Deleuze and Ricoeur: Disavowed Affinities and the Narrative Self(Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)

What is the self? Is it the impregnable cogito of Descartes or the shattered self of Nietzsche? Or has it become serendipitously constituted from pieces of fairy tales and novels, childhood comics and soap operas - a multitude of forces culled from fashion, modern myth, culture and recreation? Or must we still convince ourselves, like Rousseau, that the self can never be tainted; that it is, above all else, irrefrangible? Paul Ricoeur proposed that the self is formed within the narratives we tell of ourselves, that it is itself a form of narrative. But is this enough? Could a self cohere in a multitude of potential narratives or find unity among its stories? In this book, Declan Sheerin challenges the theory that the self is narrative alone or that concordance reigns over discordance in the self. Drawing upon the works of Gilles Deleuze, he proposes that deep to the sense of a unified, represented self is a more fundamental self of difference, a self that is more than merely coherent narrative.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. Introduction to an Enigma 2. Problematizing the Field of the Self 3. Critique on the Kantian Self 4. The Narrative Self 5. Questioning the Narrative Self through its Progenitors 6. Interlude 7. In the Land of the Larval Selves 8. Dis/solving the Narrative Self 9. From Debt to Excess 10. Interzone 11. From Excess to Debt: Evolving Constraints to Narrative Identity 12. The Poetic Imagination within the Evolving Constraints of Narrative Productivity 13. Conclusion Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Declan Sheerin has a PhD in Philosophy from University College Dublin. He currently lives and works as a consultant child psychiatrist in Ireland.

Review :
"I have been waiting a long time for a book like this. One can hardly think of two more disparate philosophers than Ricoeur and Deleuze, but Sheerin adroitly brings them into conversation on the important problem of the narrative self. Along the way, he provides original analyses of their complex relations to thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Kant, Bergson, and Lacan. A superb study that is at once erudite, personal, and accessible. Highly recommended." - Daniel W. Smith, Purdue University, USA "Sheerin questions the place of the narrative self, drawing from his education in philosophy and his experience as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, where he has found most adult patients suffering from schizophrenia, at the core of which is a disturbance in the sense of self. His topics include emproblemating the field of the self, critique on the Kantian self, in the land of the larval selves, from debt to excess, interzone, and evolving constraints to narrative identity and the poetic imagination within them." -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.