The Practices of the Self

214 Pages·2010·19.172 MB·English

by  Charles Larmore

The Practices of the Self
Charles Larmore
TRANSLATED BY SHARON BOWMAN
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Chicago and London
CHARLES LARMORE is the W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in
the Humanities and professor of philosophy at Brown University. He is the
author of numerous books in French and English, including The Autonomy
ofMorality.
Originally published as Les pratiques du moi by Charles Larmore
© Presses Universitaires de France, 2004.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2010 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2010
Printed in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 45
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-46887-7 (cloth)
iSBN-10: 0-226-46887-9 (cloth)
This book was published with the support of the French Ministry of
Culture.
Cet ouvrage a été publié avec le soutien du Centre national du Livre—
ministère français chargé de la culture.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Larmore, Charles E.
[Pratiques du moi. English]
The practices of the self / Charles Larmore ; translated by Sharon
Bowman.
p. cm.
Translation of: Les pratiques du moi (Paris : Presses universitaires de
France, C2004).
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-46887-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-46887-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Self (Philosophy). 2. Self-knowledge, Theory of. I. Bowman,
Sharon, 1973- II. Title.
BD438.5.L3713 2010
126—dc22
2010006146
®Tho paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
I he American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence
of I'.ifwr lor Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For Anka
Contents
Preface to the English Translation ix Introduction xi
One. Sincerity and Authenticity 1
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. SARTRE AS GUIDE J
3. BAD FAITH AND SINCERITY 12
4. THE EXAMPLE OF STENDHAL 19
5. REFLECTION AND BEING LIKE ANOTHER 23
6. BEING NATURAL 27
Two. Social Mimetism 31
1. THE UBIQUITY OF CONVENTION 31
2. BEING LIKE ANOTHER 36
3. AUTHENTICITY AND THE DEMOCRATIC AGE 43
4. MIMETISM AND EQUALITY 50
5. BEING ONESELF AMID CONVENTIONS 53
Three. Reflection and Self-Knowledge 61
1. AUTHENTICITY AND THE NATURE OF THE SELF 6l
2. FOUNDATIONS OF A THEORY OF COGNITIVE REFLECTION 68
3. PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION 76
4. THE STRUCTURE OF COGNITIVE SELF-REFLECTION 83
5. THE SELF IN COGNITIVE REFLECTION 88
Four. A Normativist Conception of the Mind 97
1. REPRESENTING AND REASONING 97
2. A CRITIQUE OF AUTONOMY 104
Five. Practical Reflection 111
1. OBLIGATIONS AND AVOWALS 111
2. A DEFENSE OF FIRST-PERSON AUTHORITY 117
3. THE PERSISTENCE OF THE CARTESIAN MODEL 121
4. THE KEY TO THE MYSTERY 127
5. A FINAL PROBLEM 13O
6. CONCLUSION 133
Six. Being Oneself and Being Like Another 139
1. TWO WAYS OF BEING ONESELF 139
2. THE DOMAIN OF AUTHENTICITY 142
3. THE INSTABILITY OF PRACTICAL REFLECTION 146
4. AUTHENTICITY AND CONVERSION 151
5. HOW TO BE VIRTUOUS 155
6. THE ENDS OF REFLECTION l6o
7. REFLECTION AND ITS PROBLEMS 166
Seven. Prudence and Wisdom 171
1. THE SELF AND TIME 171
2. THE IMPORTANCE OF UNEXPECTED GOODS I77
3. SOCRATES* MISTAKE 183
4. THE LIMITS OF PRUDENCE 189
5. WISDOM 195
Index 199
Preface to the English Translation
I would like to thank T. David Brent of the University of Chicago Press for
arranging to have this book of mine, originally written in French, appear in
English. I am also particularly grateful to Sharon Bowman, who prepared an
initial translation for the Press. I have thoroughly revised her version, seeking
to have the text come as close as possible—given the differences between my
anglophone and francophone selves—to what it would have been, had I origi
nally written it in English. However, I am indebted to her for painstaking work
and for often having translated me better than I could have translated myself.
Finally, I thank Margaret Mahan for her helpful work in the copyediting of
the translation.
In preparing this English edition of my book, which appears some years
after the French original (2004), I have updated several footnotes to refer to
some relevant publications of mine that have appeared in the interim. Also, I
have not hesitated to modify some of the cited English translations of French
works, when accuracy seemed to me to require it.
I still find myself largely in agreement with the theory of the self pre
sented in this book. On some points of detail I have changed my mind, and
some of the lines of argument I have extended further. The reader can find
an account of these developments in a book that I recently published with
Vincent Descombes, Dernières nouvelles du moi (Paris: Presses universi
taires de France, 2009).
Charles Larmori'
October 20ÜCJ
ix
Introduction
I have more than one reason to beg the reader's indulgence in publishing this
work on the nature of the self. First of all, there is the notorious difficulty of
the subject itself. That the self is defined by a relationship to itself that makes
it precisely a self ought to be beyond dispute. Being a self means being a self
for oneself. We are human beings because we belong to a biological species;
we are citizens because we enjoy a set of basic rights. But each of us is a self in
virtue of having a relation to ourselves—and one that is essential, as opposed
to some turning back on ourselves that we may choose to perform or not.
Even in our most insignificant thoughts there resides an unavoidable relation
ship to ourselves, since these thoughts only count as ours because we express
ourselves in them. Even our moments of distraction or passion, no less than
the times when we reflect and say "I," constitute expressions of the self that
we are. Yet what is the nature of this necessary relationship to ourselves that
inhabits each of our thoughts and actions?
The question is all the more difficult in that the usual answer leads quickly
to aporias. One readily assumes not only that the self relates to itself by being
conscious of what is going on inside it, but also (and this is the fatal step) that
this self-consciousness consists, in turn, of an immediate knowledge that the
self has of its own operations. Yet it quickly becomes clear that the relation
ship in question can in no way derive from an act of reflection. We reflect on
ourselves only when circumstances demand it, and insofar as we are then
seeking to know ourselves, our object is the self as it exists independently of
this reflective act. Thus the type of self-knowledge that is supposedly essential
to the self must consist in a far more intimate relationship to oneself than ro
xi
XÜ • INTRODUCTION
flection: it would have to be part of the self's very being and operate (perma
nently) without introducing any distinction between subject and object.
But here we find ourselves enveloped in total mystery! For do we have the
slightest notion of what such a self-apprehension could be? It is no use resort
ing to the idea of some "internal sense" accompanying all the acts of the mind,
because that is merely a metaphor (we do not literally have a third eye), and
its tenor is far from obvious (in ordinary perception we can always fail to cor
rectly identify the object before us, whereas a mistake of that sort would seem
impossible in our fundamental relationship to ourselves). Nothing is closer
to us, one would have imagined, than the self that we are, and yet one feels
impelled to exclaim with Montaigne, "Our condition makes the knowledge of
what we have in our hands as remote from us and as far above the clouds as
that of the stars."1
In addition to these intrinsic difficulties posed by the nature of the self, I
created another one for myself in deciding, despite the fact that I am an Amer
ican philosopher, to write this book in French. Several factors contributed to
my decision, among them my love for the French language and the fact that
for some time now I have increasingly taken to writing in that language. The
main consideration, however, stemmed from the very substance of the book.
Not only has the pursuit of the self through its different relationships to itself
been a privileged theme in French thought, but there are also a fair number
of authors who in my opinion have offered crucial elements for solving the
philosophical problems I have just evoked. Montaigne, Pascal and the classi
cal moralists, Stendhal, Valéry, Bergson, Nabert, Sartre, Girard, and Ricoeur
all play an important part in my argument, as the reader will easily confirm.
I stress that the theory of the self proposed here is my own construction; I
try to develop it in a systematic way, without hiding behind the authority of
these eminent writers. On several crucial points, however, they have proved
to be exceptionally insightful, and in order to build on their contributions, it
seemed useful for me to choose the language in which they themselves ex
pressed their thought.
The path I have followed in presenting this theory also requires some expla
nation. Instead of tackling directly the nature of the relationship to itself that
is constitutive of the self, I begin with a discussion of the ideal of authenticity.
This approach may seem surprising at first, if only because of the somewhat
i. Michel de Montaigne, Essais, ed. P. Villey (Paris: Presses universitaires de France
| PUF|, 1999), II.12, 538 [The Complete Works, trans. Donald M. Frame (New York: The Every
man's Library, 2003), 488).
INTRODUCTION • XÜi
outmoded air of the term itself. Nonetheless, if I have in fact devoted the first
two chapters to the most telling critiques that have been directed at the notion
of authenticity and that go so far as to call into question its very coherence,
it is because, even as I explain their relative merits, my aim is to lay bare the
still valid core ofthat ideal. Moreover, reworking the notion of authenticity is
not a superfluous detour. It is demanded by the subject of the present book. If
there is any meaning to the notion that in our authentic moments we manage
to be fully ourselves, our words and actions expressing in a particularly pure
way what we are at the root of our being, examining this phenomenon should
offer a useful key to better understanding the very nature of the self.
It will prove necessary, however, to rid ourselves of some familiar interpre
tations if we wish to grasp the undeniable value that authenticity represents.
Being authentic cannot mean "becoming what one is." Any attempt to make
ourselves coincide with our "true self" is destined to fail, since our desire to
see ourselves arrive at this goal requires us to reflect on our progress and thus
to maintain the very division between subject and object that we were suppos
edly trying to overcome (chapter 1). Furthermore, there is no "true self," if by
that is understood a self not imbued with forms of thought that we have made
our own by modeling ourselves on others (chapter 2). It is better to identify
authenticity with our ability to give ourselves over to a certain possibility with
out looking at ourselves from another's point of view, as we cannot help doing
when observing ourselves and adopting toward ourselves the standpoint of
a knowing subject. Understood in this sense, being fully ourselves does not
require us to free ourselves from the imprint of social conventions—which is
impossible, anyway—but only that we stop seeking our bearings from what
we believe or imagine another might expect of us. One example is the "natu
ralness" beloved of Stendhal, in which we let ourselves be carried away by
passion without giving a thought to what others would say about us.
Thus redefined, authenticity will also be reevaluated. Instead of making it
out to be a supreme value and fantasizing about an "authentic existence," as
a certain existentialist vulgate does, we should recognize that authenticity is
only one value among others. Adopting the perspective of another is often the
indispensable prerequisite for learning and doing better than before. The fact
that self-knowledge implies scrutinizing ourselves with an outsider's gaze is
no reason to disdain it. In short, alienation is not in itself a bad thing.
In chapters 3 through 5,1 draw on these conclusions to carry out my prin
cipal task, which is to elucidate the character of the self's essential relation
ship to itself. When we give ourselves over fully to some possibility without
looking at ourselves through another's eyes, we express in a transparent way