The lives of an American life - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and the idea of personal identity

Authors

  • Joyce E. Chaplin Harvard University. History Department

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2447-9020.intelligere.2015.108486

Keywords:

Benjamin Franklin – biography – personal identity - history of print – history of science – intellectual history.

Abstract

Drawing upon the fields of the history of print and the history of science - two fields of undoubted significance for understanding Benjamin Franklin the Philadelphia printer and Benjamin Franklin the famous electrical experimenter - this essay will suggest that Franklin’s memoirs are evidence that he thought of himself as embodied in actions (as he had introduced himself to the world, through scientific experiments) and as identified in relation to other people, as he had for so long been as a collaborator on various projects and as a correspondent. This is different from the disembodied and individualistic sense of him that most editions of his autobiography as a simple narrative have given. More complicated and multi-text editions may be at least as valid, not least in showing how ideas of personal selfhood, at this point in history, were collective and embodied.

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Published

2015-12-31

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1: (Dezembro de 2015 a abril de 2016)

Section

Artigos

License

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How to Cite

Chaplin, J. E. (2015). The lives of an American life - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and the idea of personal identity. Intelligere, 1(1), 34-45. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2447-9020.intelligere.2015.108486