Feb. 6, 2025, 2 p.m. UTC // Feb. 6, 2025, 2 p.m. in UTC
William James already noted, in the Principles of Psychology, that the self includes not just one’s psychological states and body, but also one’s family members and material possessions. More recently, social scientists have similarly proposed that material possessions “extend the self” (see a famous paper by Belk 1988 titled “The extended self”). In my talk I will build on these claims to distinguish different forms of “sense of identity”, and different ways in which we use material things to regulate them. For example, I will distinguish reflective from tacit (sense of) identity, and temporal and social identity.
