The reconstructive imagination: Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas; on the narrative discourse in modernity

Author(s)

Ernesto Mora Forero

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2014-09-05

Examining board members

Leopoldo Garcia Pinto Waizbort; Hélio Salles Gentil; Alexandre Braga Massella; Alessandro Pinzani; Luiz Sergio Repa

• Advisor: Leopoldo Garcia Pinto Waizbort

Abstract

This research is a comparative study between the work of Paul Ricoeur and that of Jürgen Habermas, in its general approach to the theories of action and discourse, and, in particular, in relation to the place and function that narrative discourse plays in them. In this sense, the research examines several core concepts and theses of two of the central paradigms which Ricoeur and Habermas developed, namely, the theory of narration and the theory of communication, to raise some hypotheses regarding the status and social scope of the narrative discourse in modernity. The main hypotheses guiding the study is as follows: there is a constitutive relation between narrative discourse and social imagination through which narration plays a fundamental role in the communicative rationalization of modern societies. Such fundamental role is embodied in a human competition of a discursive kind and of universal approach which is capable of imaginatively reconstructing the way in which our world of life differentiates itself in its reasons, its symbolic spheres, and the attempts, however successful or calamitous, in which it regulates, in situations of interaction, its own plurality (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/12137-2 - Mimesis and interaction: toward a narrative and action theory
• Grantee: Ernesto Mora Forero
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate