## I am not quite sure about the authentic/accuracy stuff... ## Dale Cooper: 'Diane...' ## Comparison with self-portrait ## What is the function of recording? ## 1. Introduction * **Diaries and Journals**: * **Definition**: Terms often used interchangeably, referring to common artifacts in [[human culture]]. * **Philosophical Neglect**: Despite their prevalence, diaries have been largely overlooked by philosophy. * **Function of Recording**: Diaries primarily exemplify the function of recording. * **Examples of Recording**: Diaries can record diverse subjects. * **Botanical Diaries**: Tracking a garden's growth. * **Exploratory Diaries**: Documenting travels. * **Medical Diaries**: Documenting migraines. * **Therapeutic Diaries**: Recalling dreams. * **Personal Diaries (Verbal Kind)**: The most common type, particularly popular in contemporary times. * **Emphasis on Journaling**: Promoted as a means to achieve inner clarity and wellbeing. * **Purpose**: Intended to record the self. * **Method**: Through the constitution of verbal artifacts or other media. * **Commitment to Self-Representation**: Diaries aim for authenticity in representing the self. * **"Playing the game of the diary"**: Suggests an implicit commitment to genuine self-representation. * **Self-Writing**: * **Definition**: A broad category encompassing various forms of writing focused on the self. * **Examples**: Autobiography, memoir, confession, and diaries. * **Philosophical Attention**: Some forms of self-writing, like autobiography and memoir, have received philosophical attention. * **Christopher Cowley, *[[The Philosophy]] of Autobiography* (2015)**: Explores philosophical aspects of autobiography. * **Helena de Bres, *Artful Truths, [[The Philosophy]] of Memoir* (2021)**: Examines the philosophical dimensions of memoir. * **Artifacts**: * **Definition**: Objects created or modified by humans for a particular purpose. * **Recording Artifacts**: Artifacts designed for the purpose of recording information. * **Personal Diaries as Recording Artifacts**: Diaries in their primary function serve to record the diarist's experiences and thoughts. * **[[Experiential Artifacts]]**: Artifacts that, through their structure, elicit a particular experience in a subject. * **Diaries as [[Experiential Artifacts]]**: When made public, diaries can function as [[experiential artifacts]], offering readers an experience of the represented self. * **Metaphysics of Personal Diaries**: * **Focus of the Paper**: To shed light on the metaphysics of personal diaries as artifacts. * **Dual Function**: Diaries have a "Janus-faced nature." * **(1) Artifact for Personal Use**: Function of recording the self for the diarist. * **(2) Public Artifact**: Becomes accessible to readers, functioning as an experiential artifact. * **Puzzling [[Dual Nature]]**: This duality raises questions about the fundamental nature and purpose of diary keeping. * **Grounding the Activity**: The paper seeks to understand what underlies and justifies the practice of keeping a diary. * **Distinction from Other Forms of Self-Writing**: * **Need for Differentiation**: To define the specificity of diaries, it's necessary to distinguish them from autobiography, memoirs, and confessions. * **Objection Regarding Reader Experience**: Some might argue that diaries are not intended for readers (except for explicitly public diaries like internet diaries). * **Counter-Argument**: The potential for diaries to offer an experience to readers exists even if not initially intended. * **Analogy of Archeological Finds**: Greek vases, originally for storage, are now displayed in museums for [[aesthetic experience]]. * **Reattribution of Function**: Artifacts can acquire new functions through reattribution. * **Reattribution by Maker**: The diarist might intend to share the diary later. * **Social Reattribution**: Diaries become public through external events (theft, discovery, disclosure). * **Accessibility to Reader Community**: Once public, diaries become accessible to a broader audience. * **Structure of Diaries**: * **Importance of Structure**: Recording practices must follow certain rules to constitute a diary with a specific structure. * **Characterising Structure**: [[The structure]] of diaries is characterised as: * **Episodic**: Composed of discrete entries, rather than a continuous narrative. * **Open-Ended**: Lacking a predetermined conclusion, ongoing as long as the diarist continues writing. * **Performed with Authenticity**: Driven by a commitment to honest self-representation. * **Structure and Reader Experience**: This specific structure fundamentally determines the kind of experience a diary offers to a potential reader. ## §1. The episodic structure of the diary * **Diaries as Technical Artifacts**: * **Dual Function Revisited**: Diaries are considered technical artifacts with two primary functions. * **Function 1: Recording Artifact**: Serves the diarist's intention during creation. * **Function 2: Experiential Artifact**: Assigned by the reader community once the diary becomes public. * **Structure as Crucial**: [[The structure]] of the diary is essential in defining it as an artifact in both functions. * **Structure and Function in Technical Artifacts**: * **Literature on Artifacts**: [[The relationship between]] structure and function is well-established in philosophical literature on technical artifacts. * **[[Peter Kroes]], *Technical Artifacts: Creations of Mind and Matter: A Philosophy of [[Engineering Design]]* (2012)**: Explores [[the nature]] and design of technical artifacts. * **David R. Koepsell, *The Ontology of Cyberspace: Philosophy, Law, and the Future of Intellectual Property* (2003)**: Discusses artifacts in the context of cyberspace. * **[[Wybo Houkes]], Pieter Vermaas, *Technical Functions: On the Use and Design of Artefacts* (2010)**: Focuses on the concept of technical functions. * **Terrone's Summary**: Technical artifacts are defined by: * **Structural Organization**: The specific arrangement of components. * **Function**: The purpose the artifact serves, whether intended or attributed later. * **Structure Enabling Function**: The structural organization enables the artifact to perform its function. * **Quote**: No exact quote found. (This is a summary of Terrone's view based on citation 5: Enrico Terrone, Are Works of Art Affective Artifacts? If Not, What Sort of Artifacts Are They? (2024), Topoi, 43 (3), pp. 737-746.) * **Diaries as Recording Artifacts (Specific Function)**: Diaries are recording artifacts with the specific function of recording the self. * **Distinguishing Diaries from Other Self-Writing**: * **Shared Function**: Diaries share the function of self-recording with other verbal artifacts like autobiographies, memoirs, and confessions. * **Structural Difference**: The distinction lies in their unique structure, characterized by being episodic and performed with authenticity. * **Two Criteria for Diary Constitution**: * **Criterion (CA): Authenticity Constraint**: * **Definition of Authenticity**: Commitment to representing the self faithfully to lived experience. * **"One cannot cheat when keeping a diary"**: Emphasizes the principle of honesty and genuine self-representation. * **Example of Sylvia Plath's Journals**: If Plath's journals were discovered to be inauthentic, readers would feel betrayed. * **Authenticity and Accuracy**: Authenticity is related to accuracy but distinct. * **Transfiguration of Events**: Imperfect memory or subjective interpretation can lead to some transfiguration. * **Complete Failure in Accuracy**: Could compromise authenticity. * **Complex Relationship**: The precise relationship between accuracy and authenticity is complex and beyond the scope of the paper. * **Scope of CA**: Applies to the broader category of self-writing in general. * **Criterion (CB): Episodic Constraint**: * **Definition**: The rule of writing or updating the diary through progressive implementation of episodes, each temporally marked. * **Contrast with Narrative Structure**: Diaries are structured episodically, unlike narratives which have a different organization. * **Carroll's Cluster Definition of Narrative Media**: * **Reference**: Noel Carroll, "On The Narrative Connection," in *Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays* (2003). * **Five Criteria (C1-C5)**: Carroll proposes a set of criteria to define narrative. * **C1. Representation of Events/States of Affairs**: "The discourse represents at least two events and/or states of affairs." * **C2. Globally Forward-Looking Manner**: "In a globally forward-looking manner." * **C3. Unified Subject**: "Concerning the career of at least one unified subject." * **C4. Perspicuously Ordered Temporal Relations**: "Where temporal relations between events are perspicuously ordered." * **C5. Causal Necessity**: "Where earlier events are causally necessary conditions for later events." * **Quote**: > C1. The discourse represents at least two events and/or states of affairs. > > C2. In a globally forward-looking manner. > > C3. Concerning the career of at least one unified subject. > > C4. Where temporal relations between events are perspicuously ordered. > > C5. Where earlier events are causally necessary conditions for later events. (Noel Carroll, On The Narrative Connection, in Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays (2003), by Noel Carroll. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, p. 126.) * **Diaries Failing Carroll's Narrative Criteria**: * **C1 - Partially Satisfied**: "While diaries satisfy C1 by representing “at least two events and/or states of affairs” through their multiple entries," * **Multiple Entries**: Diaries, by nature, consist of multiple entries, thus representing multiple events or states of affairs. * **Quote**: "While diaries satisfy C1 by representing “at least two events and/or states of affairs” through their multiple entries," (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **C2 - Violated: Globally Forward-Looking Manner**: "Diaries violate C2 of presenting events “in a globally forward-looking manner.” Each diary entry is anchored in its own present moment, creating a series of discrete temporal frames rather than a coherent forward-moving narrative." * **Present Moment Anchoring**: Each diary entry is written from the perspective of the present moment. * **Discrete Temporal Frames**: This creates a series of separate temporal viewpoints, rather than a continuous narrative arc. * **Contrast with Novels/TV Series**: Narratives are constructed with an awareness of the overall structure and ending, even if general. * **Diary Entries - Lack of Global Foresight**: Diary entries cannot genuinely look forward to the future narrative structure as they are written in the moment. * **"One does not 'complete' a diary"**: Diaries are inherently open-ended and ongoing. * **Complete Diary (Hypothetical)**: A truly complete diary would only exist if written from the beginning to the end of consciousness. * **Cessation of Diary Writing**: Diaries are ceased by either stopping updates or the diarist's death, not by reaching a narrative conclusion. * **Quote**: "Diaries violate C2 of presenting events “in a globally forward-looking manner.” Each diary entry is anchored in its own present moment, creating a series of discrete temporal frames rather than a coherent forward-moving narrative. Unlike novels or television series that are constructed with knowledge of the whole, even the most general one, diary entries cannot genuinely look forward since they are constrained by their immediate temporal perspective. So to say, one does not “complete” a diary," (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **C3 - Problematically Met: Unified Subject**: "C3, concerning a unified subject, is also problematically met. While superficially about a single subject (the diarist), this view would delegitimize what seems interesting and distinctive of them: a collection of temporally discrete representations of the self, each capturing the lived experience as it appears at that moment." * **Superficial Unity**: Diaries appear to be about a single subject, the diarist. * **Delegitimizing Distinctiveness**: Focusing solely on a unified subject overlooks the unique characteristic of diaries as collections of discrete self-representations. * **Temporally Discrete Representations**: Diaries offer a series of self-portraits captured at different moments in time. * **Snapshot of Lived Experience**: Each entry captures the diarist's experience as it is lived and perceived at that specific moment. * **Quote**: "C3, concerning a unified subject, is also problematically met. While superficially about a single subject (the diarist), this view would delegitimize what seems interesting and distinctive of them: a collection of temporally discrete representations of the self, each capturing the lived experience as it appears at that moment." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **C4 - Violated: Perspicuous Temporal Order**: "Diaries fail to satisfy C4: although constrained by an episodic structure, meaning that they must follow a progressive order, such order is not as intended in Carroll. A “perspicuous order” requires “an idea of development” in mind, something that diaries as artifacts exclude." * **Episodic Structure and Progressive Order**: Diaries are ordered chronologically, entry by entry, reflecting the progression of time. * **Lack of "Idea of Development"**: "Perspicuous order" in Carroll's sense implies a planned or perceived development or progression of events within a narrative structure. Diaries lack this pre-planned developmental structure. * **Diary as Artifact Excludes Pre-planned Development**: The episodic, moment-by-moment nature of diary writing inherently excludes a pre-conceived narrative development. * **Quote**: "Diaries fail to satisfy C4: although constrained by an episodic structure, meaning that they must follow a progressive order, such order is not as intended in Carroll. A “perspicuous order” requires “an idea of development” in mind, something that diaries as artifacts exclude." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **C5 - Violated: Causal Necessity**: "Finally, C5: the episodic structure of diary writing, with each entry constrained by its present moment, means that any suggested causal connections between events are necessarily provisional and subject to revision. The diarist, unable to impose retrospective causal ordering, cannot establish the kind of stable causal networks that Carroll identifies." * **Episodic Structure and Present Moment Constraint**: Each diary entry is written within the confines of its immediate present. * **Provisional Causal Connections**: Any causal links suggested within a diary entry are tentative and subject to change as the diary progresses. * **Inability to Impose Retrospective Causal Ordering**: Unlike memoir or autobiography, the diarist cannot look back and establish definitive causal relationships across the entire work at the time of writing. * **Lack of Stable Causal Networks**: Diaries do not create the robust and fixed causal networks characteristic of narratives. * **Narrative Devices within Entries**: Diaries might use narrative techniques like flashbacks or causal explanations, but these are limited to individual entries. * **Episodic Structure Remains Dominant**: These narrative elements do not transform the fundamental episodic nature of the diary into a true narrative form. * **Representation of Past as Recollected**: Even when discussing past events, the diary represents them as recalled from the diarist's current, temporary perspective. * **Uncertainty of Future**: The diarist's perspective is always framed by the present moment and the uncertainty of what is to come. * **Open-Endedness and Resistance to C5**: The diary's open-ended nature and moment-by-moment recording inherently resist the establishment of fixed causal necessity. * **Trapped within Recording**: "The diarist is always trapped within the act of recording, and cannot adopt the outward perspective as it happens for the writer of the memoir with respect to the whole work." * **Contrast with Memoir Writer**: Memoir writers have a retrospective overview of their life events when writing, allowing for the construction of causal narratives across the entire work. Diary writers are confined to the ongoing process of recording. * **Quote**: "Finally, C5: the episodic structure of diary writing, with each entry constrained by its present moment, means that any suggested causal connections between events are necessarily provisional and subject to revision. The diarist, unable to impose retrospective causal ordering, cannot establish the kind of stable causal networks that Carroll identifies. Even when diaries employ narrative devices like flashbacks or attempts at causal connection, these remain confined within individual entries and don't transform the fundamental episodic structure into a true narrative. Indeed, even when representing the past, the diarist is always representing it as recollected by the subject from a temporary perspective of the experienced, as in that now with respect to the uncertainty of future.The open-ended nature of diary writing, where each entry can only account for the lived experience as it is presented at that moment, fundamentally resists C5. The diarist is always trapped within the act of recording, and cannot adopt the outward perspective as it happens for the writer of the memoir with respect to the whole work." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **Conclusion: Diaries as Episodic Recording Artifacts**: * **Episodic Acts of Recording**: Diaries are constituted by episodic acts of recording. * **Four Properties of Episodic Recording**: * **1) Immediacy**: Each entry is written in the moment, reflecting the diarist's immediate thoughts and feelings. * **2) Discrete Representations**: Entries are distinct and separate snapshots of the self, not parts of a continuous narrative. * **3) Unamendability**: Once written, entries are generally not revised or altered to fit a later narrative. * **4) Lack of Causality**: Causal connections are provisional and not structurally central to the diary as a whole. * **Criteria A and B (CA and CB) Sufficiency**: When both authenticity (CA) and episodic constraint (CB) are satisfied, a diary is constituted. * **Quote**: "In this sense, I conclude that diaries are artifacts that are constituted by episodical acts of recording. With being constituted by episodic acts of recording I mean a structure possessing these four properties: 1) immediacy; 2) discrete representations; 3) unamendability; 4) lack of causality. When S satisfies criterion A and B, S has constituted a diary." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") ## §2. The experience of the diary: imagining the “Other Self” * **Diary Accessibility to Reader Communities**: * **Various Circumstances**: Diaries become public through different means. * **Theft or Unauthorized Access**. * **Posthumous Publication**: Published after the diarist's death. * **Intentional Publication by Authors**: Diarists may choose to publish their diaries. * **Donation to Archives**: Diaries donated to public or private archives. * **Discovery as Historical Documents**: Found and recognized for historical value. * **Editing Processes**: Public diaries may undergo editing. * **Content Redaction**: For privacy reasons. * **Annotation for Context**: To provide background information and explanation. * **Experience Offered by Public Diaries**: * **Question**: What kind of experience does a diary offer when it becomes accessible to readers in a given context? * **Analogy of Greek Vase Revisited**: Like the Greek vase, diaries can transition from their original technical function to a new function as experiential artifacts. * **Experiential Artifacts**: A subset of technical artifacts. * **Function**: To elicit an experience in a subject. * **Experience Determined by Structure**: The artifact's structure dictates the type of experience it provides. * **Greek Vase Example**: The structure of a Greek vase elicits a perceptual experience (aesthetic appreciation) in a museum setting. * **Diary as Experiential Artifact - Reader Experience**: What specific experience do diaries provide to readers, and how is this shaped by their episodic structure? * **Quote**: "Diaries can become accessible to reader communities through various circumstances: theft or unauthorized access; posthumous publication; intentional publication by authors; donation to archives; discovery as historical documents. When made public, diaries can undergo editing processes - content may be redacted for privacy, or annotated for context. When a diary becomes accessible to readers in a given context, what kind of experience does it offer? Like the Greek vase example, it’s not uncommon for technical artifacts to become something else, an experiential artifact in this case. Experiential artifacts constitute a subset of technical artifacts whose function is to elicit an experience in a subject, with the relevant experience determined by the artifact’s structure. The structure of a Greek vase elicits a perceptual experience when encountered in a museum. ⁠⁠What then can we say about the diary that becomes available for reading? What sort of experience does it elicit, and how is this experience determined by its structure?⁠⁠" (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **Literary Status and Imagination in Diary Reading**: * **Sylvia Plath's Unabridged Journals Example**: * **Vintage Books Edition**: Referenced specific edition of Plath's journals. * **Joyce Carol Oates' Blurb**: Quote from *The New York Times Book Review* on the edition cover. * **"A genuine literary event… Plath’s journals contain marvels of discovery”**: Oates' assessment of Plath's journals. * **Comparison to Literary Work**: Diaries, even without intended literary purpose, can be compared to or assimilated into literary works. * **Reader Appropriation**: Readers can interpret and engage with diaries as literature, irrespective of original intent. * **Literary Value**: Diaries can possess literary value, even if not initially designed as literature. * **Quote**: "My Vintage Books edition of the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (1950-1962) carries a Joyce Carol Oates blurb from The New York Times Book Review: “A genuine literary event… Plath’s journals contain marvels of discovery”. ⁠⁠The diary is compared or best assimilated to a literary work even though that’s not the intention under which it was designed to serve, but that does not hinder it from being appropriated by readers nor that it may possess literary value. A mere recording artifact, with the function of keeping track of entries concerning the lived experience of the subject, becomes now a work of literature." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **Works of Literature and Imagination**: Literary works guide and engage our imagination. * **Evaluation based on Journey Offered**: Literary works are judged based on the quality and uniqueness of the imaginative experience they provide. * **Diaries' Literary Status and Structure**: Since diaries can achieve literary status, their structure dictates how they function as literature. * **Imagination as Crucial for Diary Reading**: Imagination is essential for engaging with diaries as literature. * **Factual Information Insufficient**: Mere factual information about the diarist is not enough to deeply engage readers. * **Unique Access to Self Through Recording**: "Diaries offer unique access to the self through the acts of recording, something not observable in daily life." * **Unobservable Self-Documentation**: Diaries provide insight into the diarist's self-documentation and reflection processes, which are typically private. * **Reconstruction and Engagement**: Readers can reconstruct and connect with the diarist's self-reflection through imagination. * **Episodic Self-Representation and Evolution**: * **Self Caught in Temporal Perspectives**: Readers witness the self from various temporal viewpoints in each entry. * **Progressive but Discontinuous**: The self's representation progresses through time but can be discontinuous due to gaps between entries. * **Evolution and Reversal**: Readers observe the diarist's evolution, including potential reversals in perspectives and meanings of lived experiences. * **Example: Sylvia Plath's Diary Entries**: Contrast between Plath's entries from July 1950 and September 1951. * **July 1950 Entry (Age 18)**: * **Love for People**: Expresses love for everyone, viewing them as "raw material." * **Stamp Collector Analogy**: Compares love for people to a stamp collector's love for their collection. * **Impersonal yet Subjective Love**: Love described as not entirely impersonal nor wholly subjective. * **Desire to Be Everyone**: Yearns for universal experience. * **Limitations of Personal Life**: Acknowledges the constraints of individual existence and limited perspective. * **Quote**: > “I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love’s not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone [...]. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I’ll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time…” (July 1950, #6. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 (2000). Vintage Books: New York, p. 9.) * **September 1951 Entry**: * **Admission of Self-Love**: Declares love only for oneself. * **"Shocking thing to admit"**: Recognizes the potentially controversial nature of self-love. * **Affection for Self-Reflecting Others**: Capable of affection for those who mirror her own world. * **Questioning Solitude for Others**: Doubts the sincerity of her concern for others. * **Feigned Lacquer of Society**: Suggests that societal expectations might mask true feelings. * **Fear of Facing Self**: Expresses apprehension about self-confrontation. * **Quote**: > ⁠⁠“I do not love; I do not love anybody except myself. That is a rather shocking thing to admit. [...]. I am capable of affection for those who reflect my own world. How much of my solicitude for other human beings is real and honest, how much is a feigned lacquer painted on by society, I do not know. I am afraid to face myself. [...]” (Ibid., September 1951, #121, p. 98.) * **Rapid Change in Self-Representation**: Dramatic shift in self-perception between the two entries. * **Episodic Standpoint**: The diarist's viewpoint is shaped by the lived experience at each specific moment of writing. * **"Self at t₍□₎" as Object of Representation**: The diary effectively represents the self as it exists at each discrete time point of entry. * **Strawson's Temporal Self-Experience**: * **Reference**: G. Strawson, "Against Narrativity" (2004), *Ratio*, 17 (4), pp. 428-452. * **Two Fundamental Ways of Temporal Self-Experience**: Strawson identifies two primary modes of experiencing oneself in time. * **Episodic**: Individuals who do not perceive themselves as continuously existing across past and future. * **Lack of Long-Term Continuity**: They experience life and self in discrete moments, without a strong sense of temporal connection. * **Diachronic**: Individuals who naturally experience themselves as having long-term temporal continuity. * **Sense of Continuity**: They perceive themselves as a consistent entity extending across time. * **Narrative Approach (Additional)**: Some diachronic individuals also adopt a narrative approach to their self-experience. * **Form-Finding and Storytelling**: They structure their life experiences into narratives, imposing form and meaning through storytelling. * **Application to Diaries**: Diaries, being episodic structures, reflect an episodic mode of self-expression. * **Diarist's Episodic Self-Expression**: The diary structure inherently leads to an episodic representation of the self. * **Reader's Perspective**: When readers access a diary, they encounter these episodic self-representations. * **Writer's Absence at Temporal Intervals**: The diarist is no longer present at each moment captured in the diary entries. * **Reader's Re-presentation**: Readers re-present these snapshots of the self through imagination. * **Attitude of Curiosity/Voyeurism**: Readers may approach diaries with curiosity or even a sense of voyeurism. * **Imagining Experientially**: Diary reading involves a form of experiential imagination, common to literary engagement. * **Experiential Imagination**: * **Debate on Interpretation**: There are different views on how to define and understand experiential imagination. * **Sensory or Affective Content**: Most accounts involve either sensory or affective elements in imaginative experience. * **Broad Conception of Experience**: The scope of experiential imagination depends on one's broader understanding of "experience" itself. * **Grasping "What it is Like"**: The aim is to imaginatively understand "what it is like" to be the self represented in the diary. * **Feeling with the Work**: Readers emotionally engage with the diary, experiencing empathy or understanding of the diarist's states. * **Plath's Journals Example**: Plath's journals not only document events but also allow readers to imagine her moods, inner struggles, and mental states. * **Two Levels of Imaginative Engagement**: To fully engage with the diary experience, two levels of imaginative engagement are crucial. * **Guided Imagination (Fragmented Self)**: * **Contemplating Fragmented Self**: Focuses on the self as represented in discrete fragments, entry by entry. * **Temporal Framework**: Each entry is considered within its specific temporal context. * **Establishing Traces**: Readers follow the traces of the self as it is re-instantiated in each entry. * **Creative Imagination (Reunified Self)**: * **Reunifying Fragments**: Attempts to synthesize the fragmented self-representations into a more coherent whole. * **Evaluating Evolution**: Assesses the diarist's development and changes over time. * **Finding Causal Connections**: Seeks to identify causal links between different perspectives and events recounted in the diary. * **Constituting a Narrative Self (Eventually)**: Potentially constructing a narrative of the self from the episodic fragments, though the diary itself is not inherently narrative. * **Quote**: "It may be helpful to consider what ⁠⁠G. Strawson thought to be two fundamental ways in which humans experience themselves temporally9. Some people are what he calls “episodic” - they don’t experience themselves as something that was there in the further past or will be there in the further future. Others are “diachronic” - they naturally experience themselves as having long-term temporal continuity. Some people additionally take a “narrative” approach, adding form-finding and storytelling elements to their temporal experience.⁠⁠ Applying this to our case, and having explained that diaries are not narratives but rather episodic structures, such structure will determine the sort of representation offered by the diary. That is to say, the diarist expresses themselves episodically. Indeed, when the reader enters in possession of the diary, with an attitude of curiosity if not of voyeurism, the writer no longer exists at each temporal interval. Readers then re-present these multiple, discrete snapshots of the self, engaging in a task common to literary works: imagining experientially. While there’s debate over how to interpret experiential, most positions understand experiential imagination as involving either sensory or affective content10. Ultimately, how we understand experiential imagination and the qualitative aspects it can represent depends on our conception of experience itself - the broader this conception, the more varied the contents imagination can grasp. All in all, what it seems relevant is that we attempt, in the imagination, to grasp that what is like that a certain self is representing. We are feeling with the work: Sylvia Plath’s Journals, for example, not only document events, but put us in a position to imagine the author’s moods and inner struggle, her mental states. To derive a proper engagement of the experience of the artifact, we have to consider two levels of the imaginative engagement: A guided one that contemplates the self as fragmented, constantly reinstantiating and establishing traces from a specific temporal framework, entry by entry. A creative one that engages in reunifying the fragments to evaluate evolution, and finding, where possible, causal connections between the recounted perspectives (eventually constituting a narrative self)." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination") * **Authenticity, Experiential Knowledge, and Parasocial Relation**: * **Reward of Authenticity for Readers**: If the diarist is committed to authenticity, readers are rewarded with experiential knowledge of the "other self" through imagination. * **Parasocial Relation**: Readers develop a sense of closeness to the diarist, resembling a parasocial relationship. * **Familiar Figure**: The diarist becomes like a familiar person in the reader's mind. * **Day-After-Day Friend**: Similar to witnessing a friend over time. * **Psychotherapist's Patient**: Or observing a psychotherapist's patient session after session, gaining intimate access to their inner life. * **Quote**: "If the diarist is concerned, as she ought to be, with authenticity, readers will in turn be rewarded with an experiential knowledge of the other self through imagination. We are suddenly closer to diarist in what could seem a parasocial relation, where the diarist has now become a familiar figure that we witness as a friend seen day after day, or a psychotherapist’s patient session after session." (Vincenzo Grasso, "The Self is Present: Diaries and Imagination")