Abstract

This paper presents and discusses two of the mains conceptions about the origin and the nature of the narrative of the self in the postmodernity, i.e., the consciousness that each one has-from the first person perspective about oneself as the same person in different instants of time. Those positions are: (a) the theory of Kenneth Gergen in which the self is a conversational construction that emerges from social discourses previous to the subject; and (b) the theory of Vittorio Guidano in which the self is, firstly, an experienced phenomenon that becomes symbolized in a second moment, among other possibilities, narratively. It will be proposed that the arguments by which Gergen defends his theory are inconsistent, especially when it comes to the origin of the narrative of the self and their meaning.