Life Stories

AGENDA

• Recap 
• Wolf objections
• Helene De Bres, narrative views

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What is meaning?

• We will be looking at 7-8 different views
• By the end, hopefully you will find one you find plausible
• see tab 

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Susan Wolf discussion

Meaning arises when TWO conditions are met:

1. Subjective attraction: you love what you're doing, you're passionate about something
2. Objective attractiveness: the thing is worth doing, it makes sense not just to you but to a wider community

Nobody seems to like this view!  Why not?

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Helene De Bres (De Bray)

• Other theories (Taylor, Wolf) are not wrong, but incomplete
• A further element of meaning is: narrative

Two lives that both meet Wolf's two conditions

Choppy life -- 50 separate activities that meet both conditions, chosen on a whim

Cohesive life -- e.g. Tolstoy

If cohesive life is more meaningful, what is this additional element of meaning?  

• Narrative coherence
• None of our authors has talked about this so far

Part 1: many possible narrative views of meaning

Part 2: De Bres's proposal 

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What is a narrative? Narratives ....

1. represent "the unfolding of events over time"
2. display "connections between the events depicted"
3. they highlight "continuity and coherence"
4. "they focus on agency: the motivations of agents and the nature and consequences of their actions"
5. a story has an intended significance--there's an interpretation, a point of view

Little stories, big stories

1. Story of my weekend (whatever that might be!)
• Narrativists not really talking about these kinds of stories
2. My life story (so far)
• Tolstoy's life story (as told in Confession)
• No Moccasin's life story (as told by her husband)
• Other life stories?  People you mentioned in RR22
• Martin Luther King (3)
• Oprah Winfrey
• Elon Musk
• John Lennon
• Basshar Al-Assad (leader of Syria)
• Nelson Mandela (3)
• Jesus
• Mohammad
• Steve Jobs
• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Che Guevara

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How does a life story add meaning to someone's life? (four views)

1. "Relationism. The holding of certain [narrative] causal relations among parts of a life contributes to the meaningfulness of that life." (DeBres, p. 549)

• choppy life --no causal relations
• cohesive life--Tolstoy
• youthful debauchery --> reforms himself
• reading literature --> experimenting with writing
• crisis at midlife --> conversion

2. "Progressive Relationism. A life increases in meaning to the extent that it involves the challenging and successful pursuit of objectively valuable projects, in ways that draw constructively on the past." (DeBres p. 550)

• choppy life--no progress
• cohesive life--Tolstoy 
• meets this condition as well, if you think his life story is a story of progress

3. "Recountism. Telling a certain kind of story about one's life contributes to the meaningfulness of the life." (DeBres p. 551)

• choppy life -- no recounting
• cohesive life -- Tolstoy does recount in Confession

4. "Agency Recountism. Telling a story about one's life that emphasizes one's status as an autonomous agent contributes to the meaningfulness of that life, by virtue of increasing one's sense of agency." (DeBres p. 551)

• choppy life --no self-empowering recounting
• cohesive life -- Tolstoy does emphasize his own role

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By all four standards

• choppy life -- less meaningful
• cohesive life -- more meaningful

Does that make sense?

Which is the right standard, and why? (DeBres, next time)