Scribd
Upload
63 views2 pages

Chapter Eight: Oneself As Oneself

This document discusses imagining oneself in the future when making current decisions. It explains that when considering whether to accept a nomination, the author imagines how they would feel if they won or lost the election. This involves envisioning oneself in future circumstances as a future self that is different from the current self. Imagining one's future self is a common way we contemplate decisions ranging from career choices to daily activities like what to have for dinner. The document argues this act of imagining oneself in the future can be viewed as a type of metaphorical identification, with oneself in a different situation.

Uploaded by

Anonymous 2Dl0cn7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
63 views2 pages

Chapter Eight: Oneself As Oneself

This document discusses imagining oneself in the future when making current decisions. It explains that when considering whether to accept a nomination, the author imagines how they would feel if they won or lost the election. This involves envisioning oneself in future circumstances as a future self that is different from the current self. Imagining one's future self is a common way we contemplate decisions ranging from career choices to daily activities like what to have for dinner. The document argues this act of imagining oneself in the future can be viewed as a type of metaphorical identification, with oneself in a different situation.

Uploaded by

Anonymous 2Dl0cn7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

CHAPTER EIGHT

Oneself as Oneself

Az ikh vel zayn vi er, ver vet zayn vi ikh?


[If I should be someone else, who would be me?]
—Yiddish saying

THERE IS a special example of metaphorical personal identifica-


tion, peculiar, perhaps, but common, in which the person one
identifies with is oneself. This happens when one tries to gain
a sense of oneself at a future time. It is at the center of the
hypothetical thinking one engages in when making current de-
cisions that will have future effects.
Suppose I am asked to be nominated to run for the office of
president, say, of the American Society for Aesthetics or of my
division of the American Philosophical Association, and I must
decide whether to accept the nomination. I begin by imagining
how I would feel if I won the election, and how I would feel if
I lost. Others would no doubt approach the question with more
equanimity, but given my insecurity and the quirks of my per-
sonality, I find the question difficult. I think, if I lose the elec-
tion, I will be disappointed, of course, and, being who and what
I am, I may try to mitigate my disappointment by supposing
that my loss is the product of a benighted electorate, a group
of stodgy and unimaginative academics incapable of appreciat-
ing my work. Such a supposition might soothe me. But having
entertained this supposition in advance, what will I feel like if
I win the election? Won’t I have depreciated the contest to a
point at which I could take no pride in being the choice of
electors I was prepared, if only provisionally, to denigrate?
68 CHAPTER EIGHT

In contemplating the possible outcomes in preparation for


deciding whether to stand for election, it seems to me that I
imagine myself in the future, both as winner and loser of the
election. This is not imagining myself to be another person,
not exactly, but it is similar to that, for it is imagining myself in
future circumstances. It is imagining myself to be me-in-the-
future, and that person, a future me, is not the current me.
The imagination of oneself in the future is one of the most
common of our contemplations. It is the background and pre-
lude to countless decisions ranging from a decision about what
career to pursue to the choice of what to have for dinner.
I regard this act of imagination, too, as the grasping of a met-
aphor. Identifying oneself with another person is a special case
of metaphorical identification, and identifying oneself with
oneself-differently-situated is, thus, a special special case.

You might also like