Ricœur’s philosophy never locates itself directly in the field of philosophical aesthetics inasmuch as philosophical aesthetics never arises as a field of major questioning and discursive development for Ricœur’s philosophy or as a field that would guide that philosophy. However, Ricœur maintains an ongoing but complex connection with aesthetics throughout his philosophical work. Here we defend the thesis that there are difficulties relating both to the complexity of Ricœur’s philosophy and to the crisis situation of aesthetics as an autonomous field (...) of philosophical inquiry. A more direct confrontation with philosophical aesthetics, such as that developed by analytic philosophy and critical theory today, is necessary in order to be aware of this connection between Ricœur’s philosophy and aesthetics. It then appears that if Ricœur’s philosophy makes it possible to maintain a certain autonomy of the field of aesthetics inherited from Kant, it is not through developing some unlikely “Ricœurian aesthetic” but thanks to a Ricœurian philosophy of aesthetics essentially determined on three levels: 1) the connection between poetics and aesthetics within a philosophy of imagination, 2) the connection between criticism and hermeneutics with regard the notions of text and distanciation, 3) the connection between ontology and communication that summarizes the two previous steps by combining phenomenological, analytic and critical perspectives. Thus it can be assumed that this autonomy of the field of aesthetics is possible only at a horizon of meaning determined by Ricœur’s philosophical anthropology: at the axiological level, the field of aesthetics differs upstream from the field of poetics and downstream from the field of ethics; at the ontological level, Ricœur’s philosophy of aesthetics concerns a region that is both intermediate between and congruent to those treated by Ricœur’s philosophy of imagination and by Ricœur’s philosophy of action. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s reading of analytic philosophy is part of a philosophical plan that focuses on deepening his inquiry into various thematics, some theoretical in nature, others concerned with the history of philosophy. On the theoretical plane, Ricoeur’s interest in the analytic tradition is rooted in the problem of the relationship between language and the world; as regards the history of philosophy, he is interested in the shift from a transcendental philosophy to a contemporary philosophy that is concerned with the world of (...) experience and the actions of a fallible and capable human being. From this perspective, a possible way into a Ricœurian reading of analytic philosophy is through two authors: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Nelson Goodman. In both cases, Ricoeur does not so much oppose the approaches and results of an "analytic philosophy" to those of a "continental philosophy" as seek to renew his reflection on language, imagination, and reference. We can account for this evolution in two stages: first, we will focus on the comparison that Ricoeur makes between the philosophy of the later Husserl and the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein; second, we will reexamine Ricoeur’s reading of Goodman’s general theory of reference. Keywords: Analytic Philosophy, Imagination, Goodman, Language, Phenomenology, Reference, Wittgenstein. Résumé La lecture ricœurienne de la philosophie analytique sert un projet philosophique concentré sur l’approfondissement personnel d’un certain nombre de thématiques d’ordre théorique ou concernant l’histoire de la philosophie : sur le plan théorique, l’intérêt de Ricœur en direction de la tradition analytique s’ancre dans le problème de l’articulation entre le langage et le monde ; sur le plan d’un rapport à l’histoire de la philosophie, dans la question du passage d’une philosophie transcendantale à une philosophie contemporaine devant considérée de manière plus étroite le monde de l’expérience et des actions d’un homme faillible et capable. Dans cette perspective, une entrée possible dans une lecture ricœurienne de la philosophie analytique se joue à travers deux auteurs : Ludwig Wittgenstein et Nelson Goodman. Dans les deux cas, Ricœur confronte moins les approches et résultats d’une “philosophie analytique” à ceux d’une “philosophie continentale” qu’il ne cherche à renouveler sa réflexion sur le langage, l’imagination, et la référence. On pourra rendre compte de cette évolution à travers deux étapes : une première étape se concentrera sur la confrontation opérée par Ricœur entre la dernière philosophie de Husserl et la dernière philosophie de Wittgenstein ; lors d’une seconde étape, il s’agit de reconsidérer une lecture ricœurienne de la théorie générale de la référence de Goodman. Mots-clés: Goodman, Imagination, Langage, Phénoménologie, Philosophie analytique, Référence, Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Presentation of the Ricoeur's text “Architecture et narrativité,” published in that issue.

L’expression de « greffe de l’herméneutique sur la phénoménologie » utilisée par Ricœur a souvent été reprise pour caractériser la phénoménologie herméneutique ricœurienne ou aborder ces champs de la phénoménologie et de l’herméneutique à partir de l’exemple ricœurien. Or, on peut penser que cette expression a été mal comprise et, partant, a pu conduire à divers malentendus concernant l’approche ricœurienne dans son rapport à la phénoménologie et l’herméneutique. Si le terme de greffe induit et renvoie à une différenciation de deux (...) méthodes et domaines, au sens d’une méthode et d’un domaine qui s’ajouteraient et complèteraient une autre méthode et un autre domaine, c’est moins la différence entre phénoménologie et herméneutique qui est engagée que celle entre une origine phénoménologique de l’herméneutique ricœurienne et le projet d’une anthropologie philosophique. Il est caractéristique que cette visée ne soit pas prise en compte par des critiques se réclamant d’un ancrage et d’une expertise soit en phénoménologie soit en herméneutique, révélant alors certaines limitations dans une approche de la philosophie ricœurienne. (shrink)

While inheriting from Husserl’s phenomenology, Ricoeur aims at determining a philosophical anthropology. Imagination can then be thought as what makes possible a mediation dealing with the disproportion between sensibility and understanding; it can be seen as one of the guiding threads of Ricoeur’s anthropology before becoming a theme or a field of analysis. But if this philosophy of imagination encompasses the issue of image, to the point of making these two terms mostly interchangeable, it too includes a specific philosophy of (...) image, which must be recovered. In this perspective, one could follow a path going from the most general standpoint (the elaboration of a philosophy of image in the wake of a phenomenology of imagination) to the most particular one (the recognition of the image as a symbol, sign or trace) while determining the role of symbolic mediation related to image. (shrink)

Johann Michel’s Homo Interpretans aims at giving an account of the common ground to the question of interpretation, in a general sense covering ordinary as well as scholarly practices and conceptions, and to the question of philosophical anthropology. Important aspects of Ricoeur’s philosophy are also discussed throughout the book. The author’s thesis is that interpretation takes place whenever an understanding of the world is missing, be it on an ordinary way or in a more elaborate relationship to knowledge. This common (...) ground gives rise to an interpretive anthropology which rearticulates the connection between philosophical discourse, the human and social sciences, and hermeneutics. Finally, the universality of homo interpretans is discussed as it relates to this project of reformulating hermeneutics and the difference between the more ordinary, exploratory level of interpretation and the level of interpretations institutionalized in human and social sciences. (shrink)

Résumé Le cinéma peut être considéré comme un exemple particulièrement pertinent et instructif d’un discours et d’une pratique rapportables à chacun des trois grands domaines de l’imagination selon Ricœur – discours, articulation entre un niveau théorique et un niveau pratique, et imaginaire social. Tout en ayant pour objectif de se concentrer sur ce dernier niveau, une approche plus complète des notions de récit filmique et d’imaginaire social en venant de Ricœur requiert de traverser de nouveau les deux autres niveaux. Il (...) est notamment nécessaire de retrouver les termes d’une philosophie ricœurienne de l’imagination dans l’articulation entre mise en intrigue et représentation qui s’opère depuis Temps et récit et une approche ultérieure de la notion de récit filmique. Un rapport critique à l’imaginaire social et politique peut finalement être retrouvé à travers le cinéma. Il s’agit toutefois de comprendre le passage d’un positionnement critique hérité de la tradition philosophique à un mouvement critique interne aux pratiques cinématographiques: tout en prenant en compte la notion de récit, ce mouvement critique peut mettre en avant, de manière nouvelle, la notion d’image, contribuant à sa revalorisation au sein d’une philosophie de l’imagination. La dernière partie de cet article s’intéresse notamment au rapport privilégié entre cinéma et historicité. Mots-clés: Image, imaginaire social, historicité, mise en intrigue, récit filmique, représentation.Cinema can be considered a particularly relevant and instructive example of a discourse and practice that refer back to each of the three great domains of imagination identified by Ricœur—discourse, articulation between a theoretical level and a practical level, and the social imaginary. While the aim of this article is to focus on the third level, a more comprehensive approach to the ideas of cinematic narrative and social imagination, drawn from Ricœur, requires us to go through the other two levels again. It is particularly necessary to find the terms of a Ricœurian philosophy of imagination in the articulation between emplotment and representation, operative since Time and Narrative, and a later approach to the notion of cinematic narrative. A critical relationship to the social and political imaginary can eventually be found through cinema. But, it is a matter of understanding a transition from a critical stance inherited from the philosophical tradition to a critical movement internal to cinematic practices: while taking into account the notion of narrative, this critical movement can bring to the fore, in a new way, the notion of image, contributing to its reappraisal within a philosophy of imagination. The last section of the article is particularly interested in the special relationship between cinema and historicity. Keywords: Image, Social Imagination, Historicity, Emplotment, Cinematic Narrative, Representation. (shrink)

Introduction to Etudes Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies, vol. 7, no. 2.

Introduction to Etudes Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies, vol. 7, no. 2.

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)

L’objectif de cet article est de revenir sur le concept de lecture dans _Temps et récit _de Paul Ricœur, à travers les notions de triple mimèsis et de refiguration, en lien avec un cheminement antérieur concernant la question de l’herméneutique et la tradition phénoménologique. Tout en étant tributaire des développements en herméneutique philosophique depuis Gadamer, la lecture, chez Ricœur, fonctionnerait comme un paradigme permettant de relier les plans de l’interprétation et de la réception constitutifs de l’expérience esthétique. Par-là se jouent (...) des analyses venant complexifier un cadre philosophique initial et rendant possible une extension du paradigme donné à des domaines non-verbaux ou non-linguistiques. Cet article s’articule autour de deux parties. Dans une première partie, il s’agit de préciser le cadre général de l’herméneutique ricœurienne, la réception qui a été faite de _Temps et récit_, et le caractère ouvert du rapport entre refiguration et temporalité. Dans une second... (shrink)

Presentation of the Ricoeur's text "Architecture and Narrativity, published in that issue".

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)