This chapter explores ideas about the origins of the self. It focuses specifically on the various accounts of the origins of the self to be found in the works of Augustine, who is Charles Taylor’s second historical reference point (after Plato) as he builds his account of the sources of the modern self. However, the chapter diverges markedly from Taylor’s emphasis on radical reflexivity, the self discovered through introspection. It studies two aspects of the self for Augustine: first, the self’s formation in what Taylor himself calls “webs of interlocution”; second, and more innovatively, the chapter explores the scattered traces of Augustine’s thoughts on the pre-natal self, and on the mystery of the moment at which soul combines with body to become a human person. Augustine ponders this mystery but never makes a declarative statement on the topic, and the chapter suggests that we should listen to the Augustinian nescio (“I don’t know”) and its resultant embrace of indeterminacy, instead of the Cartesian cogito, as we think about the nature of the self.

The introduction summarizes the contributions of Charles Taylor’s ambitious work, Sources of the Self, attending particularly to its introductory section “Identity and the Good.” It then highlights the ways in which this volume expands the conversation started by Taylor’s work: in its coverage of multiple disciplines and genres, not just philosophy and philosophical writing; in its attention to non-canonical sources and previously overlooked periods (Taylor passes directly from Augustine to Descartes); and in its development of Taylor’s “webs of interlocution” into consideration of how we – and our sources – might offer accounts of truly embodied selves, situated in ordinary lives. Finally, the introduction offers a summary of the chapters in this volume.

The Consolation presents two especially puzzling features that make its exegesis particularly challenging. Literarily, it adopts an uncommon style for a philosophical text, the prosimetrum, which combines prose with poetry. Content-wise, it develops a cogent philosophical message that, perplexingly, is conveyed in a labyrinthine way. These exegetical difficulties disappear if we interpret the Consolation as a form of self-examination grounded in Neoplatonic philosophy. The meandering way in which the text expresses its message illustrates Boethius’ inner conflict brought about by his sudden political fall. The root cause of his conflict is an unresolved tension within the Neoplatonic account of the human soul: the difficulty of reconciling our material self with our divine self. The Consolation’s highly unusual combination of prose and poetry is steeped in some of the basic principles of Neoplatonic pedagogy.

This chapter sets out the central argument of this book – that personal bioinformation has critical roles to play in our construction of self-narratives that are capable of remaining coherent and inhabitable when confronted by our embodied and socially embedded experiences and of supporting us in making sense of and navigating these experiences. It suggests that our lives and experiences are inescapably those of embodied beings and outlines what is entailed by this claim. It proposes that any satisfactory account of narrative self-constitution must accommodate the significance of our embodiment as the context in which we construct our self-narratives and as the source of both narrative contents and limits upon unfettered self-definition. From these premises, this chapter argues that personal bioinformation – to the extent that it provides reliable and meaningful insights into our bodily and biological states, capacities, and relationships – can provide vital constitutive and interpretive tools for the interpretation and construction of our embodied self-narratives. This discussion distinguishes its position from suggestions that personal bioinformation gets us closer to narrative ‘truth’ and responds to concerns that proposing a narrative role for bioinformation commits us to the view that our identities are defined by our biology or bodies as objects.