This sounds similar to a question I have as I listen. I’m also reading Sam Harris who shows the self – as normally conceived – as illusion. James says that there is no knowledge outside of the revived narrative, and he illustrates with the example of total amnesia. But isn’t there a consciousness that is prior to knowledge? Isn’t knowledge the content of consciousness rather than consciousness itself. Wouldn’t a total amnesic still be fully conscious? I watching to see it James stress with Sam and modern neurophysiology that the “I” is an illusion, a content of consciousness, but not constitutive of consciousness itself which is prior and non- personal.
