In this essay, I follow the lead of recent scholarship in Saussure linguistics and critically examine the Saussurean doctrine associated with the Course in General Linguistics, which later became a hallmark of structuralism. Specifically, I reconstruct the history of the concluding sentence in the Course which establishes the priority of la langue over everything deemed external to it. This line assumed the status of an oft-cited ‘famous formula’ and became a structuralist motto. The ‘famous formula’ was, however, freely inserted by (...) the editors of the Course who effectively ghostwrote the book after Saussure’s death, and authored a series of early book-reviews of the same text in dedicated scholarly venues. I argue that the editorial success turning their vision of Saussure’s teaching into official doctrine was enabled in part by the dominant social structures regulating twentieth-century European academia. (shrink)

What I intend to demonstrate in this paper is that Heidegger pretends to immunize his philosophy from any possibility of refutation. The thesis that I argue is that precisely because the ontological cannot be corroborated by the empirical realm and, on the other hand, does not provide a foundation for what he considers the a priori, the German philosopher shields his philosophy from any kind of reply: the ontological cannot be corroborated by beings and, at the same time, it can (...) only be reached by a “leap”. The question is: on what is the a priori founded? how to establish the validity or legitimacy of a horizon? There seems to be no answer. (shrink)

Le besoin de narrer a non seulement créé des poèmes épiques et de nombreuses mythologies, il est, selon P. Ricoeur, le noyau même de la création de la connaissance de soi. Le processus d’identification à travers la narration ne nous amène pas à nous focaliser sur notre propre narration. Nous rencontrons toujours d’abord les narrations des autres puis commençons seulement à raconter l’histoire de notre vie. À travers le processus d’imitation, la mimesis, comme l’entend Ricoeur, nous pouvons en même temps (...) apprendre tant l’éthique que la morale. Le monde global, avec ses narrations simplifiées du marché, tente de rester proche de la première et la deuxième mimesis et ne peut accéder à la troisième, à partir de laquelle seulement on peut commencer à parler de créativité. L’auteur compare les points de vue philosophiques de Ricoeur sur l’identité à l’expérience littéraire de Frisch dans l’ouvrage Je ne suis pas Stiller. Les deux sont l’exemple d’un entrelacement herméneutique qui mène à l’identité naturelle. Dans ce processus herméneutique, nous pouvons nous redécouvrir dans un monde où nous respecterons notre propre identité en étant ouverts à ses transformations créatives. (shrink)

In the present text I address some problems regarding the hermeneutical project developed by Paul Ricœur. Hence, I attempt to highlight three issues which confine the difficulty in understanding Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutics, and to point out, as an example, that Ricœur’s “hermeneutics of historical consciousness” addresses a non-hermeneutic debate. The indirect thesis of my text is that one always has to consider Ricœur’s hermeneutics as a “work in progress” even when he clearly emphasizes that “the text” must be regarded as (...) the centre of hermeneutics and my main thesis is that one always has to pay particular attention to Ricœur’s non-hermeneutic insights when he addresses a hermeneutic problem. (shrink)

The need to narrate is according to P. Ricoeur the very core of creating the knowledge of self. The process of identification through narration does not lead us to be focused on our own narration. We always find other people’s narrations first and then start telling the narration of our life. Through narration, as understood by Ricoeur, we can simultaneously learn ethics as well as morals. To show this the author compares philosophic view of identity by Ricoeur with Frisch’s literary (...) experiment in the novel I’m Not Stiller. Both of them are a hermeneutic intertwining that brings to natural identity. In this hermeneutic process we can rediscover ourselves in a world, in which we will respect our own identity by being fully open to its creative transformation. (shrink)