Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College. Author of four books, editor of nine volumes, and author of over one hundred articles and book chapters, he has presented many conference papers, invited presentations, and colloquia contributions internationally. Editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature since 2002, he has a number of new books presently in preparation; these volumes will continue to develop his work on literature, the visual arts, music, and film, all considered in connection with the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and ethics.

• Acknowledgements


• Preface: On the Self-Formative Power of Literature


• 1: Imagined Identities


• 2: Boundaries of Selfhood


• 3: Structures of Autobiographical Understanding


• 4: Three Tragedies of the Unexamined Life


• 5: Moments of Self-Definition: Forging a Self in Language


• 6: The Sense of Self


• Bibliography

Garry Hagberg investigates the role that literature plays in the constitution of a human being, and the connection between the language we see at work in imaginative fiction and the language we develop to describe ourselves. He asks whether self-descriptive or autobiographical language itself plays an active role in shaping our identities.