The quest for self in Italian secondary schools: Bridging literature and philosophy

A considerable number of Italian high schools, specifically those classified as liceo, offer a program for the final three years in which the history of Western philosophy is taught from its beginnings through to the 20th century. However, little attention is given to the philosophy of mind, even in the final year, while teachers of history and literature emphasise the dissolution of the self as a key theme for understanding 20th-century culture, often referencing authors like James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Luigi Pirandello. The rejection of the self is perhaps presented as a cultural hallmark of the 20th century, yet it is frequently overlooked that, from both psychological and philosophical perspectives, this idea is not new. David Hume, for instance, was a prominent critic of the idea of the self as far back as the 18th century. Moreover, the very authors who questioned the consistency of the self still recognised its presence and activity in the experiences they depicted—albeit as a diminished self. The subject, as portrayed in these narratives, though disrupted and fragmented, was still identified as a self and identified itself as such. Recent studies support the hypothesis that a subject finds complete identity only within a narrative dimension, through a personal internalised story that one constructs about oneself, driven by the need to recognise oneself as the subject of one’s experiences and the agent of one’s actions. Therefore, a thorough revision of the concept of the ‘self’ is necessary to make it a central theme in high school curricula, a revision that is best approached through philosophical analysis.