Finitude and Meaning: Understanding History with Ricœur and Patočka
The question of history lies at the very core of the phenomenological project. This volume seeks to unfold and clarify its multiple dimensions through a sustained engagement with the works of Paul Ricœur and Jan Patočka. The studies gathered here adopt a distinctive interpretative approach: they examine themes that, while rooted in one of these two phenomenologists, open onto a deeper reconsideration of the other’s conception of history. In this way, each perspective sheds light on the other, creating a dynamic field of resonance structured by the fundamental link between finitude and meaning. Bringing together internationally recognized scholars, the volume critically revisits key texts and central ideas in the thought of Ricœur and Patočka, while highlighting the continuing relevance of their philosophies of history.
Contributors: Jeffrey Andrew Barash, Renauld Barbaras, Esteban Lythgoe, Chiara Pesaresi, Roger W. H. Savage, Claude Vishnu Spaak, Ovidiu Stanciu, Roberto Terzi.
Table of Contents
Paul Marinescu, Ovidiu Stanciu – Introduction [OPEN ACCESS]
I. The Historical Past: Memory, Truth, and Finitude
Jeffrey Andrew Barash – The Past as Reality and as Fiction: Reflections on Paul Ricœur’s Theory of History
Roger W. H. Savage – Duty of Memory, Imperative of Justice: Paul Ricœur, Critical Philosophy of History, and the Hermeneutics of Historical Consciousness
Esteban Lythgoe – Is Ricœur’s “Blocked Memory” Another Limit to the Aporias of Time?
II. The Historical Condition and the Question of the World
Roberto Terzi – History of Existence, History of the World: On an Oscillation in Patočka’s Philosophy of History
Chiara Pesaresi – Phenomenological Figures of Non-sense: Reflections on Chaos and History
Claude Vishnu Spaak – From the Origins of the World to Mankind: Reflections on Patočka’s Philosophy of History
Ovidiu Stanciu – The Truth of the Myth and the Movement of History
Epilogue
Renaud Barbaras – The Heroism of Philosophy in the World
About the Editors
Paul Marinescu is a researcher at the Institute for Philosophy “Alexandru Dragomir.” He has co-edited journal issues and volumes devoted to phenomenological approaches to history, violence, and testimony, with a particular focus on Paul Ricœur.
Ovidiu Stanciu is a researcher at ICUB (University of Bucharest) and lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic Institute of Paris. He has co-edited several journal issues and collective volumes dedicated to Jan Patočka, Eugen Fink, and Tran-Duc-Thao.
ISBN: 978-606-697-195-9 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-606-697-196-6 (ebook)
