For the last fews days I have been under rather a cloud. Much pondering on issues that might best be described as "philosophy of life". One recurrent theme is the issue of differing narratives. I have been reading some old philosophy magazines discussing various themes in postmodern philosophy and I have been strongly reminded of this particular issue.
For most of my life, I have believed in Spinoza's thesis that basically age brings wisdom and a better understanding of life. But various events over the last few years have highlighted instead just how much people's views of the same story differ. I might have a view on my life story (and that of my immediate family) while other members of the same family might have a completely different view.
Historically, I have always been suspicious of incommensurability theses, believing in a principle of Spinozist rationalist that would avoid this. But perhaps these narratives of life actually do involve such basic principles of philosophy of life, that any such accounts are incommensurable. And if they are, then the long term prognosis would not be good where such accounts do highlight major differences.
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