La memoria tra fragilità, riconoscimento e riconciliazione nella filosofia di Paul Ricoeur

The present work deals with the originality of the concept of remembrance in Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy. At first we’ll show his bond with the authors of the past (most of all Platone, Aristotele, Agostino, Bergson and Freud), then we’ll deepen his concept of remembrance, which is no longer merely a way to know the past and to represent the world, but has an anthropological and ethical value: it’s the way to build our identity. We are not only thinking subjects, fixed in our representations, but we become hommes capables, able to express who we were, are and can be, even by the use of metaphors. Talking about ourselves makes us responsible of others because it’s impossible to tell our personal story without referring to history. For this reason one of the chapter is about the bond between remembrance, trust and betrayal: personal story and history are the results of witnesses which need to be trusted, but every witness can be misunderstood or betrayed. However there is another possibility: a happy remembrance. It happens when we discover the forgiveness that makes us able to overcome the past and opens other possible ways to tell our life. It’s called reconciliation and has ethical and practical implications in the field of justice. This is the matter of our last chapter: justice as the punishment of the guilty can be turned into his reconciliation with himself and others. This is possible if remembrance makes past, present and future work together: we find memories in the past, make promises in the present and promises are the beginning of the future because it means trust others.