ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for a synthesis of George Herbert Mead’s conception of the temporal and intersubjective nature of the self with Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of narrative identity. Combining the insights of Ricoeur’s philosophical analysis with Mead’s socialpsychological orientation provides a subtle, sophisticated, and potent explanation of selfidentity. A narrative conception of identity implies that subjectivity is neither a philosophical illusion nor an impermeable substance. Rather, a narrative identity provides a subjective sense of self-continuity as it symbolically integrates the events of lived experience in the plot of the story a person tells about his or her life. The utility of this conception of identity is illustrated through a re-reading of Erving Goffman’s study of the experience of mental patients (1976). This example underlines the social sources of the selfconcept and the role of power and politics in the construction of narrative identities.
