Mercedes Rivero

Traditionally, intelligibility is associated with rationality. It is also associated with the meaning and understanding of the agent’s actions when interacting in a context. What is proposed in this work is an analysis – at the moment in which the agent is interacting – of what happens when intelligibility and meaning are decoupled. It causes a person’s actions to be misunderstood or misinterpreted by others. It is even possible that the same person will not understand, later, why she has acted the way she has. The explanation proposed is that this link is broken when the action process, made up of the three stages of action, is not developed correctly. This results in misunderstandings that, because they are directly related to the action, I have called misunderstandings within agency. The analysis of this kind of misunderstanding could be essential to understanding the conflicts that arise in the communicative act and mutual understanding.

Tradiciškai inteligibilumas siejamas su racionalumu. Jis taip pat siejamas su prasme bei veikėjo veiksmų suvokimu, kuomet veikėjas sąveikauja konkrečiame kontekste. Šiame straipsnyje analizuojama, kas vyksta tais veikėjo sąveikavimo atvejais, kai inteligibilumas ir prasmė yra atsiejami vienas nuo kito. Dėl šio atsiejimo kiti asmenys klaidingai supranta ar klaidingai interpretuoja asmens veiksmus. Netgi įmanoma, kad ir pats asmuo vėliau nesuvoks, kodėl jis veikė būtent tokiu būdu. Siūlomas paaiškinimas, kad šis ryšys nutraukiamas, kuomet veiksmo procesas, sudarytas iš trijų veiksmo etapų, nėra taisyklingai plėtojamas. Tada kyla nesusipratimų, kurie, būdami tiesiogiai susiję su veiksmu, straipsnyje įvardijami agentiškumo nesusipratimais. Šios rūšies nesusipratimų tyrimas gali būti gyvybiškai svarbus, siekiant suprasti konfliktus, kylančius komunikacijos veiksme bei ieškant abipusio supratimo.

Intelligibility relates to a person’s agency in guiding their behavior to be logical and reasonable, and it makes sense during action. However, it does not always happen. Sometimes, intelligibility fails, and the subject’s actions become distanced from what had previously made sense to them or others. At that moment, what I have called misunderstandings within the agency appear. When the emotional process interferes with the action process, it is one of the causes of misunderstandings within the agency. Then, emotions interfere with the action and produce a cognitive dissociation that makes it difficult for the agents to interpret what is happening in the scene. It breaks between intelligibility and meaning. This also creates problems of understanding and communication. This is why the analysis of the misunderstandings within the agency is of such great importance.

The Theory of Narrative Identity attempts to answer multiple concerns about the construction of self-concept. It suggests that the subject gives sense to their experiences by assimilating them as a set of narratives that explain their existence. This approach provides them with a foundation that makes it easy for them to gain self-understanding and plan their actions. However, the Theory of Narrative Identity is unable to face important difficulties related to intelligibility and social interaction. This work presents an alternative proposal thanks to the Theory of Dramatic Identity, which focuses its study on the action of the individual itself. La Teoría narrativa de la identidad trata de dar respuesta a múltiples inquietudes sobre construcción del autoconcepto. Esta sugiere que el sujeto da sentido a su experiencia al asimilarla como un conjunto de narraciones que explican su existencia. Esto le proporciona una base que le facilita adquirir autocomprensión y planificar sus acciones. Sin embargo, la Teoría Narrativa de la identidad es incapaz de enfrentar importantes dificultades relacionadas con la inteligibilidad y la interacción social. Este trabajo presenta una propuesta alternativa a través de la Teoría dramática de la identidad, que centra su estudio en la agencia del sujeto.

Recent works on narrative self-concept still do not pay enough attention to how a person’s actions influence her narration. Narrative structures may enable the subject to give meaning and continuity over time to her experience. But also, a person’s behavior can make sense of her self-concept. From this perspective, the Narrative Identity Theory might be insufficient for addressing the challenge of making sense of the subject’s actions during the interaction itself. The Dramatic Identity Theory's proposal can complement the Narrative Theory on such points. Accordingly, this work will explore the relationship between these two theories in order to explain how the Dramatic Identity Theory can solve these problems, with a proposal based on the analogy between a theater actor’s performance and the subject's actions.

The identity and the agency of the subject have been recurrent topics in the history of the theatre and of philosophy. Both disciplines pursue similar objectives that have guided their research along analogous paths. This assay is intended to examine the idea of the agent subject that David Velleman suggests, and which uses as an example the work carried out by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. In addition, it studies Narrative Identity through the thesis of Peter Goldie and presents its relationship with -what could be called- Acting or Dramatic Identity. The fundamental intention is to discover the way in which the subject acts to build his identity, and try to make sense of his actions.

Este artículo trata de investigar si es posible que se produzca una emoción partiendo solo de su expresión, y no de un estímulo. Para ello se analizarán algunos trabajos de autores como William James, Francisco Alcayde y Vilar o la psicóloga chilena Susana Bloch. Todos ellos han tratado de demostrar que la expresión de una emoción puede conducir al sujeto a experimentarla. Sin embargo, estas tesis cometen el error de abolir el pensamiento del sujeto, otorgándole una especial importancia a la parte física que diferencian de la que podríamos llamar la parte mental. This article intends to investigate whether an emotion can be born from their expression, and not of an external stimulus. For this reason, I will analyze some works of authors such as William James, Francisco Alcayde and Vilar and Susana Bloch. All of them have tried to show that the expression of an emotion leads a person to experience that emotion. However, these theories are not correct because they invalidate the thinking of the self, and they give special importance to the physical part which they distinguish from what we might call the mental part

One of major branches of philosophical research is the self, which, in particular, tries to find out how a subject creates her identity. In this work, I will just focus on two kinds of identity approaches: the narrative self-concept and the dramatic self-concept. I will argue that, although the Narrative identity approach especially helpful for the subject being able to give continuity to her actions, the Dramatic identity is which achieves to give meaning to the subject’s actions as soon as they are happened, and also to herself. Hence, although both approaches might be useful for the self-concept of a subject because maintain a bidirectional relationship, it is the Dramatic identity theory which manages to resolve certain problems facing Narrative identity theory. To explain this, I will claim that agent is dramatized herself by acting in different situations. Following Erving Goffman and J. David Velleman, what it is posed in this essay is that the subject develops a Dramatic identity, in a similar way to the performer who represents her character, when she enacts herself in concrete contexts. That is, the agent dramatizes herself in a situation in a manner similar as an actor represents a character on stage. Consequently, my main goal is to answer to how an agent makes her identity by acting in social contexts.