No contemporary thinker has participated in more intellectual debates in the post-war period than Paul Ricoeur. His writings evolved from an initial concern with existentialism and phenomenology, through structuralism and psychoanalysis and the work he undertook within the hermenuetic tradition, to his recent studies in metaphor and narrative. This introduction is the first study to survey the entire range of Ricoeur's work and, exploiting the obvious thematic parallels, situates it within the context of post-structuralism. It includes the first discussion of (...) Ricoueur's Time and Narrative , a work likely to prove the most significant contribution to the theory of narrative since early structuralism. (shrink)

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This special section on the later work of Paul Ricoeur is an attempt to examine the fruitfulness of that work for the social sciences. Of particular interest are his theorization and application of the notions of memory, identity, justice, and the relation to the other to political and ethical problems in the present. For example, his discourse links up the question of memory with that of justice and the problem of constructing new polities which can be considered just. To do (...) this, he introduces the concepts of ‘translation ethos’, the ‘exchange of memories’ and ‘non-forgetful forgiveness’ in order to examine the problem of the conditions for the imaginary construction of political entities in which dialogue can take place between interlocutors with different, maybe conflicting, interests and historical locations, and thus with different senses of belonging and identities. His philosophical apparatus is shown to have particular salience for the analysis of contemporary society. (shrink)

"First Published in 1990, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.".