Autobiography, Words and Memories
Abstract
Autobiographical memories are a defining feature of our existence, and their disappearance harms or compromises our experience of the self. What are the conditions of emergence of our memories? Are we the only living beings capable of having them? This paper offers a phenomenological reflection on autobiographical memory, in dialogue with insights from psychology. Our autobiographical memories are not, so to speak, solely ours, originally ‘internal’ and ‘autonomous’ formations. Having to pass through language and community in order to form ourselves, the external world and the other shape us from within. So-called autobiographical memories are therefore always hetero-autobiographical. This in no way detracts from our singularity; it simply highlights the conditions that make it possible, as well as its limits and the inextinguishable debt that accompanies it: autobiography is always hetero-auto-biography.
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References
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