Collective memory has been a notoriously difficult concept to define. I appeal to Paul Ricoeur and argue that his account of the relationship of the self and her community can clarify the meaning of collective memory. While memory properly understood belongs, in each case, to individuals, such memory exists and is shaped by a relationship with others. Furthermore, because individuals are constituted over a span of time and through intersubjective associations, the notion of collective memory ought to be understood in (...) terms of the way that memory enacts and reenacts networks of relations among individuals and the communities to which they belong, rather than in terms of a model that reifies either individuals or groups. Ricoeur’s account can show sources of oppression and offers ways to respond to them. (shrink)

For many authors, the transformations of capitalism have had the effect of causing suffering (stress, stigmatization, disaffiliation, etc..) whose social dimension is not recognized. For Emmanuel Renault, theoretical critique can analyze these new sufferings and become a "spokesman" giving voice to suffering beings. In this article, the author proposes to problematize this form of critical intervention, building on Paul Ricœur's reflections on the issue of the dispossession of the actors’ power to recount their actions themselves. If Renault’s intervention makes sense (...) in relation to the ideologization of narrative identity, it remains unsatisfactory against “internal” resistances to the emplotment of the self. Ricœur’s analysis of the analytic experience teaches us that these resistances cannot be lifted through mere intellectual understanding and that the narrative restructuration of the personality must sometimes take the form of real work. (shrink)

Pour Paul Ricœur la préoccupation de l’agir humain est centrale dès l’origine et va s’approfondir tout au long de son œuvre, profitant du long détour des analyses herméneutiques et narratives. C’est le souci de trouver, sous la norme morale qui oblige, la dimension éthique du désir qui oriente et motive l’action qui met d’abord en œuvre une herméneutique des signes, symboles et textes où ce désir du sujet s’est déposé. Mais les récits deviennent essentiels pour décrire l’action de manière à (...) ce que la responsabilité de son auteur puisse être évaluée à hauteur de son identité narrative. À cette responsabilité interprétée et instruite par le biais des récits de la culture, la mémoire et la promesse viennent rajouter la dimension des luttes de la reconnaissance et indiquent une ontologie de la condition historique au fondement de cette éthique. Une éthique qui reste ouverte à une dimension religieuse d’une bienveillance originaire. (shrink)

Nous nous référerons dans cet article à la mémoire de l’homme, incarné et historique, déterminé par les médiations spatio-temporelles et exposé aux dilemmes éthiques que doit affronter l’ipséité dans sa capacité d’accueillir l’autre telle que la définit Ricœur. Notre réflexion vise la mémoire inquiétée par des médiations propres à la condition existentielle et corporelle du soi moderne, dans un contexte d’ébullition culturelle et technologique. Un tel contexte a en effet des conséquences qui affectent aussi bien l’identité personnelle (...) et collective, que l’exercice des capacités du soi agissant et souffrant – et tout spécialement celui de sa mémoire. Nous examinerons la dimension tant réceptive que dynamique de la mémoire exposée aux fragilisations qui affectent l’identité narrative humaine, en déterminant ses pouvoirs qui laissent des traces au niveau de la conscience et du corps. Nous terminerons enfin notre réflexion par une analyse des effets volontaires et involontaires qui mettent en question la capacité même de la mémoire, en influant sur l’imagination et sur la réponse éthique du soi. (shrink)

La psychanalyse de Freud exerce un rôle constitutif dans le discours philosophique de Paul Ricœur sur l'homme. Autour de sa conception de “l' homme capable,” on peut voir s'articuler très clairement trois modèles théoriques: une théorie de la réflexion comme réappropriation, une théorie de la narration comme construction et comme reconstruction de l'identité, une théorie de la reconnaissance comme parcours d'émancipation. Il s'agit de trois modèles capables de donner à la psychanalyse d'aujourd'hui des éléments nouveaux pour l'élaboration d'une théorie (...) herméneutique centrée sur les concepts de narration et d'action. The psychoanalysis of Freud plays a constitutive role in Paul Ricœur’s philosophical discourse on the human. His conception of the human being as “capable man” revolves around three theoretical models – a theory of reflection as re-appropriation, a theory of narration as the construction and reconstruction of identity, and a theory of recognition as a course of emancipation. These three models can lend new elements to current psychoanalysis for the elaboration of a hermeneutical theory focused on the concepts of narration and action. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between personal identity and story telling. In particular l examine how Paul Ricoeur links narrative discourse to identity formation. For Ricoeur stories are not simply aesthetic objects disconnected from experience, but are rooted in the very fabric of life and have the capacity to profoundly refigure our world. Narrative discourse and life are for Ricoeur dialcetically tied to each other through a “mimetic arc.” This, however, poses interesting problems and difficulties. How do stories (...) affect the transformation of experience? According to Ricoeur the identity of the text can be incorporated into my own personal and communal identity through a mode of analogical transfer. This is the art of interpretation, the art of selfhood, the performative process of becoming a self in relationship with others.Cet artiele analyse la relation entre identité personnelle et le fait de raconter une histoire. J’aborde en partieulier le lien entre le discours narratif et la formation identitaire, tel que le conçoit Ricoeur. Pour ce dernier, les histoires ne sont pas simplement des objets esthétiques détachés de I’experience; elles sont plutôt ancrées dans le tissu même de la vie, et ont le pouvoir de refigurer profondément notre monde.Le discours narratif et la vie sont, dans la pensée de Ricoeur, liés defaçon dialectique par un «arc mimétique». Une telle façon de voir soulève, cependant, des questions et des difficultés interéssantes. Comment les histoires affectent-elles la transformation de l’expérience? Selon Ricoeur, l’identite du texte peut être intégrée dans ma propre identité personnelle et collective par un mode de transfert analogique. C’est en cela que consiste l’art de I’interprétation, de l’ipséité, le proeessus performatif du devenir de soi en relation avec les autres. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s philosophical project can be broadly termed as a philosophical anthropology. Within this context, a main role is given to the issue of imagination through the resources of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and reflexive philosophy. The issue of picture, however, remains quite unknown and has not been much questioned; it might even be undermined by being reduced to the context of reproductive imagination as opposed to that of productive imagination within Ricoeur’s anthropology, and due to the emphasis on the linguistic relationship to (...) sense or meaning. Yet, instead of opposing the plane of picture to the plane of sense or meaning, an articulated connection between those two planes should be sought. The issue of symbolism opened by Ricoeur in his Philosophie de la volonté provides the starting point for our investigation. From that early hermeneutics on to La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, via De l’interprétation. Essai sur Freud, La Métaphore vive, and Temps et récit, one could also consider that picture makes us think. But the issue of symbolism cannot be distinguished from that of imagination. One also has to link two paths of Ricoeur’s philosophy through the issue of symbolism, one that is orientated in the path of hermeneutics – the progression to the standpoint set by Du texte à l’action –, another that links the project of a philosophical anthropology to the fields of art and aesthetics. The research is thus structured around four parts. A first part is focused on the articulated connection between Ricoeur’s philosophy of imagination and philosophical aesthetics by addressing the hermeneutical prospect as the condition for the effectiveness of this connection. Extending this hermeneutical stance, a second part seeks to establish a bond between Ricoeur’s notion of a critical hermeneutics and the issue of picture. A third part, concurrent with the context of a critical hermeneutics, aims to consider imagination as mediating the plane of art and the plane of experience by referring to Ricoeur’s reading of analytic philosophy and, more specifically, analytic philosophy of art. Relying on the previous parts, a fourth part finally addresses the field of film, articulating ontological, narrative, and social layers to a philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to reflect on the impact that Ricoeur’s work on psychoanalysis (following his book on Freud) might have on his concept of narrative identity. In these texts, one of the points he draws from psychoanalysis is that resistance mechanisms can hamper the process of self-recognition of the subject through the story that he tells himself about himself. These resistance mechanisms cannot be put to an end simply by understanding them intellectually. These writings teach us (...) that, in order to be brought to an end, these resistance mechanisms require more than the willingness to appropriate one’s own narrative identity. An appropriate technique to handle energies must be put into place. This explains why the production of a narrative identity can sometimes take the form of a real work. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE The following paper takes on a double hypothesis: that the concept of narrative identity, as developed by Ricoeur, is a strong candidate to account for the consequences of the “emplotment ” of our identities on social networking sites; and that social networking sites can be useful to reconsider some of the assumptions at the basis of the Ricoeurian concept of narrative identity. The (...) analysis is developed in three sections: Ricoeur’s “temperate” notion is compared to the “savage” post-modern concept of performative identity; part of the literature about identity on social networking sites is criticized in the light of the Ricoeurian concept; and the paper considers the impact of such a “detour” through social networking sites on Ricoeur’s still monomediatic and monolinear notion. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE. (shrink)

This study arises from a question concerning the phenomenological approach to memory in Memory, History, Forgetting, namely, why does Ricœur, who is otherwise known a great thinker of narrativity, neglects to consider the narrative aspect of memory? After explaining this surprising omission, we try to piece together, from hints and suggestions scattered throughout Ricœur’s work, a hermeneutical phenomenology more compatible with the narrative aspect of personal memory.

Depuis la fin des années 70, l’érosion croissante des droits sociaux, résultat des restructurations successives des marchés du travail nationaux encouragées au niveau de l’Union européenne, ainsi que l’émergence consécutive d’une société de compétition, ont mené à l’anomie sociale tout en ouvrant la porte à un nouvel ordre normatif disciplinaire. Ce nouvel ordre forme et refaçonne l’identité individuelle et collective en enfermant les gens dans des modèles de relations favorisant la peur, l’indifférence, l’intolérance envers l’autrui, ou encore le sentiment (...) de honte et la perte de l’estime de soi. Dans les cas les plus extrêmes, cela mène à l’auto-annihilation. (shrink)

Il s’agit dans cet article d’analyser le travail de désingularisation relative de l’événement que Ricœur opère par couplage avec le récit dans Temps et récit au début des années 1980, puis la reprise de la question de la singularité et de l’unicité de l’événement dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli dans le cadre théorique recomposé de la représentation historienne mise à l’épreuve de “l’événement aux limites” qu’est la Shoah. Dans Temps et récit Ricœur entend dépasser, par l’entrecroisement entre histoire et (...) fiction appliqué à des événements fondateurs d’identité collective comme la Shoah, l’aporie épistémologique de la dichotomie entre une histoire qui dissout l’événement dans l’explication et une attitude purement émotionnelle face aux événements à intensité éthique considérable. Cette narrativisation de l’événement se heurte cependant à la puissance traumatique de l’extra-textuel radical de l’événement-Shoah qui constitue ainsi un défi pour la représentation historienne du passé. C’est cette question que Ricœur reprend dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, mais cette fois-ci cet examen a été largement reconfiguré par la dialectique de la mémoire et de l’histoire contribuant à la représentation du passé. Tout en distinguant l’incomparabilité absolue au plan moral de la Shoah et l’incomparabilité relative sur le plan historiographique, Ricœur maintient que l’enchevêtrement entre jugement historiographique et jugement moral est inévitable, ouvrant ainsi sur la grande question de la responsabilité sociale, politique et éthique de l’historien. (shrink)

Starting from a genesis of the concept of narrative identity, this article attemps to interpret the constitution process of our narrative identities through a systematic and synthetic review of the main contributions of the Ricœurian theory of imagination, from Freedom and Nature to Oneself as Another. In its complex imaginative constitution, narrative identity can then be characterized as a poetico-practical mix that mediates and puts in a dialectical relation two distinct functions of the imagination: a poetic and (...) a practical one, which are themselves enlivened by a dialectic and an internal duplication. (shrink)

In many ways, globalization created the problem of representation for feminist solidarity across the borders of the nation state. This problem is one of presenting a cohesive identity for representation in the transnational public sphere. This paper proposes a solution to this problem of a cohesive identity for women’s representation by drawing on the work of Paul Ricœur. What these women seem to have in common are shared political aims, but they have no basis for those aims. This paper provides (...) a basis for these aims by turning to Ricœur’s work on collective memory from Memory, History, Forgetting. The paper concludes that it is the shared testimony through narrative hospitality, which can provide a foundation for a social bond for those with common political aims. More specifically, this common knowledge provides a justification for the representation of women and their allies in the transnational public sphere. (shrink)

In the 1970s, particularly in his article “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text”, Paul Ricœur proposed a hypothesis concerning the homology between the text and social action. That hypothesis is not reducible to the narrative logic prevailing in late Ricœur’s writings, and we are searching to elucidate its further implications in social sciences. A new hermeneutics of social meanings can be founded upon it, enriched by the methodological experience of structural semiotics and taking into (...) account some special processes of sense-giving as “remote-model behavior” and “sense-suppressing action”. . (shrink)

This article indicates a reflective paradigm generally ignored in feminist research regarding the sex/gender debate, as presented in the work of Judith Butler ( Gender Trouble ). First, I address the fact that Butler’s philosophy is inscribed in the hermeneutical tradition of suspicion. Second, I put into relief the implicitly Platonic concept of mimesis , which is central to the anticipated subversion of gender, but uncriticized by Butler and others who follow her line of thought. Third, since Butler’s feminism can’t (...) ward off dualism, nor consider idem and ipse identity , I emphasize Paul Ricoeur ’s concept of triple mimesis and narrative identity, which allows us to depart from dichotomies and hierarchies. Following the path of Ricoeur and Françoise Heritier, I finally defend a feminist hermeneutical point of view, which is differentialist and universal. (shrink)

In Time and narrative then in Oneself as another Paul Ricœur proposes a philosophy of personal and collective identity, through research on time and narrative. According to these books, emplotment would synthesize and reconcile the temporal discordance, experienced by the selfhood. The subject’s fragmentation by the otherness of time could then define vulnerability. Our aim is to question this triad time-vulnerability-narrative thanks to the opposite positions of Emmanuel Levinas. Unlike Ricœur, Levinas severely criticizes the idea of memory (...) and narrative in order to respect the vulnerability of the other. Yet, the Ricœurian analysis of the responsibility affirms the need for a capable and not dispossessed Self. From this point of view, Ricœur helps us to question the limits set by Levinas to narrative and leads us to wonder if the ethical plot for the vulnerability of others does not need memory and narrative. (shrink)

L�herméneutique du soi proposée par Paul Ric�ur dans les années quatre vingt-dix fait une large place au récit autobiographique. Elle place ainsi au coeur de la constitution de l�identité personnelle la capacité de faire retour sur soi en termes narratifs. Abordée sous l�angle non seulement de la permanence d�un noyau substantiel � la mêmeté � mais également de celle impliquée dans l�acte de tenir parole � l�ipséité � l�identité est ici conçue comme étant narrative. Seul un sujet (...) capable de se raconter serait ainsi capable du maintien de soi dans la parole donnée. Or, confrontée à l�hypothèse de l�inconscient, cette conception narrative de l�identité fait problème : que ce soit au niveau anthropologique et métapsychologique d�une part, ou au niveau de la méthode et de la clinique psychanalytique d�autre part, le récit autobiographique ne saurait rendre compte de la dimension inconsciente de l�expérience. Elle ne peut en ce sens constituer un concept directeur dans le champ théorico-clinique ouvert par Freud. (shrink)

Comment peut-on interpréter l’usage de l’histoire par les décideurs dans les débats autour de la conflictualité contemporaine? Jusqu’à présent, les conceptualisations établies des usages de l’histoire dans les Relations internationales ont été dominées par des arguments individualistes. Or, la sociologie de la mémoire collective a montré l’existence intersubjective de cadres sociaux qui déterminent quelles histoires peuvent être mobilisées, et avec quelles fonctions. De plus, cette sociologie a souligné l’importance des représentations intersubjectives du rapport à l’Histoire même. En conséquence, on (...) peut supposer l’existence de « régimes d’historicité » spécifiques qui influencent la manière dont les acteurs regardent l’Histoire comme une source d’enseignements utiles et mobilisables au présent. Ces deux propositions sont examinées grâce à une analyse de corpus semi-qualitative, basée sur les débats de presse français, allemand et américain autour de la crise au Kosovo. Cette analyse confirme que les acteurs de discours font en effet plus souvent référence à des événements à fort impact sur l’histoire nationale. De plus, une analyse qualitative des références à la Guerre de 14-18 et à la Guerre du Vietnam montre également l’existence de variations nationales au niveau des types d’usages de l’histoire préférés par les acteurs discursifs. Aux États-Unis, non seulement les décideurs mais aussi les journalistes et les experts semblent plus prêts à tirer des leçons du passé pour guider l’action au présent. Ceci semble confirmer l’existence d’un régime d’historicité spécifique, lié à une notion de continuité historique qui peut être associée à l’identité de la politique internationale américaine. (shrink)

This paper explores the thought of Paul Ricœur from a feminist point of view. My goal is to show that it is necessary to narrate differently the history of our culture – in particular, the history of philosophy – in order for wommen to attain a self-representation that is equal to that of men. I seek to show that Ricoeur’s philosophy – especially his approach to the topics of memory and history, on the one hand, and the human capacity for (...) initiative, on the other hand– can support the idea that it is possible and legitimate to tell our history otherwise by envisioning a more accurate truth about ourselves. (shrink)

Collected and translated by John B. Thompson, this collection of essays by Paul Ricoeur includes many that had never appeared in English before the volume's publication in 1981. As comprehensive as it is illuminating, this lucid introduction to Ricoeur's prolific contributions to sociological theory features his more recent writings on the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and issues, his own constructive position and its implications for sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a (...) specially commissioned preface written by Charles Taylor, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this classic work has been revived for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

The configurational dimension, in turn, displays temporal features that may be opposed to these "features" of episodic time. The configurational arrangement makes the succession of events into significant wholes that are the correlate of the act of grouping together. Thanks to this reflective act—in the sense of Kant's Critique of Judgment—the whole plot may be translated into one "thought." "Thought," in this narrative context, may assume various meanings. It may characterize, for instance, following Aristotle's Poetics, the "theme" that accompanies (...) the "fable" or "plot" of a tragedy.1 "Thought" may also designate the "point" of the Hebraic maschal or of the biblical parable, concerning which Jeremias observes that the point of the parable is what allows us to translate it into a proverb or an aphorism. The term "thought" may also apply to the "colligatory terms" used in history writing, such terms as "the Renaissance," "the Industrial Revolution," and so on, which, according to Walsh and Dray, allow us to apprehend a set of historical events under a common denominator. In a word, the correlation between thought and plot supersedes the "then" and "and then" of mere succession. But it would be a complete mistake to consider "thought" as a-chronological. "Fable" and "theme" are as closely tied together as episode and configuration. The time of fable-and theme, if we may make of this a hyphenated expression, is more deeply temporal than the time of merely episodic narratives. · 1. It may be noted in passing that this correlation between "theme" and "plot" is also the basis of Northup Frye's "archetypal" criticism. Paul Ricoeur is professor of philosophy at the Université de Paris and John Nuveen Professor at the University of Chicago. Some of his works to appear in English are Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology, Main Trends in Philosophy, and The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays on Hermeneutics. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling," appeared in the Autumn 1978 issue. (shrink)

Parmi les nombreuses dimensions de l’identité collective, cet article examine celle de l’identité en tant qu’instrument rhétorique. Le repère identitaire est précisément un exemple d’efficacité pragmatique. Afin d’expliquer un tel pouvoir, un modèle hypothétique des catégories d’identité sera présenté. Ses éléments constitutifs forment quatre dimensions principales : position, désindividuation, exclusion et protection cognitive. L’identité narrative ainsi définie devient équivalente à une idéologie informelle . En tant que rhétorique constitutive , la construction narrative de l’ (...) class='Hi'>identité transforme la tautologie autoréférentielle en stratégies de discrimination, d’épuration et d’extermination du porteur d’altérité. Les violences massives du siècle passé – totalitarisme, colonialisme, ethno-nationalisme – sont tributaires du paradigme identitaire. (shrink)

This collection brings together twenty-two later essays by Paul Ricoeur under the topics of structuralism, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and religion.

Discusses the conflict between subjective time and historical time, looks at how fiction and historical writings create a model of temporal experience, and considers the question of sense and reference.

Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative has implications for a wide spectrum of contemporary thought. This collection of essays explores many of the areas to which his narrative strategies can be fruitfully applied, including architecture, psychology, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, ethics, sociology, medieval and contemporary literature, and religious studies. The book provides an introduction to the creative and productive resources of Ricoeur's narrative theory and offers a helpful survey of many of his key concepts for those who may be (...) unfamiliar with Ricoeur's work. (shrink)

Luca M. Possati, Jean Grondin, Paul Ricoeur ; Aurore Dumont, François Dosse et Catherine Goldenstein, Paul Ricoeur: penser la mémoire ; Paul-Gabriel Sandu, Gert-Jan van der Heiden, The Truth of Language. Heidegger, Ricoeur and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement ; Paul Marinescu, Marc-Antoine Vallée, Gadamer et Ricoeur. La conception herméneutiquedu langage ; Witold Płotka, Saulius Geniusas, Th e Origins of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology ; Delia Popa, Annabelle Dufourcq, La dimension imaginaire du réel dans la philosophie de Husserl (...) ; Maria GyemantDenis Seron, Ce que voir veut dire. Essai sur la perception ; Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Hans Friesen, Christian Lotz, Jakob Meier, Markus Wolf, Ding und Verdinglichung. Technik- und Sozialphilosophie nach Heidegger und der Kritischen Th eorie ; Bogdan MincăLarisa Cercel, John Stanley, Unterwegs zu einer hermeneutischen Übersetzungswissenschaft. Radegundis Stolze zu ihrem 60. Geburtstag ; Denisa Butnaru Johann Michel, Sociologie du soi. Essai d’herméneutique appliquée ; Ovidiu Stanciu, Jan Patočka, Aristote, ses devanciers, ses successeurs. Trad. fr. Erika Abrams ; Mădălina Diaconu, Emmanuel Alloa, Das durchscheinende Bild. Konturen einer medialen, Phänomenologie. (shrink)

But is not the word "metaphor" itself a metaphor, the metaphor of a displacement and therefore of a transfer in a kind of space? What is at stake is precisely the necessity of these spatial metaphors about metaphor included in our talk about "figures" of speech. . . . But in order to understand correctly the work of resemblance in metaphor and to introduce the pictorial or ironic moment at the right place, it is necessary briefly to recall the mutation (...) undergone by the theory of metaphor at the level of semantics by contrast with the tradition of classical rhetoric. In this tradition, metaphor was correctly described in terms of deviance, but this deviance was mistakenly ascribed to denomination only. Instead of giving a thing its usual common name, one designates it by means of a borrowed name, a "foreign" name in Aristotle's terminology. The rationale of this transfer of name was understood as the objective similarity between the things themselves or the subjective similarity between the attitudes linked to the grasping of these things. As concerns the goal of this transfer, it was supposed either to fill up a lexical lacuna, and therefore to serve the principle of economy which rules the endeavor of giving appropriate names to new things, new ideas, or new experiences, or to decorate discourse, and therefore to serve the main purpose of rhetorical discourse, which is to persuade and to please. Paul Ricoeur is professor of philosophy at the Université de Paris and John Nuveen Professor at the University of Chicago. He is editor of Revue de métaphysique et de morale and the author of many influential works on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of language. His most recent work to appear in English is The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. He has also contributed "Narrative Time" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text is (...) formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)

Discusses the conflict between subjective time and historical time, looks at how fiction and historical writings create a model of temporal experience, and considers the question of sense and reference.

Mon propos est d'explorer les voies ouvertes à la philosophie contemporaine par ce qu'on pourrait appeler la greffe du problème herméneutique sur la méthode phénoménologique. Je me bornerai à un bref rappel historique, avant d'entreprendre l'investigation proprement dite, laquelle devrait, à son terme au moins, donner un sens acceptable à la notion d'existence,—un sens où s'exprimerait précisément le renouvellement de la phénoménologie par l'herméneutique.

Paul Ricoeur was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. In this short and accessible book, he turns to a topic at the heart of much of his work: What is translation and why is it so important? Reminding us that The Bible, the Koran, the Torah and the works of the great philosophers are often only ever read in translation, Ricoeur reminds us that translation not only spreads knowledge but can change its very meaning. In spite (...) of these risk, he argues that in a climate of ethnic and religious conflict, the art and ethics of translation are invaluable. Drawing on interesting examples such as the translation of early Greek philosophy during the Renaissance, the poetry of Paul Celan and the work of Hannah Arendt, he reflects not only on the challenges of translating one language into another but how one community speaks to another. Throughout, Ricoeur shows how to move through life is to navigate a world that requires translation itself. Paul Ricoeur died in 2005. He was one of the great contemporary French philosophers and a leading figure in hermeneutics, psychoanalytic thought, literary theory and religion. His many books include Freud and Philosophy and Time and Narrative. (shrink)

_Criticism and Conviction_ offers a rare opportunity to share personally in the intellectual life and journey of the eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Internationally known for his influential works in hermeneutics, theology, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, until now, Ricoeur has been conspicuously silent on the subject of himself. In this book--a conversation about his life and work with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay--Ricoeur reflects on a variety of philosophical, social, religious, and cultural topics, from the paradoxes of political power to the (...) relationship between life and art, and life and death. In the first of eight conversations, Ricoeur traces the trajectory of his life, recounting the origins of his convictions and the development of his intellect against the tragic events of the twentieth century. Declaring himself the "son of a victim of the First World War," Ricoeur, an orphan, sketches his early years in the house of stern but loving grandparents, and the molding of his intellect under the tutelage of Roland Dalbiez, Gabriel Marcel, and André Philip. Ricoeur tells the intriguing story of his capture and five-year imprisonment by the Germans during World War II, where he and his compatriots fashioned an intellectual life complete with a library and lectures, and where he, amazingly, was able to continue his dissertation research. Elegantly interweaving anecdotal with philosophical meditations, Ricoeur recounts his relationships with some of the twentieth century's greatest figures, such as Heidegger, Jaspers, and Eliade. He also shares his views on French philosophers and explains his tumultuous relationship with Jacques Lacan. And while expressing his deepest respect for the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Michel Foucault, Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for the narratologist Algirdas Julien Greimas. Ricoeur also explores the relationship between the philosophical and religious domains, attempting to reconcile the two poles in his thought. And readers who have struggled with Ricoeur's work will be grateful for these illuminating discussions that provide an invaluable key to his writings on language and narrative, especially those on metaphor and time. Spontaneous and lively, _Criticism and Conviction_ is a passionate confirmation of Ricoeur's eloquence, lucidity, and intellectual rigor, and affirms his position as one of this century's greatest thinkers. It is an essential book for anyone interested in philosophy and literary criticism. (shrink)

At the time of his death in 2005, French philosopher Paul Ricoeur was regarded as one of the great thinkers of his generation. In more than half a century of writing about the essential questions of human life, Ricoeur’s thought encompassed a vast range of wisdom and experience, and he made landmark contributions that would go on to influence later scholars in such areas as phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, and theology. Toward the end of his life, Ricoeur began to focus directly (...) on ethical questions that he feared had been overshadowed by his other work; the result was a two-volume collection of essays on justice and the law. The University of Chicago Press published the English translation of the first volume, The Just, to great acclaim in 2000. Now this translation of the second volume, Reflections on the Just, completes the set and makes available to readers the whole of Ricoeur’s meditations on the concept. Consisting of fifteen thematically organized essays, Reflections on the Just continues and expands on the work Ricoeur began in with his “little ethics” in Oneself as Another and The Just. In the preface, he considers what revisions he would make were he to start over and how that is reflected in these essays. The opening part brings phenomenology to bear on ethics; the second group of essays comprises shorter, occasional pieces considering the concept of justice in the works of other philosophers, including Max Weber and Charles Taylor. The final part turns to the specific domains of medicine and the law, examining how concepts of right and justice operate in those realms. Cogent, deeply considered, and fully engaged with the realities of the contemporary world, Reflections on the Just is an essential work for understanding the development of Ricoeur’s thought in his final years. (shrink)

This book examines the later work of Paul Ricoeur, particularly his major work, Time and Narrative. The essays, including three pieces by Ricoeur himself, consider this important study, extending and developing the debate it has inspired. Time and Narrative is the finest example of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics and is one of the most significant works of philosophy published in the late twentieth century. Paul Ricoeur's study of the intertwining of time and narrative proposes and examines the possibility (...) that narrative could remedy a fatal deficiency in any purely phenomenological approach. He analysed both literary and historical writing, from Proust to Braudel, as well as key figures in the history of philosophy: Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. His own recognition of his limited success in expunging aporia opens onto the positive discovery of the importance of narrative identity, on which Ricoeur writes here. Other contributors take up a range of different topics: Tracing Ricoeur's own philosophical trajectory; reflexively applying the narrative approach to philosophy, or to his own text; reconstructing his dialectic of sedimentati and tradition. An essential companion to Time and Narrative, this collection also provides an excellent introduction to Ricoeur's later work and to contemporary works in philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: “Personal Identity and Narrative Identity”.