Paul Ricœur et Emmanuel Levinas: vulnérabilité, mémoire et narration: Peut-on raconter la vulnérabilité?

Abstract

In Time and narrative then in Oneself as another Paul Ricœur proposes a philosophy of personal and collective identity, through research on time and narrative. According to these books, emplotment would synthesize and reconcile the temporal discordance, experienced by the selfhood. The subject’s fragmentation by the otherness of time could then define vulnerability. Our aim is to question this triad time-vulnerability-narrative thanks to the opposite positions of Emmanuel Levinas. Unlike Ricœur, Levinas severely criticizes the idea of memory and narrative in order to respect the vulnerability of the other. Yet, the Ricœurian analysis of the responsibility affirms the need for a capable and not dispossessed Self. From this point of view, Ricœur helps us to question the limits set by Levinas to narrative and leads us to wonder if the ethical plot for the vulnerability of others does not need memory and narrative.