Narrative Identity in the Context of the Concept of the Historical Path

Abstract

Introduction. The article is devoted to a philosophical study of narrative identity in the context of understanding the historical path. The aim of the study is to reveal how a person forms an idea of the self through the narrative organization of life experience and how cultural-historical models of self-understanding are reproduced at the level of personal biography. To achieve this goal, the author analyzes the concepts of narrative identity developed by Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Ricoeur, compares teleological and pluralistic models of the historical path, and examines the internal contradictions of personal history, which combines the aspiration for coherence with openness and multiplicity of interpretations. Content. The study develops from an analysis of philosophical concepts of narrative identity and a comparison of the approaches of MacIntyre and Ricoeur to a consideration of the historical path as a model of personal self-understanding. Particular attention is paid to the tension between sameness and selfhood, the role of events in the reinterpretation of life experience, and various modes of interpreting history – teleological, retrospective, and narrative-pluralistic. It is shown that the contemporary understanding of narrative makes it possible to interpret the human self not only as a coherent line of destiny, but also as a multilayered and internally heterogeneous configuration of individual stories. Conclusions. Narrative identity is defined as a form of organizing life experience that combines the aspiration for coherence with a multiplicity of interpretations and openness to the future. The study establishes a structural similarity between cultural-historical models of understanding history and mechanisms of personal self-understanding. Under conditions of rejecting a rigid teleological understanding of the historical path, personal identity is revealed as a dynamic and polyphonic structure formed through the continuous narrative reconfiguration of the human self.