The pioneer of the modern memoir, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was a philosopher, and in the 250 years since his Confessions dropped, several other philosophers have followed his lead. Friedrich Nietzsche, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Stanley Cavell all produced excellent memoirs. But beyond such special cases, philosophy and autobiography have always been a tricky fit. Literary personal narrative requires a set of inclinations and skills that are only rarely present in humans in general, and are also in tension with philosophy’s tendencies toward impersonality, abstraction, and technicality. The academic professionalization of philosophy in the 20th century didn’t…