scholarly journals Narrative Identity against Biographical Illusion: The Shift in Sociology from Bourdieu to Ricœur

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gérôme Truc

Since the publication of Oneself as Another, many sociologists have referred to the work of Paul Ricœur, some of them considering his notion of narrative identity to be a useful means of analyzing some aspects individual identity left unresolved by Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. Bourdieu had, however, already discredited the sociological relevance of the notion of narrative in his 1986 article “The Biographical Illusion.” Through a careful re-reading of both texts, this article will determine to what extent the sociological use of Ricœur’s notions can escape the confines of Bourdieu’s analysis and, moreover, the different conceptions of the human being and of ethics underlying the two distinct frameworks of analysis. 

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-33
Author(s):  
Andrew Wiercinski

Acting and suffering subjectivity makes a grand sujet in Ricoeur's philosophy. In his Time and Narrative Ricoeur created the notion of narrative identity which is an individual internalized and evolving life strory. The narrative alone might define the “who”. Whoever lives and exists, suffers. Ricoeur metaphorically defined life as a cloth. We can add, Wiercinski continues, that this cloth is woven with pain. It is pain which makes the cloth, and, at the same time, it is also a joy of the human condition. As humans, we are called to wear this cloth as well as to understand what does it mean - from the hermeneutic perspective.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Pierosara

This paper demonstrates an implicit connection between narrativity and recognition in the work of Paul Ricœur. This view is developed in three steps. First, it shows that the subject who calls for recognition demands that his or her own narrative be recognized. In order to be recognized, a story must be measured with history, particularly that of the victims. Second, from this perspective, the role of collective narratives is fundamental, because they represent the possibility to connect the intrinsic teleology of every human being to the collective attribution of significance. Finally, with the help of a little known essay by Ricœur, the metaphorical power of narrativity to configure meaning will be compared to the power of architecture to construct and to organize space. Both these fields give stories visibility and an ability to be recognized. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dries Deweer

Paul Ricœur shared Emmanuel Mounier’s personalist and communitarian ideal of a universal community, which ensures that every human being has access to the conditions for self-development as a person. Whereas Mounier talks about communication as the structure of personhood that summons us towards the gradual enlargement of the community, Ricœur’s reflections on translation provide a missing link by referring, not just to the human capacity to communicate, but more specifically, to our capacity to translate and the implied ethics of linguistic hospitality. This allowed him to show that what enables us to enlarge the circle of brotherhood is the capacity to gradually settle in the world of the other and to welcome the other into one’s own world.


Author(s):  
Sara Margarida de Matos Roma Fernandes ◽  

This article has the double goal of reflecting on the concept of narrative identity in Paul Ricoeur’s Thinking and of evaluating its contribution to the resolution of the general problem of personal identity. Accordingly, this article will develop the following thesis: 1) narrative identity results from a permanent dialectic between character (sameness, Idem) and selfhood (constancy, Ipse), that is, between subject’s power to relate continuously to himself during all his life through narrative mediation and subject’s psychological and physical traits; 2) personal identity is the continuous ethical and aesthetical (self)recreation and narrative identity brings perfectly together these two domains.


1970 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-190
Author(s):  
Marek Drwięga

This paper deals with the problem of what otherness consists in, and what its foundation is, within the I–Other relation. In this way, the study also explores the limits of ethics and of a quasi-religious attitude, in order to establish what is required to shape interpersonal relations in a non-violent way, when faced with the radical otherness of another human being. Such an investigation also intersects with a broader ethical discussion that aims to take account of glorious or heroic acts, focused on the issue of supererogation. The aim of the present study is to demonstrate the degree to which a neglect of reciprocity and justice in the context of such philosophical research constitutes a risky step. To this end, the main aspects of the debate between Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricœur are introduced. After examining the position of Levinas, and how Ricœur interprets the I–Other relation in Levinas, an attempt is made to assess whether the latter’s line of criticism is pertinent and helpful for attempts to arrive at the core of the disagreement between the two thinkers.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Vinicio Busacchi

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Helenius

Based on the double character of “as if,” it is argued in this paper that “the surplus of meaning” turns out to be “the surplus of being,” which reveals a human being who interprets his or her own being and also acknowledges this being as be-ing at the same time. In this article, 1) the notion of “as if” is retrieved from Ricoeur’s early work in relation to the “poetics of being” aspired to by him. This leads us to 2) examine the relation between the “semantic surplus” and the “becoming of being.” 3) Addressing the problem of metaphorical reference, the key philosophical problem of poetics, is, therefore, inevitable. Only after this analysis will we 4) be able to consider whether there is a kind of “poetics of being” in the work of Paul Ricoeur. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-159
Author(s):  
Alain Thomasset

For Paul Ricœur, human action was a central preoccupation already present in his early work and deepening over time, benefitting from a long engagement with hermeneutical and narrative analyses. It is the concern to locate, through obligatory moral norms, the ethical dimension of desire that guides and motivates action that first makes use of a hermeneutic of signs, symbols, and texts in which the desire of the subject has been expressed. But narratives become essential in order to describe action in such a way that the actor’s responsibility can be evaluated at the level of his narrative identity. To this responsibility, interpreted and taught by means of cultural narratives, the concepts of memory and promise add the dimension of the struggle for recognition and point to an ontology of the historical condition at the foundation of an ethic that rests open to a religious dimension of an original goodness.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Porée

The notions of “narrated time” and “narrative identity” have become, in less than three decades, commonplaces, not only for philosophers, but also for psychologists and ethicists. This would be welcomed, if only it were not used nowadays in what must be called a new dogmatic way. Now, Paul Ricœur indeed asserted, in various ways, the wealth of the notion of narrative; but he also readily acknowleged its limits – aren’t these limits those of hermeneutics itself?


Author(s):  
Niamh Brennan

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between narrative and subjectivity. It begins by examining the subject in the work of Paul Ricoeur and Thomas Berry and the way in which the task of subjectivity for both thinkers is related to narrative. Although occupying different disciplines, both men share a commitment to narrative. Ricoeur in his formation of narrative identity and the unity that this provides to a life, and Berry in his use of narrative in proposing a new human identity. Through an examination of Ricoeur and Berry’s approach to narrative, specifically in how it contributes to the development of subjectivity, this paper suggests that such an approach has validity as a method in addressing the ecological crisis.


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