Personal Identity

On my understanding, a philosophical novel is quite simply a work of fiction that treats the kinds of questions normally posed by philosophers, e.g. moral, existential, metaphysical, etc. It is a novel of ideas and questions that generate ideas worthy of consideration. Such a novel is the heart of the reading experience for me.

Is it any wonder then why I liked Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon so much? Ideas and problems abound within this tale, one with a very limited narrative and a great many questions, most of them unanswered. One of the central issues of Night Train to Lisbon concerns how one comes to know another person, including oneself. Within philosophy this is sometimes known as the problem of personal identity and in psychology as the nature of self-perception or self-knowledge.

Consider these questions that are either raised by the Portuguese physician Amadeau Prado or the Swiss linguist, Raimund Gregorious, who goes in search of the individuals who are the central players in Prado’s fictional, masterpiece A Goldsmith of Words:

How can you tell whether to take a feeling seriously or treat it as a carefree mood?

The stories others tell about you and the stories you tell about yourself: which come closer to the truth?

In such stories, is there really a difference between true and false?

What do we know of somebody if we know nothing of the images passed to him by his imagination?

To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation?

What difficult questions. Who has not wondered about them at one time or another? How complicated and unknowable we are. How then can we ever expect to know another person? Mercier writes: We are in the dark about so many of our wishes and thoughts, and others sometimes know more about them than we do. And, as if to take issue with current empirical research on person perception, he proclaims: Inside a person it is much more complicated than our schematic, ridiculous explanations wanted to have us believe.

In a similar vein, Mercier by way of Prado wonders a great deal about the problem of identity. Who are we anyway? Are we the same person today that we were 40 years ago? If so, what is it that constitutes our core or does that concept mean anything at all? Prado inquires:

When was somebody himself? When he was as always? As he saw himself? Or as he was when the white hot lava of thoughts and feelings buried all lies, masks, and self-deceptions?

Is there a mystery under the surfaces of human action? Or are human beings utterly what their obvious acts indicate?

Does it make any sense to say that a person has a central self, a distinctive identity that lies hidden behind most of the actions that constitute daily life? I sometimes find myself in the presence of another person who for entirely unknown reasons calls forth expressions that somehow seem far more myself than is usually the case. How does that happen? Who is the me that appears in such situations and how does it differ from my other self or selves? Nothing that I have been able to detect in the other person seems responsible. But what I am on those rare occasions is instantaneous and continuous and thoroughly exhilarating. It seems entirely natural and I have no idea what to make of it.

Consider the following passages recorded from Mercier’s novel which also touch on these two questions:

Is there a mystery under the surfaces of human action? Or are human beings utterly what their obvious acts indicate?

We humans: what do we know of one another?

…our outside form doesn’t appear to others as to our own eyes.

Was it possible that the best way to make sure of yourself was to know and understand someone else?

How can you tell whether to take a feeling seriously or treat it as a carefree mood?

The stories others tell about you and the stories you tell about yourself: which come closer to the truth?

…that the body is less corrupt than the mind. The mind is a charming area of self-deception, woven of beautiful, soothing words that give us the illusion that we have an unerring familiarity with ourselves.

Life is not what we live; it is what we imagine we are living.

But when [do] we set out to understand somebody’s inside? Is that a trip that ever ends?

Inside a person it was much more complicated than our schematic, ridiculous explanations wanted to have us believe.

When was somebody himself? When he was as always? As he saw himself? Or as he was when the white hot lava of thoughts and feelings buried all lies, masks, and self-deceptions?