Kathy Behrendt

Bio: Kathy Behrendt is an academic researcher from Wilfrid Laurier University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Self & Narrative. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 11 publications receiving 34 citations. Previous affiliations of Kathy Behrendt include University of Oxford.

Unmoored: Mortal Harm and Mortal Fear

Abstract: There is a fear of death that persistently eludes adequate explanation from contemporary philosophers of death. The reason for this is their focus on mortal harm issues, such as why death is bad fo...

Reasons to be Fearful: Strawson, Death and Narrative

Abstract: When attempting to face the prospect of one's own death, it has been said that ‘the mind blanks at the glare’. Perhaps we should not treat our attitude towards our death as rational or reflective of our views on the self and on life. But to exempt views on death from the scrutiny of rational discourse seems to be a last resort (albeit one we may need recourse to in the end). There is a general tendency to neglect death within those discussions of the self that fall outside the confines of a certain strain of continental thought roughly construed, or at best to treat it as a topic that resides beyond the borders of the rational. I do not aim to rectify this situation here, nor do I think it obvious that death is something that can be clearly and consistently dealt with by those theories of persons and selves that primarily represent, to use Thomas Nagel's words, ‘an internal view that sees only this side of death—that includes only the finitude of [one's] expected future consciousness’. But I do believe that those who have spent a good deal of time thinking about the life of the self ought to spare a thought or two for its demise, and that such thoughts may contribute to our over-all assessment of their view.

A special way of being afraid

Abstract: I am interested in fear of non-existence, which is often discussed in terms of fear of one's own death, or as it is sometimes called, fear of death as such. This form of fear has been denied by some philosophers. Cognitive theories of the emotions have particular trouble in dealing with it, granting it a status that is simultaneously paradigmatic yet anomalous with respect to fear in general. My paper documents these matters, and considers a number of responses. I provide examples from philosophy and literature of fear of non-existence, and distinguish it from other death-related fears. I then look at the success that cognitive theories of the emotions have had in dealing with other “problematic” fears, such as phobias, and examine how the solutions here fail to apply to fear of non-existence. The problem lies with the perceptual-centered model of fear that is typically called upon. Against this I recommend a retreat to a belief-centered model for fear of non-existence. I argue that there are other fears ...

Narrative Aversion: Challenges for the Illness Narrative Advocate.

Abstract: Engaging in self-narrative is often touted as a powerful antidote to the bad effects of illness. However, there are various examples of what may broadly be termed "aversion" to illness narrative. I group these into three kinds: aversion to certain types of illness narrative; aversion to illness narrative as a whole; and aversion to illness narrative as an essentially therapeutic endeavor. These aversions can throw into doubt the advantages claimed for the illness narrator, including the key benefits of repair to the damage illness does to identity and life-trajectory. Underlying these alleged benefits are two key presuppositions: that it is the whole of one's life that is narratively unified, and that one's identity is inextricably bound up with narrative. By letting go of these assumptions, illness narrative advocates can respond to the challenges of narrative aversions.

Whole Lives and Good Deaths

Abstract: This article discusses two views associated with narrative conceptions of the self. The first view asserts that our whole life is reasonably regarded as a single unit of meaning. A prominent strand of the philosophical narrative account of the self is the representative of this view. The second view—which has currency beyond the confines of the philosophical narrative account—is that the meaning of a life story is dependent on what happens at the end of it. The article argues that the connection between these two views is more tentative than often supposed: philosophical narrativists that see life as a single unit of value and meaning nonetheless provide grounds for arguing that the end of life is not the best and may be a particularly bad time to approach and intervene in the matter of how well one's life as a whole has gone.

What We Mean When We Talk About Suffering-and Why Eric Cassell Should Not Have the Last Word.

Abstract: This paper analyzes the phenomenon of suffering and its relationship to medical practice by focusing on the paradigmatic work of Eric Cassell. First, it explains Cassell's influential model of suffering. Second, it surveys various critiques of Cassell. Next it outlines the authors' concerns with Cassell's model: it is aggressive, obscure, and fails to capture important features of the suffering experience. Finally, the authors propose a conceptual framework to help clarify the distinctive nature of subjective patient suffering. This framework contains two necessary conditions: (1) a loss of a person's sense of self, and (2) a negative affective experience. The authors suggest how this framework can be used in the medical encounter to promote clinician-patient communication and the relief of suffering.

Death, freedom and narrative thinking : existential analytics

Abstract: In this thesis, I focus on the relation between individuals’ awareness of their mortality and freedom from a phenomenological perspective, which is based on making sense of our temporality with the tools of narrative thinking. I argue that this perspective will shed light on the neglected question, of how the awareness of the fact that every individual will die would have a bearing upon an individual’s freedom. In the first chapter, I argue that a linear understanding of time paves the way for the grand narratives, which eclipse the meaning of death and individual freedom. In the second chapter, I argue that Heidegger’s primordial conception of time is the proper way to see death as a phenomenon. This view is based on the distinction, I offer, between conceiving death as an event and an eventuality. I argue that, whereas conceiving death as an event reveals the temporal finitude of one’s existence; conceiving death as an eventuality discloses the finitude of possibilities at one’s disposal. In the fourth chapter, after introducing Berlin’s two conceptions of freedom in the third, I apply the negative conception of freedom in analysing individuals’ freedom with respect to the event of death and the positive conception respectively to the eventuality of death. This, firstly, leads me to discussing whether an immortal life-span would be a freer one, in the light of the suggestion of the negative conception that indexes the range of one’s freedom to the absence of external constraints and, secondly, whether the anxiety caused by the presence of death as an (ever-present) eventuality constrains one’s freedom, in the light of the suggestion of the positive conception that indexes one’s freedom to the presence of mechanisms which enable individuals to exercise control over their life. In the last chapter, I conclude that anxiety caused by the eventuality of death might actually constrain one’s freedom to a larger extent. I demonstrate that narrative thinking would be helpful to alleviate the influence of anxiety into a lesser degree and it might actually transform this potential constraint on a motivating factor for one’s authenticity.

Naked Subjectivity: Minimal vs. Narrative Selves in Kierkegaard

Abstract: In recent years a significant debate has arisen as to whether Kierkegaard offers a version of the “narrative approach” to issues of personal identity and self-constitution. In this paper I do not directly take sides in this debate, but consider instead the applicability of a recent development in the broader literature on narrative identity—the distinction between the temporally-extended “narrative self” and the non-extended “minimal self—to Kierkegaard's work. I argue that such a distinction is both necessary for making sense of Kierkegaard's claim that we are ethically enjoined to become selves, and can indeed be found in Either/Or and the later The Sickness Unto Death . Despite Kierkegaard's Non-Substantialism, each of these texts speaks (somewhat obliquely) of a “naked self” that is separable from the concrete facticity of human being. In both cases, this minimal self is linked to issues of eschatological responsibility; yet the two works develop very different understandings of “eternity” an...