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Ricoeur believes that the science of linguistics is deductively structured, and he is, moreover, prepared to use it as a model to analyse the language-forms of a plethora of narrative types which he otherwise claims is so varied that it would be an impossible task for induction to arrive at any explanatory results. He quotes Saussure and his distinction between the code of language, which is systematic, and the message of language, which is diachronically historical. The limitation of such an approach is, of course, that the sentence is the primary object of analysis, and larger units such as “texts” are composed of the “atoms” of these sentences and subjected to a structural analysis.
Ricoeur quotes Roland Barthes on the topic of the so-called organic whole of the literary text, but this account relies on a transactional relation between a sender and a hearer which materialises the “message” to such an extent, that it is no longer recognised to be something that is “understood”. Ricoeur also, in the context of this discussion, recommends detaching nomological considerations from contexts of understanding, on the grounds that there is no identity relation existing between them.
The strategy of Saussure’s linguistic theory is to some extent shared by Ricoeur, and involves the marginalisation of diachronical historical concerns, in favour of a synchrony of structure, but this in this turn involves a failure to acknowledge the extent to which History, in fact, favours synchrony of structure. On such an account of History, historical diachrony is explained, justified and understood in terms of operative principles and laws. Ricoeur, in the course of this discussion, suddenly sees the need for some kind of rational structure and invokes the “atomistic” science of linguistics, rather than the more molecular approach we find in historical reasoning.
Structuralism also has a tendency to invoke abstractions which are ethically neutral, e.g. “functions” which are means-ends variables, that tend to divide the whole significance of action into “action segments” manifesting different instrumental concerns. Ricoeur refers to Propp’s “Morphology of the Folk-Tale”:
“Propp’s morphology is essentially characterised by the primacy it gives to functions over characters. By a “function” he means segments of action, or more exactly, abstract forms of action such as abstention, interdiction, violation, reconnaisance, delivery, trickery, and complicity.”(P.33)
The actions listed, are actions that are attributable to an agent or character, and it is clear that Propp is attempting to transfigure an essentially cultural object, into a scientific object(P.38) The science of preference that is invoked by Ricoeur, in support of this position, is Sociology, and it is then suggested with reference to the work of Claude Brenaud(Logique du récit), that characters ought to be transformed into roles, and a list or principal narrative roles should be drawn up(P.40) It is then suggested that roles ought to be inserted into a ” field of evaluations”(P.41). Ricoeur then claims, paradoxically:
“a logic of possible narrative acts is still only a logic of action”(P.43)
It is the task of the plot, it is argued, to transform action into narrative. What is missing from this account, however, is the extent to which the principles that are operating in the process of plot-construction, are essence-specifying(ethically speaking) with a teleological emphasis that prioritises ends, and the power the end has of conferring meaning on the beginning and middle segments of the narrative. The reader is led from the beginning to the end of the narrative, and they are encouraged to think in a context of exploration/discovery. The creator’s perspective, however, is embedded in a context of explanation/justification which begins at the level of the essence-specifying principles and the teleological “end” of the narrative.
Seeking for rationality via an exercise of dialectical logic that attempts to synthesise two activities abstracted from very different kinds of context, is not a useful exercise seen from the context of explanation/justification. Both hylomorphic and critical Philosophy, see a fundamental logical difference between propositions referring to activities and these logically distinguishable types of context. Principles regulating an inductive exploration on the part of the audience and principles regulating the creation of the narrative, however, can be shared, on the condition that ,the context of explanation/justification is primary: but this is clearly not the position Ricoeur occupies.
Todorof does not speak of principles, but of ” a synthesis of the roles of a plot”(The Grammar of Narrative) and Ricoeur criticises this position thus:
“to know all the roles–is not yet to know any plot whatsoever.”(P.43)
Mink is also referred to, and he takes us further up the ladder of rationalist abstraction with talk of an “act of judgement”, which, it is claimed, relates to the praxis of narrative. Ricoeur neutralises the rationalist implications of this appeal, by claiming that this act of judgement has little to do with what he characterises as the “logic of the narrative”.
St Augustine’s view of time is preferred to that of Aristotle’s, perhaps because of the metaphysical implications of the Aristotelian account, and perhaps also because of a prior commitment to Structuralism, which lies behind the doubt about the relation between the logic or rationality of the narrative and our understanding of narrative. Add to this the wish to locate this debate in the transactional circumstances of sender and receiver, and we have marginalised the context of explanation/justification, in favour of the context of exploration/discovery. Of course, it is always an empirical possibility that the receiver of a message will not understand the intent of the message(e.g. that X was an evil tyrant). The creator of the message, however, assumes that the message is sufficiently universal to reasonably expect that the message will be understood as intended.
Ricoeur’s transactional commitment rests partly upon an interest in Danto’s theory of action and narrative sentences:
“This structure of sentences that describe action has been the object of much detailed work in analytic Philosophy……One noteworthy characteristic of these sentences is that they involve an open-ended structure running from “Socrates says….” to “Brutus killed Caesar on the Ides of March in the Roman Senate with a knife….” It is this semantics of action that, in fact, is presupposed in the theory of the narrative sentence.”(P.57)
This reliance on the intentional logic of the analytical Philosopher, for whom the world is essentially a totality of facts, and scientific investigation proceeds principally in the context of exploration/discovery is, to say the least, surprising. Given the commitments to Husserl and Heidegger, reference to an essentially descriptive position embedded in a methodologically oriented science in which variables are manipulated and measured in accordance with hypotheticals, is problematic, given that narrative is essentially and imperative-driven enterprise. Action-sentences that are open-ended(without clear intent?), are sentences that do not belong within the domain of the tribunal of explanation/justification. Very General Open-sentences are by definition strategically ambiguous, and subject to a logic of probability, which most creators of narratives would seek to avoid. The ethical imperative that is operative in narrative works, is not hypothetical or instrumental, but rather, subject to a necessity that must be categorical in nature. The ethical message must be universal and necessary, and not subject to strategic ambiguity.
It is true that the creator of a work of art must also produce a unique object, but this does not involve introducing ambiguity into the ethical message, by varying the essential nature of the message. The uniqueness condition in such circumstances has more to do with varying the way in which the message is presented. If one chooses to invert the ethical image and “per impossibile”, in Aristotles terms, “aim at the Bad”, rather than the Good, the result might well be shocking and raise questions as to whether one is any longer dealing with a “work” of Art.