«ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR»: ON BOTH SIDES OF THE MUSHROOM
Abstract
The article is devoted to investigating the rhetorical mechanisms behind the problematization of personal identity. The underlying premise of the study is that the question of identity does not necessarily function as a means of acquiring knowledge about the subject. In certain discursive situations, it may perform the opposite function: subverting the foundations of self-determination, shifting identity into a mode of continuous revision, and generating a space of uncertainty within which any answer proves temporary and fundamentally incomplete.
The study examines the relationship between rhetoric, skepticism, and practices of self-description. Particular attention is paid to how memory, embodiment, and speech–traditionally regarded as the foundations of personal identity–can become sources of its problematization. It is shown that self-identity emerges not as a finished state or a hidden essence, but as a process of interpretation that is constantly renewed within situations of communicative interaction.
The methodological framework of the work is based on a combination of rhetorico-critical analysis, a hermeneutic approach, and problematology. The theoretical context is informed by the concept of narrative identity, the skeptical tradition, and contemporary research into the rhetorical nature of self-determination. Special emphasis is placed on analyzing the question as an independent philosophical event capable of not
only opening up possibilities for a response but also demonstrating the limits of any definitive definition
It is argued that uncertainty in matters of identity is not a consequence of a lack of information, but a structural characteristic of the process of self-understanding itself. In this context, rhetoric appears not as an auxiliary means of representing philosophical ideas, but as a mode of their direct production. Such an approach allows identity to be viewed not as an object of cognition, but as an open process unfolding between the attempt at self-determination and the impossibility of its final completion.
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