The Embodied Narrative Self

The thesis, in one breath

Narrative identity is not a free reflective construction layered onto a neutral body; it is made possible and constrained by the pre-reflective structures of embodied self-awareness. Conversely, the body-subject requires narrative articulation to become diachronically accountable as a person.

The territory · abstract

This paper examines the philosophical intersection between Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of pre-reflective embodiment and Marya Schechtman’s narrative selfconstitution view. It argues that these two accounts, often treated as competing models of selfhood, are better understood as dialectically complementary: narrative identity is not a free reflective construction layered onto a neutral body but is made possible and constrained by the pre-reflective structures of embodied self-awareness; conversely, Merleau-Ponty’s body-subject requires narrative articulation to become diachronically accountable as a person. Drawing on primary source analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible, and Schechtman’s The Constitution of Selves and Staying Alive, the paper situates both thinkers within their historical and intellectual contexts, analyzes the critical reception of each, and proposes an integrated account of embodied narrative constitution that preserves the insights of both traditions while addressing their respective limitations.

Place names on this map

Torkaman, H. R. (2026). The Embodied Narrative Self: A dialectical study of Merleau-Ponty’s pre-reflective embodiment and Schechtman’s narrative self-constitution [Working paper]. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7521118