Abstract

Mary Walker (2012) argues that the narrative form that self-understanding must take is capable of providing a largely truthful picture of who we are, despite neuropsychological evidence suggesting the contrary. Walker describes three approaches to counter the conclusion of falsity in self narratives: that some truths are fully intelligible only within a narrative structure; that narratives contain non-factual content with a significance and meaning otherwise unavailable; thirdly, and importantly for our purposes, she offers a constraint ‘on what can count as a correct or good self-narrative...to point to ways in which the process of self-narration should be connected to the facts’. In this commentary we elaborate and offer further support to Walker’s claim that ‘continual intersubjective checking’ provides a dynamic and corrective social mechanism for ensuring truth in self narratives.