Memória e auto-consciência. Uma ‘fuga’ filosófica sobre a antropologia e a filosofia da mente

In this paper, I would like to argue in favour of two theses. Through an examination of some literary (Hesiod), ethnographic (Asmat people in New Guinea) and anthropological (the theories about the value of myth in traditional society) evidence, I will propose a re-evaluation of the role of autobiographical memory in the self-knowledge of the human being, and I will suggest that this role do actually cover all the functions we usually credit to self-consciousness. I will argue (1) that what we call “self-consciousness” could perhaps be identified with was is known to psychologists as “autobiographical memory”, and (2) that our autobiographical memory, which is the narrative that we construe about the genesis of our person, is inseparable from the narrative that we shape about the genesis of the world we live in. As a result of these two steps, I will propose an idea of “self-consciousness” which is strictly interwoven with our narrative about the external world.