Between Geographical Sameness and Historical Selfhood: Identity of a Historical Community in Paul Ricoeur’s Philosophy

Abstract

The issue of the identity of communities considered in a historical context brings many problems. The question of community identity is one of many challenges facing historians. It is subject to a multi-sided debate between extreme positions that seek a hard core of identity, and those that postulate a nomadic identity or deny it any meaning at all. Concerning the thought of Paul Ricoeur, the article will hypothesize that community identity can be considered between the poles of geographical sameness and historical selfhood, based on the model of demography and the model of collective memory. These models relate to the basic philosophical criteria of identity, and allow historians to refer to the multiplicity of aspects that fall within the geographical and historical criteria. By exploring these aspects in a web of interdependence, historians resemble narrators of a novel, who do not create a predictable plot but consider contradictions, twists, and conflicts. Thus, the work of historians acquires an ethical dimension, which is free from influence on the formation of the identity of the community to which they also belong.