We Are Not Always Tellers of Stories: On Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, Etc., by Galen Strawson

Abstract

We Are Not Always Tellers of Stories:On Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, Etc., by Galen Strawson Matthew Cheeseman (bio), Nick Tanner (bio), and Sam Spedding (bio) Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, etc., by Galen Strawson. New York Review Books, 2018. ISBN: 978-1-68137-220-4. $17.95/ £11.99. Galen Strawson is best known for his work on free will, particularly the "basic argument," in which he demonstrates four steps that render free will impossible. Things That Bother Me is a rattle-bag of philosophical essays—many of which have been published before in different formats, or delivered as lectures—that have been edited and tied up into one collection. In it Strawson addresses free will, the future after death, moral responsibility, and the fallacy of the narrative sense of self. He also, intriguingly, eschews the idea that physical science might one day deliver a final explanation of consciousness (and he does this en route to arguing for panpsychism). This might sound like the kind of publication that could sit glowering at you from your bookshelf until one morning, girded with a good night's sleep and mug of black coffee, you feel brave enough to pit your mind against it. However, Strawson's concision, wit, and often surprising openness might make you read through in one sitting to the final essay, a vivid and sensual autobiographical [End Page 153] demonstration of his own lack of any sense of the narrative self. In fact, the arrangement of the book as a whole is also mimetic of this quality while crystallizing his clear, strong authorial voice. In terms of storytelling, Strawson's work on the self and narrative is of interest. Over the course of the book, and one chapter in particular ("A Fallacy of Our Age") Strawson takes issue with what he terms the Psychological Narrativity Thesis, which others would recognize as the narrative turn as expounded by psychologists such as Jerome Bruner and Oliver Sacks, joined by a "vast chorus of assent" from the humanities in general. Writers working in disciplines that range from literary studies to political theory (and no doubt storytelling) tend to agree on the basic premise, that "human beings typically experience their lives as a narrative or story of some sort, or at least as a collection of stories" (45). This is often further coupled with the ethical claim that a narrative approach to life is important to one's health and identity. Arguing from his own experience, Strawson takes issue. He suggests that there are two modes of experiencing the self, which he terms "endurant" and "transient." The first is the norm for most people, that "naturally figures oneself, considered as a self, as something that was there in the (further) past and will be there in the (further) future." A transient, by contrast, "doesn't figure oneself, considered as a self, as something that was there in the (further) past and will be there in the (further) future, although one is perfectly well aware that one has long-term continuity considered as a whole human being." Culture and learning, of course, account for much of how we experience time, but Strawson underlines his chief proposition, that there is "deep individual variation in psychological timestyle" (48–49). Before any "endurers" reading this reject the proposition outright, it seems sensible to at least one of the writers of this review, in that they recognize their own experience in Strawson's descriptions of the transient character. What might such a life feel like? As you may suspect: "I have absolutely no sense of my life as a narrative with form, or indeed as a narrative without form … nor do I have a great deal of concern for my future" (51). That is not to say that transients don't have memories, ambitions, or motivations, but that transients do not tie them to abiding or projected notions of the self. If this is all sounding a little alien or cold, then according to Strawson at least, you might be an endurer and you might be disturbed at having your innate view of the self and time being questioned. Indeed...