Paul Ricoeur

This article argues that, despite their distance across the colonial divide, a creolizing reading of Frantz Fanon and Paul Ricœur can yield valuable insights into decoloniality. Tracing their shared philosophical concerns with embodied phenomenology, social ontology and recognition, I argue that their respective accounts of sociogeny and hermeneutics can be productively read together as describing a shared end of mutual recognition untainted by racism or coloniality – a ‘new skin’ for humanity, as Fanon describes it. More specifically, Fanon contributes to (...) Ricœur an understanding of how divergences in social location can be overcome through liberatory action that posits a new logic of sociality; likewise, Ricœur provides Fanon with an account of how liberatory horizons are produced through this praxis, based on the imaginative connection between ideology and utopia. This article concludes by arguing that these congruent methodological and normative concerns can be read together to concretize – and potentially actualize – the utopic end of liberatory struggle in mutual recognition through fashioning this new skin. (shrink)

How can personal identity be determined in such a way that developments, experiences and other dynamic and context-dependent aspects of that identity can be taken into account? For several decades now, the narrative, the story, has often been referred to in answering this question as a cognitive instrument that can adequately deal with those aspects. The monologue thus appears to present itself as a medium in which personal or autobiographical identity is formed. However, what happens when we place the identity (...) narrative in a dialogue: when two people with very diverse backgrounds have a dialogue that touches on their identity? Does this perhaps provide an entirely new challenge and enrichment of that narrative, which can have a major impact on both the individual and the relationship? I want to explore these questions in this article, motivated by both the philosophical perspective and my experiences as co-initiator of the "Keti Koti Table", in which such a dialogue plays a central role. To this end, I will first discuss the dynamic aspects of the narrative, in which the phenomenon of "refiguration" as presented by Ricoeur is key. This is then discussed in the context of the dialogue. In § 4 I discuss the specific dialogue method that we have developed for the Keti Koti Table. Subsequently, in § 5, some experiences of participants are discussed, whose identity refigurations are analyzed under the influence of the dialogue in § 6. It is concluded with a brief conclusion about the special significance of the dialogue for the narrative self-constitution in a diverse society. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a phenomenological account of historical experience, aimed at showing how people directly experience an event as being historical. After examining the only previous phenomenological account, David Carr’s Experience and History, and exploring its limits, I present my own contributions. My analysis focuses on the features of three main concepts or “moments”: eventfulness, substantiality, and narrativity. Considering the transcendent character of historical experience in the moment of eventfulness brings three features to light: initial incomprehensibility, need for (...) categorization, and memorability. The concept of “substantiality,” on the other hand, shows how a historical event is felt as a moment of change. History is perceived as a structure shaping a community and whose unity seems irremediably shattered. Three features of historical change are explored: threatened identity, broken temporality, and emphasized belongingness. Lastly, I look at the decisive role of the gradual transformation of past beliefs and expectations as it occurs “narratively,” revealing a further two features of historical experience: narrative justifications and uncertain new normativity. Dealing narratively with a historical event means providing justifications for how it constitutes a new configuration of practices and ideas foreshadowing the now uncertain future. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to show that a familiar hermeneutical movement from suspicion to affirmation of rational meaning, as a reader reflects on a narrative, is, in part, grounded in the narrative's rhythmic structure which mediates a sonorous condition of being appropriated by the reader. This hermeneutical process involves the reader in appropriating the temporal perspective which creates a 'space' for reflection in which a provisional conceptual unity is made possible, but subject to continuing movement from suspicion to (...) affirmation. It is shown that this relationship between Self and Other is dialectical, and mediated by the textual modes of metaphor and narrative. Particular examples of poetry and prose are examined, and the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in the 'Authorised Version' of the Bible is analyzed in detail in an attempt to show how the reader, imaginatively inhabiting the world of the text, is involved in a process in which there is an 'instant' of letting go Self reflection; and there is affirmation of reasonable hope that the narrative may be rationally understood. In an attempt to address the critical issue of validation of rational meaning to show that affirmation may be given reasonable hope, the analogy of juridical legality is examined, particularly with respect to Aristotle's notion of phronesis. The analysis draws upon the hermeneutical philosophy of Paul Ricoeur with particular regard to his theories of metaphor and narrative, and the role of the creative imagination. It also makes use of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the lived body in terms of a dialectical relationship between its material objectivity and its phenomenological aspects, especially, with respect to sonorous being and corporeal intentionality. From the discipline of literary criticism, Northrop Frye's notion of prose rhythm in his Anatomy of Criticism is employed to identity this key mediatory characteristic. (shrink)

Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy. However, closer consideration reveals that religious zeal is an ethically and politically ambiguous phenomenon. In this article, I explore the question of how this ambiguity can be explained. I do so (...) by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility and tracing back the ambiguity of religious zeal to a dialectic inherent to human affectivity and existence itself. According to Ricœur, human affectivity is constituted by the two poles of vital and spiritual desires which are mediated by the thymos. As I show, this theory helps us to understand that religious zeal as a spiritual desire is neither plainly good nor plainly bad, but ambiguous. Moreover, it enables us to acknowledge the entanglement of abstraction and concretion that is inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal. Finally, this theory helps us to understand why religious zeal, as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, is both a promise and a threat. In conclusion, human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible. (shrink)

Unusually, Fratelli tutti and Laudato si’ both cite the work of French thinker Paul Ricoeur. It is unusual because reference to individual scholars can be rare in Catholic social teaching, and because Ricoeur was a philosopher, and not a Catholic. Yet Ricoeur’s work, which spanned nearly seventy years and incorporated both philosophy and engagement with religious resources, focused on meaningful communication in text and action for the work of living together. For an encyclical committed to rethinking and rejuvenating attitudes to (...) each other in public life, across disagreement, Ricoeur’s work provides an ideal conversation partner. His approach involves attending carefully to the ethical entanglement of self and other, mediated by the institution. This attention supports the driving concern and reasoning of Fratelli tutti—to recenter the agency of neighbor, people, and institution for the fragile political work of deliberation, cooperation, and action. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays examining Paul Ricoeur's writings on law, bringing together eminent Ricoeur scholars from around the world to demonstrate the importance of Ricoeur's philosophy for the juridical field while offering new paths to extend and build on his work.

Sallie McFague’s theological models construct a tensive relationship between conceptual structures and symbolic, metaphorical language to interpret the defining and elusive aspects of theological phenomena and loci. Computational models of language can extend and formalize the conceptual structures of theological models to develop computer-augmented interpretations of theological texts. Previously unclear is whether computational models can retain the tensive symbolism essential for theological investigation. I demonstrate affirmatively by constructing a computational topic model of the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas from Summa (...) Theologica (Second Part, in English translation) useful for interpreting not only the Thomistic text but also recent papal encyclicals. (shrink)

The paper deals with the problem of human conscience as an attentional mode of being that effectuates an original capacity for discernment. Such an undertaking, after the necessary terminological and phenomenological clarifications, requires one to cope with its specific background, especially the critique of the moral worldview and the postmetaphysical setting of contemporary thinking. Taking into consideration the Heideggerian view of the matter, I reflect on the doubts Ricoeur addressed to the former, and take advantage of Ricoeur’s early philosophy to (...) reinterpret and develop his own stance as expounded in Oneself as Another. His later work on ideology and utopia may contribute to helping to establish some criteria for the functioning of the conscience. (shrink)

Introduction to “Penser le temps/Thinking Time” french version.

Introduction to “Penser le temps/Thinking Time” english versiion.

Starting from Ricœur’s last meditations on death, time, and eternity, we first seek to show the difficulties of Whitehead’s idea of a memory of God who would be “the great monad”, or the Hegelian recapitulation. The navigation then reverses towards the insurmountable plurality of temporalities. In the wake of Marielle Macé’s work on style, we will seek not only in narrativity, which is itself a form of resistance to totalizations, but in all genres and forms of language, the infinitely varied (...) ways of dealing with time. If we agree to reintegrate the Ricœurian studies of biblical literature into the philosophical field, we will resituate biblical narrative, itself inseparable from the prescriptive of the Torah which is always already there, in its textual intersection with other biblical literary genres, the broken time of the prophetic irruption, the eternal everydayness of wisdom literature, the metaphorical games of the hymn, etc. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Paul Ricœur’s political philosophical writings on the task of decolonization and European responsibility in light of a horizon of intercultural dialogue. Departing from the exchange between Ricœur and his former student Enrique Dussel, it discusses the Ricœurian critique of modernity. After giving some background on Ricœur’s reflections on decolonization, it will clarify what Ricœur calls the “crisis of the concrete universal in the thinking and in the historical experience of Western Europe,” and what role cultural difference has (...) in this crisis. Considering Ricœur’s explicitly European perspective, this will lead us to a critical discussion on the envisioned possibility of a world-historical subject. Finally, I will discuss the role of European self-reflection in relation to a horizon of intercultural dialogue and narration from a post-/decolonial perspective. (shrink)

Review of the books : Murray E. Littlejohn, Imagination Now. A Richard Kearney Reader. Richard Kearney and Melissa Fitzpatrick, Radical Hospitaly. From Thought to Action. Richard Kearney, Touch. Recovering our Most Vital Sense.

This essay addresses a stream of thought manifested in some forms of social justice activism – namely, that members of marginalized groups have privileged insight into the nature of social reality which others cannot understand, much less critique. This position, which I call “epistemic isolationism,” seems to rest on the claim that the knowledge that is embedded in lived experience is incommunicable. The essay proceeds in three parts: first, there is a brief overview of standpoint epistemology, including a recent version (...) which seems to support epistemic isolationism. Second, there is an explication of the concept of “lived experience” as developed by Wilhelm Dilthey. Third, there is an argument against the claim that lived experience is incommunicable, drawing from the work of Dilthey, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur. The payoff of the argument is that sharing lived experience through expressions like literature and narrative inspires mutual recognition and respect which can, in turn, support a robust form of solidarity and serve as a foundation for more effective social justice advocacy. (shrink)

Philosophy has always examined subjectivity in terms of its relationship with time, but less frequently has it engaged with the theme of space; however, as soon as it begins to do this, it runs into questions that remain very much open. Paul Ricoeur only moved onto considering the topic of space after having reflected at length on time and the temporality inhabited by subjectivity. Making space a topic means not only thinking about the extension of the one's own body as (...) a lived body but also reflecting on that physical space in which "the other comes closer and where the close becomes other" and in which the encounter of identity and difference creates continuous short circuits, especially in the increasingly congested western metropolises. Starting from the "unexpected application" of the narrative dimension to architecture, Ricoeur goes on to develop an interesting reflection on space built and space inhabited. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutics of spaces and the aesthetics vision of the landscape as a performance, based on the contemporary theories of Erika Fischer-Lichte, can integrate each other through the mediation of Mikel Dufrenne’s phenomenology of the a priori. In particular, we will show how the representations and the hermeneutics of a landscape as a peculiar “text” are essentially connected with its the pre-reflective experience, which, being made possible by the activation of precise material – (...) and therefore historical and cultural – a priori, can be thus translated into images and words. By intertwining hermeneutics, phenomenology, and performative esthetics we will provide with a non-reductive philosophical description of a landscape, i.e., a definition that does not neglect the aspects of it suggested by its linguistic pre-comprehension and artistic representations. (shrink)

Al correlacionar el aspecto histórico de la Escritura y su estatus como logos, Rudolf Bultmann introduce un procedimiento exegético-hermenéutico basado en la investigación histórico-crítica de la Escritura e impone, a su vez, la interpretación del logos como kerigma en un proceso que involucra las posibilidades de conocimiento presentes en un determinado contexto histórico-cultural y que conduce a la necesidad de corresponder a la cosmovisión de la época actual. Así, a partir del análisis crítico de Paul Ricoeur, el artículo se centra (...) en la desmitologización como distinción entre kerigma y mito en un movimiento que se solapa con el artificio mitológico y converge en el cuestionamiento de su significado original a través de un proceso que, al fin y al cabo, requiere su permanencia bajo el horizonte de la interpretación. El artículo señala que Ricoeur muestra que Bultmann prescinde de la reflexión que involucra al lenguaje lato sensu como objeto, superponiendo el lenguaje de la fe al lenguaje del mito en un movimiento que, aunque pretendiendo suplantar al sacrificium intellectus, finalmente converge hacia un construcción que tiende a exigir el sacrificium intellectus en las fronteras de la desmitologización y en el lenguaje de la fe que interviene en su proceso. (shrink)

This book contextualizes Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy through the lens of philosophical anthropology. It shows how Ricoeur renews this tradition by developing a hermeneutic of human self-expression, a phenomenology of the capable human, and an ethics of life lived “with and for others in just institutions.”.

Beyond the disparate and mainly fleeting references to life in Ricoeur’s Oneself as Another, whether as life as power, living well and with others, or as Ricoeur’s attempt to develop a concept of embodied subjectivity as flesh, which is presumably living flesh, not dead flesh, a further and arguably primordial life principle needs emphasis, namely, living space. Ricoeur’s recognition of the vital significance of space primordiality, as a pivotal dimension that is even prior to language, offers a significant conceptual leap (...) in Ricoeur’s later work, Oneself as Another. Ricoeur’s proposed ontology of the flesh is one dimension towards expression of an authentic phenomenology of spatiality, though not necessarily the only one. Building upon but going beyond Ricoeur, the article explores concentric and diametric spatial interplay in relation to the early Heidegger’s existential spatiality, Angst and care, as candidate living spatial movements. This proposed primordial spatial discourse re-examines Ricoeur’s conatus as power to act, and his quest for a structure of relation to the other that is not closure, separation, or diametric opposition. (shrink)

In order to revise interpretive prejudgments, it is important to first recognize them for what they are. Problematically, the habitual overreliance on deficient prejudgments can make such recognition difficult. An impasse appears: How can one intervene on deficient interpretive resources if those very same resources conceal their deficiencies? I analyze James Joyce’s short story “The Dead,” in which the protagonist Gabriel is highly resistant to internalizing experiences that might otherwise prompt him to revise his interpretive projections. I argue that Gabriel (...) only becomes aware of his interpretive shortcomings after an experience of profound hesitation that allows him to affectively sense the limitations of his prejudice. Drawing from Hans-Georg Gadamer, Kristie Dotson, and Alia Al-Saji, I argue that Gabriel’s experience of hesitation temporarily denaturalizes his deeply entrenched sexism, circumventing the hermeneutical impasse described above. Read in this way, “The Dead” illustrates the power of affective experiences to unsettle highly resilient ways of seeing the world. (shrink)

By studying the logic that unites play, the rules of games and the body of players, this article intends to highlight a spatial mimesis through play and games. It consists of carrying out a Ricœurian anthropology of play and game, taking Ricœur's analysis of the relationship between time and narrative as a model. The article then shows that play prefigures the physical space as a lived space, that game configures a space of rules and that the player's body is refigured (...) by the spatiality of the rules of the game. This application of the ternary model of Ricœurian mimesis thus allows a unified understanding of play and games by space, and of space by play and games. (shrink)

Resumen: El supuesto de la constitución del yo a partir de la relación intersubjetiva que surge con el reconocimiento del otro hace emerger el problema del fundamento ontológico del yo. Por una parte, el yo no puede existir de manera aislada, pero por otra, subordinar su constitución a la relación con el otro puede debilitar el yo al hacerlo dependiente, para su constitución, en algo distinto de él. Hacer que la constitución del yo dependa de la relación intersubjetiva plantea la (...) cuestión del inicio: ¿Qué son, antes de relacionarse, aquellos que entran en relación? ¿Si el yo se reconoce a sí mismo reconociendo a otro, qué es aquello que reconoce? Estas preguntas apuntan a la búsqueda de un fundamento ontológico o metafísico para la antropología fenomenológica: el uno no puede depender del otro y a su vez este del primero. La antropología filosófica de Paul Ricoeur, con su énfasis en la corporalidad e historicidad del hombre, además de su diálogo con Aristóteles, ofrece respuesta a estas preguntas. Ricoeur estudia al hombre desde dentro, pero no olvida aquello propio del hombre que hace que el ser humano pueda ser reconocido y capaz de reconocer.: The proposition of the constitution of the self as starting from the intersubjective relationship that emerges from the recognition of the other, presents the problem of the ontological foundation of the self. On one hand, the self cannot exist in isolation, but on the other, making its constitution subordinate to the relation with the other can debilitate the self as it is made dependent, for its constitution, on something different from the self. If the constitution of the self is dependent on the intersubjective relation the question of its origin arises: What are those who enter a relation before relating? If the self only recognizes itself recognizing another, what is it that it recognizes? These questions are directed towards the search for an ontological or metaphysical foundation for the study of phenomenological anthropology. The self cannot depend on the other, and this one, in turn, on the self. Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology, with its emphasis on the corporeal and historical nature of man, and its dialogue with Aristotle, offers answers to these questions. Ricoeur studies man from his inner life but does not forget that which makes it possible for a human being to recognize and to be recognized. (shrink)

In this autobiographical essay, introduced by Ernst Wolff, Paulin Hountonji gives an account of his relation to Paul Ricœur. A sketch of his own academic development and his experience of the Parisian philosophy milieu in the 1960s serves as background for his chosing Ricœur as his doctoral supervisor. The essay makes plain the proximities between Hountondji and Ricœur, but identifies also occasional and missed encounters.

Dans cet essai autobiographique, précédé d’une courte présentation par Ernst Wolff, Paulin Hountondji retrace sa relation avec Paul Ricœur. Le rôle de Ricœur comme directeur de thèse est replacé dans le contexte de l’expérience de Hountondji avec le milieu philosophique parisien des années 1960 et de l’histoire plus longue de son propre développement académique. L’essai met en évidence les proximités entre Hountondji et Ricœur, mais identifie également des rencontres ponctuelles ou manquées.

In this autobiographical essay, introduced by Ernst Wolff, Paulin Hountonji gives an account of his relation to Paul Ricœur. A sketch of his own academic development and his experience of the Parisian philosophy milieu in the 1960s serves as background for his chosing Ricœur as his doctoral supervisor. The essay makes plain the proximities between Hountondji and Ricœur, but identifies also occasional and missed encounters.

Hermeneutics is a significant dimension of C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology, although Jung did not develop a consistent hermeneutic method, and this aspect of his work has not yet been sufficiently explored. This paper examines the relevance of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and narrative theory for the interpretation of Carl Jung’s Red Book, which can be perceived as a narrative experiment. Ricoeur focuses on the narrative character of human experience. Paul Ricoeur’s ideas of narrative and plot are significant for exploring Jung’s inner (...) experience described in his Red Book as well as the narrative structure of The Red Book. (shrink)

The article draws a parallel between Ricœur’s critique of Heidegger’s conception of temporality and the demand for a more general critique of Heidegger’s philosophy. If Ricœur denied a proximity between Being and Time and Time and Narrative, he placed himself within a philosophical vein that addresses Heidegger’s first philosophy. But our knowledge of Heidegger’s Complete Works, including the “Black Notebooks,” requires integrating criticism of links between Heidegger and national-socialist ideology. In addition to various critical contents within Time and Narrative and (...) developments related to the social sciences, the explicit reference to scientific concepts of time must also be highlighted. Ricœur breaks with Heidegger’s philosophy of time as inseparable from Ricœur’s reformulation of the issue of being and attempts to determine a conception of time engaging an ontological and epistemological critique of Being and Time. (shrink)

En el presente artículo presentaremos algunos de los aspectos centrales del concepto ricoeuriano de hermenéutica crítica a partir de lo que se desprende de su análisis y discusión con las obras de Althusser y Habermas. En términos generales, mientras que las investigaciones históricas del primero apuntan a poner de manifiesto las estrategias de la reproducción de los sistemas de poder, el segundo propone un proyecto liberador basado en una construcción utópica independiente de la historia. El uso que hacen Althusser y (...) Habermas del psicoanálisis nos acercará tangencialmente al vínculo de Ricoeur con esta disciplina. Concluiremos señalando al concepto de “memoria feliz”, desarrollado en La memoria, la historia, el olvido, como un ejemplo de utopía y muestra de que Ricoeur mantendrá algunos aspectos centrales de esta propuesta hasta el final de su vida. (shrink)

Review of the book John Arthos, Hermeneutics After Ricœur.

The relationship between memory and history, which has preoccupied historiography and the philosophy of history since the middle of the nineteenth century, took a particular course in France at the end of the millennium. The forms this relationship took in this particular context have been the subject of heated debate around whether the reconstruction of the past should bear the sign of a moral imperative or, on the contrary, it should be kept away from any moral conditioning. To address this (...) question and underline its particular relevance to the present, I will revisit a significant debate, based around Paul Ricoeur’s interpretation of the duty of memory developed in his book Memory, History, Forgetting. I will do this by means of a three-step approach. First, a short introduction will provide several guidelines for understanding the issues at stake in the debate in which Ricoeur was caught and explanations regarding the significance of the main notions around which the discussions took place, i.e., the duty and work of memory. Second, I will identify how historical debates, political decisions and civic concerns about the past gradually coagulated into two different “camps” in France during the 1980s and 1990s, i.e., the advocates of memory against those of history, foreshadowing the emergence of a historiographical crisis, the stakes of which I will analyse in detail. Finally, I will show how Ricoeur’s solution to this debate, i.e., an incomplete dialectic between the duty and the work of memory, developed on the horizon of justice, continues to have relevance for the present, being an innovative form of “defatalizing” the past. (shrink)

Questioning Ricœur’s positioning of Aristotle and Augustine as the founders of the two mutually exclusive conceptions of time that dichotomize the Western tradition, this article suggests that what Ricœur describes as the aporetics of temporality is a product of the modern social time regime. Extracting Aristotle and Augustine’s conceptions of time from this modern problem reveals the Aristotelian so-called “naturalist” view of time as one that rather unifies humans and their world through symbolic mediation, while Augustine’s alleged “subjective” conception of (...) time is read rather as expressing the subordination of time to divine transcendence. (shrink)

Review of the book Ernst Wolff, Lire Ricoeur depuis la périphérie.

This paper employs Paul Ricœur’s insights to examine how European states should approach their colonial past. First, I explore the significance of historical knowledge for people from formerly colonized countries through the views of several anti-colonial thinkers. Then, referring to Ricoeur’s analyses in History and Truth, Time and Narrative and Memory, History, Forgetting, I examine the grounds and the legitimacy, of a historiography of colonization. I argue that European states should make the history of colonization part of their school curricula, (...) as an expression of Europeans’ debt to the victims of the colonial past, and as a way to prevent the repetition of the colonial crimes. (shrink)

Time as a collective singular cannot be fully captured by Ricoeur’s poetic response to the aporias of time. Ricoeur works on this question in particular from Kant, Husserl and Heidegger, and, at the end of Time and Narrative, returns to the question of the unicity of history, discussing Hegel and reappropriating Koselleck’s concepts of the horizon of expectation and the space of experience. We present this inquiry, discuss the reservations expressed about it, and propose to open two ways for a (...) deepening of Ricœurian thought. The first provides a framework for the idea of “learning together”; the second aims at the very possibility of a "we.". (shrink)

O presente texto tem como objetivo trazer para discussão como o processo de esquecimento é refletido no terreno da memória individual e da memória coletiva. Tomamos como base teórica os estudos do filosofo francês Paul Ricoeur, em sua obra “A memória, a história, o esquecimento” edição publicada no Brasil em 2007, especificamente, seu estudo sobre o esquecimento. Neste sentido, buscaremos entender como essas questões se problematizam e quais seus reflexos.

This paper analyzes the notion of recollection in Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur?s thought, in the context of time distance as?obstacles? towards understanding the past. Particular attention is paid to the understanding the phenomenon of?Death? as a time gap between the past and the present. In connection with this problem, we find efforts of philosophical hermeneutics on the one hand and historicism on the other. Differences between historicism and hermeneutics can be outlined in relation to the role that memory (...) plays in the process of understanding in Gadamer and Ricoeur. What does Death mean in terms of understanding for history, and what for hermeneutics? How can we understand temporal distance? Is it possible and necessary to overcome it? What is the role of recollection and how does it participate in understanding? - these are some of the main issues that will be addressed in the text. Finally, the task of the text is to offer the meaning and significance of the hermeneutics of recollection in relation to the mentioned questions, through the interaction of the thoughts of the two authors. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s readers usually assume they understand his view of Hegel, since he talks about Hegel often and likes to characterize various aspects of his work as “Hegelian.” What often goes unnoticed is that Ricoeur does not always use this term in the same way. This chapter argues that Ricoeur uses the term “Hegelian” in three distinct senses: a methodological, an ontological, and a metaphilosophical sense. These senses overlap, but they are also in tension, and this fact greatly complicates the task (...) of identifying Ricoeur’s attitude toward German Idealism—especially his claim in Time and Narrative that contemporary philosophers should “renounce Hegel.”. (shrink)

One of the core principles of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics is that interpretation culminates in application, or appropriation. But what exactly is an appropriation, and what makes some appropriations better than others? I try to shed light on these difficult matters by examining Ricoeur’s own appropriation of Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of the narrative unity of a life, and by contrasting it with Richard Rorty’s appropriation of the same notion. I argue that Ricoeur’s appropriation is more successful than Rorty’s, and that the (...) best explanation of its success is that it respects a distinctive norm that governs the activity of appropriation. I conclude by describing this norm, which I call the principle of ultimate compatibility. (shrink)

This article proposes to analyze the relations between ethics and the poetics of testimony. It does so by testing Paul Ricoeur’s analyses of testimony with the literary work of the Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Svletana Alexievitch. After having shown why witnessing occupies a type of expressivity that is singular in contemporary times, and then having been surprised by the strong links that unite witnessing and the experience of evil, Alexievitch’s work is chosen to explain what the resource of the poetic (...) could be, in the face of the question of evil. Ultimately, the consequences are drawn for the development of a practical wisdom in which testimony would be in a good place. (shrink)