never see themselves as one identity. Not when it comes to characteristics because we all adopt and adapt to new hobby's , trades or interest. I not only agree that character is secondary by products it's a fact . Your actions dictate your being. When your not active your not being idealistic. materially your hardware is without being.

[@nicvoge2234]

A crucial question here is what is meant by "same" and in particular its near synonym "identical". No two anythings are "identical' in absolute terms because every instant, which means the temporal context, is different from every other. For instance, at any given moment our physical location in the universe is different, our relation to other objects and organisms, our physiology, including our neurology, and our cognition are all changing all the time. Is it also true that some enduring distillation of this experience and our actions is occurring--some continuity we might call "character". Yes, from our subjective, coarse perspective--but that thing we call character, too, is continually changing, though not necessarily in a discernable "direction". When we take our self as a mental object to reflect upon, we make it into an object of cognition, a mental object and we fix it in time and place. Our self has, literally, changed between the time we are reflecting upon and the moment we are reflecting. That thing we call "self" we are reflecting on is a photograph of a star in the distance, the light of which takes years to travel through space such that we humans can see it. In the meantime, the star has changed--our image is a fixed image of the past that no longer exists but which we take as otherwise. In our time because of science and technology and mass production we have been conditioned to believe that actions, events, objects, individuals, etc. can be "identical" (this assumption is core to the comparative, experimental processes of sciences), but upon analysis, we can see that obviously this is not the case. One atom is not the "same" as another atom, because it is a different atom. We may TREAT it as identical for some purposes, but it is incontestable that they are not "the same". Neither are snowflakes, nor grains of sand, or penguins (no matter how much they look alike to us, baby penguins know their parents), etc. What, though, is the implication of this recognition of a useful fiction, this widespread delusion of identicalness for understanding the human condition and ourselves? The human organism appears to be designed to create beliefs and then to believe the beliefs we create. Beliefs about ourselves seem to be particularly durable and powerful. But that does not make them true. It appears Ricoeur is merely trying to explain the distorted psychology of human beliefs about identity without questioning the basic psychological PROCESSES of constructing identity. I think therefor I am says noting about the accuracy of my thinking and naming two different aspects of the conventional construct of identity doesn't make either one of them true. If Ricoeur's project is empirical, to try to map the ways that people construct identities (in European and European diasporic communities), then that is another object of study and another matter entirely.

[@whatablissfullife]

I always say i don’t know who I am, finally and thankfully.

[@replica1052]

to master a solar system as identity is a talent to explore -for everyone alive and everyone to come alive for all of eternity (rockets are eternal )

[@RocketKirchner]

is the self fluid verb or a noun ? pre socratics different on this cosmologically .

[@bradrandel1408]

You are amazing! I wish you would visit with John Vervaky, and Zebbie from seekers of unity… 🦋🕊🌹 I wish you all the success you desire. You have worked very hard great present. From my perspective

[@aidasdolotovas9832]

Labai protinga profesorė! Kada papasakosi apie savo parašytą knygą?

[@JohnAdorjan]

How different would we be if never know by others.

[@Tristslayer]

Have you read Bruner's "Narrative Construction of Reality"? I think you'd find it interesting

[@tribudeuno]

Thank you for having this video in stereo, another video of yours was in mono - one earphone - kind of annoying. When talking about DNA, it must be understood that epigenetic input can cause different gene expression, even with the same gene. The philosopher Alan Watts said that psychologists are stuck in a Newtonian approach to such things, rather moving on to a quantum mechanical view of such things. Genetic scientist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, has shown that DNA is only a blueprint, that DNA is not driving life. What drives life is perception.

[@tribudeuno]

Lao Tzu said that if you easily make promises, you will be little trusted…

[@weakestman1666]

I perceive you as a very cool person

[@RubenSampieriCabal]

I came here to stay.

[@defenderofwisdom]

You can taste wine? I just taste a red fluid every time.

[@chanellwexenathan5703]

I like u! you are so intelligent! '

[@adriansavastian8774]

And how we identify, the real identity of a person? Because the character is more replicated today... I ask because today society posted to people one character what people should to follow, and that not create an identical identity ! The real identity of a person, may create the person weak, one example the introvert people always hide, preferring to stand behind the veil or mask.

[@zeenuf00]

'mah identitay!!!' the call of the bougie teenager 😆 🤣

[@fede2]

?

[@zeenuf00]

@@fede2 slow on the uptake?

[@fede2]

@@zeenuf00 Worse. Maybe I'm just that dense, but I have no idea what you're saying.

[@zeenuf00]

@@fede2 you're that dense

[@fede2]

@@zeenuf00 Ok, then. Thanks for that high-octane engagement.

[@MikeTooleK9S]

what 90s kid doesn't know the self as a transient void? but we take responsibility, thats the 90s kid attitude

[@1alopezg]

edam

[@JimOverbeckgenius]

Immortals have become mortals as false identities. Christ said I say ye are gods - hence, it requires spiritual becoming to be human - i.e. - mortals are sub-human & humans have no being.

[@olives.twisted.branch]

Re~occur

[@olives.twisted.branch]

Recur

[@mozartsbumbumsrus7750]

Consider quantum mechanics and William Blake. Platonic and Western philosophy of good vs evil is the Big mistake.

[@005Turk]

I always thought the Buddhist claim that selfhood was an illusion only because we believe we think a part of it stays the same was a strawman lol

[@artlessons1]

The Buddha doesn't use a strawman argument! Your confusing spirit enlightenment with philosophical enlightenment. The language is different.

[@mozartsbumbumsrus7750]

Both are true. It's not binary.

[@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy]

this is literally Ricoeur's view

[@mozartsbumbumsrus7750]

@@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy Obvious, innit.

[@hewasfuzzywuzzy3583]

I was reading, "The Plague of Fantasies" by Slavoj Zizek, which then lead me to, "Narrative Theory" which lead me to, "Roland Barthes and Gerard Genette" which lead me to, "Paul Ricoeur" which finally lead me back to watching your video on another book/work of his. What. A. Circle. LOL I've been watching/listening to a lot of channels like yours that touch on these philosophers and their works that weave their way into connecting all of these people like you into my ever growing interest in these philosophies and their concepts. They help me a lot to better understand myself and others in this great big world and make more sense of what ... whatever it's all about. Thank you for touching on this one.