Narrating the self: Freud, Dennett and complexity theory

Ab stract Adopt ing a ma te ri al ist ap proach to the mind has far reach ing im pli ca tions for many pre sup po si tions re gard ing the prop er ties of the brain, in clud ing those that have tra di tion ally been con signed to “the men tal” as pect of hu man be ing. One such pre sup po si tion is the con cep tion of the dis em bod ied self. In this ar ti cle we aim to ac count for the self as a ma te rial en tity, in that it is wholly the re sult of the phys i o log i cal func tion ing of the em bod ied brain. Fur ther more, we at tempt to ac count for the struc ture of the self by in vok ing the logic of the nar ra tive. While our con cep tion of nar ra tive self hood in cor po rates the work of both Freud and Dennett, we of fer a cri tique of these two the o rists and then pro ceed to amend their the o ries by means of com plex ity the ory. We ar gue that the self can be char ac ter ised as a com plex sys tem, which al lows us to ac count for the struc ture of the ma te rial self.