“The past is a cemetery of promises which havenot been kept.”Paul Ricoeur Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was a French philosopher who contributed to combining phenomenological descriptions of human reality with hermeneutic interpretations. The way I experience something and the way I make sense of it influence each other and are interwoven into one whole. This thinking … Continue reading A Thought on History and Identity
Thoughts on Embodied Understanding and Carnal Hermeneutics
When things are in your mind, are they also in your body? If yes, is your body anything more than a physical container for your mind? If not, how can there be things like painful memories, hurtful words or wounds of history? Western traditions of thought have a long history of contrasting mind and body. … Continue reading Thoughts on Embodied Understanding and Carnal Hermeneutics
Paul Ricoeur on Narrative Identity
In a passage from Paul Ricoeur's 1991 essay Narrative Identity, the French philosopher discusses the narrative constitution of identity, be it personal or community. In this passage, he proposes the idea of narrative identity as a fundamental experience that integrates history and fiction into one type of narrative - that which is concerned with interpreting … Continue reading Paul Ricoeur on Narrative Identity
Life in Search of Narrative
The 20th-century French philosopher Paul Ricoeur wrote in his 1991 essay Life in Quest of Narrative that life is "an activity and passion in search of a narrative". Indeed, it is hard to overstate how important the stories are to us, human beings. Narrative is a medium through which we make sense, interpret, understand, identify, … Continue reading Life in Search of Narrative
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