Self-narrative a causal center of gravity

Abstract The goal of this paper is arguing for a realist and narrativist theory of the self, showing that, contra many narrative theorists (such as Daniel Dennett), narrativism is compatible with realism about the self. The structure of the paper is the following: we start, in the first section, providing an outline of standard narrativist theories, explaining, in particular, why they are anti-realist. In the second section, we give a sort of empirical argument for a realist account of narrativism, based on a model of the genesis of narrative identity. The guiding idea is that the process underlying the ability of producing narratives has a crucial causal role. Then, in the third section, we defend the account from a possible anti-realist objection; we show that standard anti-realist accounts are based on a wrong premise. The main points will be summarised in the conclusions.