Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005): Werkanalysen

Beyond the concepts of existence, interpretation and practice, Ricœur’s life’s work places a fourth emphasis on historicity as an existential dimension of human life, which proves to be dependent on as rational an interpretation as possible. This is evident in the recourse to human (self-)testimony and to the evidence it attests to, when it relates to the ‘reality’ of the past; and indeed particularly when this reality is contested in collective and cultural memory. This raises not only historiographical but also ‘clinical’ and political problems – extending as far as a reconciliatory forgetting, which should succeed in ‘de-fatalising’ (past) history in the spirit of binding promises, the fulfilment of which remains our responsibility – ‘despite everything’ that might argue against it in view of the violence that has beset our history.

With contributions by
Inga Römer (Freiburg im Breisgau) | Patrick Ebert (Heidelberg) | Alexander Kozin (Sussex) | Tanja Stähler (Sussex) | TimFlorian Steinbach (Wuppertal) | Tereza Matějčková (Prague) | Dimitri Ginev († Sofia) | Walter Schweidler (Eichstätt/Ingolstadt) | Kurt Röttgers (Hagen) | Burkhard Liebsch (Bochum) | Hendrik Stoppel (Heidelberg) | Pascal Delhom (Flensburg) | Annika Schlitte (Greifswald) | Yvanka Raynova (Vienna/Sofia) | Thiemo Breyer (Cologne) | Artur Boelderl (Klagenfurt) | Cathrin Nielsen (Wuppertal)