A noted philosopher examines the morality behind recognizing specific historical moments while leaving equally important ones unacknowledged.Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A land...

Narrative theory from a philosopher who "writes the best kind of philosophy—critical, economical, and clear" (Eugen Weber, New York Times Book Review).In volume 1 of this three-volume work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing. Now, in volume 2, he examines these relations in fiction and theories of literature.Ricoeur treats the question of just how far the Aristotelian concept of "plot" in narrative fi...

The first volume in the eminent philosopher's three-part examination of time and narrative, exploring their relationship in the context of historical writing.Time and Narrative builds on Paul Ricoeur's earlier analysis, in The Rule of Metaphor, of semantic innovation at the level of the sentence. Ricoeur here examines the creation of meaning at the textual level, with narrative rather than metaphor as the ruling concern.Ricoeur finds a "heal...

In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.Ricoeur's aim here is to explicate as fully as possible the hypothesis that has governed his inquiry, namely, that the effort of thinki...

The essays in this book contain some of Paul Ricoeur's most fascinating ruminations on the nature of justice and the law. His thoughts ranging across a number of topics and engaging the work of thinkers both classical and contemporary, Ricoeur offers a series of important reflections on the juridical and the philosophical concepts of right and the space between moral theory and politics.

An engaging and thought-provoking translation of Paul Ricoeur’s earliest work that is essential for understanding his philosophical developmentThe Reflexive Method Applied to the Problem of God in Lachelier and Lagneau, now held in the Ricoeur Archive in Paris, was a qualifying thesis Ricoeur wrote at the age of twenty-one when he was just beginning his advanced university studies. In it he examines the use of the reflexive method by two important French p...

Poetics, Praxis and Critique: Paul Ricoeur in the Age of Hermeneutical Reason addresses contemporary problems of justice, the recognition of disabled persons, the role of imagination in political judgment, the need for religious hospitality and carnal hermeneutics. The essays in this volume are a testament to the power of hermeneutical reason. Following Paul Ricoeur’s style of philosophizing, they explore innovative solutions to pressing issues of our time. Individually, these essays advan...

When do we interpret? That is the question at the heart of this important new work by Johann Michel. The human being does not spend his time interpreting in everyday life. We interpret when we are confronted with a blurred, confused, problematic sense. Such is the originality of the author's perspective which removes the anthropological interdict that has hampered hermeneutics since Heidegger. Michel proposes an anthropology of homo interpretans as the first and founding principle of funda...

For the last two centuries, Western philosophy has developed in the shadow of Hegel, an influence each new thinker struggles to escape. As a consequence, Hegel's absolute idealism has become the bogeyman of philosophy, obscuring the fact that he is the defining philosopher of the historical transition to modernity, a period with which our own times share startling similarities.Today, as global capitalism comes apart at the seams, we are entering a new period of transition. In Le...

In this dialogue, Alain Badiou shares the clearest, most detailed account to date of his profound indebtedness to Lacanian psychoanalysis. He explains in depth the tools Lacan gave him to navigate the extremes of his other two philosophical "masters," Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. Élisabeth Roudinesco supplements Badiou's experience with her own perspective on the troubled landscape of the French analytic world since Lacan's death—critiquing, for example, the link (or lack thereof)...

For those like myself, who found the politico-philosophical terrorism beginning its reign at the beginning of the 1960s intolerable, analytic philosophy in contrast could not but offer the comforting image of what a democratic philosophical community should be: civilized and tolerant, where all citizens equally must offer arguments and be willing to listen to and discuss possible objections. This sort of community was the last thing we could hope to ask for in the philosophical milieu of t...

A challenging new look at the great thinkers whose ides have shaped our civilizationFrom Socrates to Sartre presents a rousing and readable introduction to the lives, and times of the great philosophers. This thought-provoking book takes us from the inception of Western society in Plato’s Athens to today when the commanding power of Marxism has captured one third of the world. T. Z. Lavine, Elton Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, makes philos...