Abstract
Abstract
This chapter investigates the possibility of “rewriting” the self, considered in connection with the special case (because forgiver and forgiven are the same person) of self-forgiveness. The role of words, and their function in reaching both into the past and projecting into the future, is closely examined here. This leads to an examination of rereading, what it is, why we do it, what it means for our understanding of word meaning, and how this all connects to the idea of “rereading” the self and the self’s composed narrative. Rewriting and rereading are intertwined with issues of self-reinvention, self-redescription, and self-understanding. The chapter closes with a discussion of the importance that the seeing of connections, in Wittgenstein’s sense, has for self-narrative composition and for the larger notion of the self as a work-in-progress.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
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