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We have noted that the key characters involved in Ricoeur’s plotting of the History of theories about Time are Augustine, Hegel, Husserl, and some analytical Philosophers. There are a number of “interpretations” of the work of Heidegger and Kant, but these are mostly made on the condition that the works are viewed through the prism of a particular view of consciousness and a particular view of language. Augustine, as we have seen, was preferred over Aristotle, and Hegel is preferred over Kant. Perhaps it is also a reasonable hypothesis to presume that Phenomenology and Hermeneutics are the preferred approaches to all aporetic questions raised in relation to Meaning, including those raised by the work of the later Wittgenstein.
Ricoeur has rejected Aristotelian and Kantian answers to the question “What is Time?”, and instead proposed a notion of time that is created by narrative, via a process of the “reconfiguration” of time. The Augustinian view of time played a central role in Ricoeur’s account, as does phenomenological investigation into the realm of our experience of time. Phenomenology shares the stage with a hermeneutical account of myth and the metaphorical function of language used in relation to time. This latter move, follows from a move Ricoeur makes in relation to his conviction that time is unrepresentable. This conclusion, in turn, appears to follow from the claim that there is a significant breach or philosophical incompatibility of the accounts of phenomenological time in comparison with the account of cosmological time that we find in both Aristotle and Kant.(P.244). Augustine’s rejection of cosmological accounts of time in favour of “the time of a mind that distends itself”(P.244), is an obvious reason for the above conclusion. Ricoeur, in the context of this discussion, incorrectly in our view, notes:
“time according to Kant immediately has all the features of cosmological time, inasmuch as it is the presupposition of every empirical change. Hence it is a structure of nature which includes the empirical egos of each and everyone of us”(P.244)
Ricoeur also notes that the “rational psychology” of Kant is incompatible with phenomenological investigations(the reduction and bracketing of “experience”). Presumably by “rational psychology”, Ricoeur means the method of charting the nature and relation of the powers of understanding and reason in organising our sensible relations to reality( the power of sensibility and its a priori intuitions of space and time). For Kant, the powers of sensibility, understanding and reason are integrated in general, but also particularly in relation to the complex activity of the creation and appreciation of a narrative. Also, as we pointed out in a previous essay of this review, the “before and after” structure of our understanding of narratives(fictional and historical) are the same as the “before and after” structure of our perception of change in the physical world(a boat sailing downstream). In the case of the radiator that warms the room and the boat sailing downstream, it would not make sense in a narrative to claim that the room warmed the radiator or the boat was further upstream as a consequence of its journey downstream. Time, causality, the principle of noncontradiction and the principle of sufficient reason, all hang together in these two constellations of change, thus illustrating the way in which the powers of sensibility, categories of understanding and principles of reason are integrated in the mind-as-a-whole.
Ricoeur refers to the mimetic character of the narrative in relation to his proposal of the invention of a “third form” of time”, which apparently results from the “fracture” of what could he called “world-time”. This third form of time, is dialectically arrived at via the interweaving of the reconfigurations we encounter in fictional and historical narratives powered by an imagination that seems to give sensibility greater influence in our experience(at the expense of the intellectual powers we rational animals possess).
Ricoeur points out that the question of “Who one is”, requires a story in response, and this story, in turn, presupposes an enduring entity, persisting through a process of change. This is an interesting shift of attention from the Aristotelian/Kantian categorical question “What is a human being?” The shift, it must be noted, is a shift from the universality of the conceptual realm to the existence of individuals in the realm of the particular. The question “Who?” must be answered by referring to a particular individual. This shift from the logical realm of general universal truth to the realm of particular truth is a shift from essence-specifying truths, to the particular issue of the identity of a particular human being. This shift is a relatively modern affair, possibly instituted by the reflections of John Locke, who argued that the powers of consciousness and memory, are what account for why an individual believes they remain the same individual over time. There is, of course, no doubt that at least insofar as fictional narrative is concerned, the identity of the individual over the time and event-span of the narrative, defines that identity completely, and gives a sufficient answer to the question “Who is this(character)?” If we are dealing with a tragic narrative, the characters irrationality and lack of understanding of what is happening around him, may well define him/her as a tragic figure, but it is nevertheless the case that the categories of understanding and principles of reason form the categorical reference-grid for judgements about this character’s character.
Ricoeur discusses the psychoanalytic process and its striving for the good of a cure in relation to the question “Who am I?”. The process of “working through” will certainly involve firstly, the memory and the imagination, and secondly, the attempt in the working-through process to insure that each of these powers integrate more fully into the functioning of the mind-as-a-whole. Involved in this process, may be an attempt to transform a tragic traumatic experience created by fight-flight functions of the more primitive nervous-systems of the brain into normal memories devoid of affect and fantasy.
Ricoeur discusses the identity of the Jewish people and their traumas in fight-flight context, but fails to acknowledge the role of ethical justice in their evolving History. Most of the narrative of the Bible relating to the Jewish people, refers to the theme of ethical justice rather than the identity of the Jewish race in exile, searching for the promised land. Ricoeur does however admit the following:
“So narrative identity is not equivalent to true self-constancy, except through this decisive moment, which makes ethical responsibility the highest fact in self-constancy.”(P.249)
Moses’ rejection of the images of animal gods, marked an iconoclastic moment of the journey of the Jews toward the promised land, and this viewed in one way, may suggest the advent or coming of another particular prophet with a closer relation to God: with an agenda relating not to a promised land, but a better way of life (not just for a particular people but for all mankind(the brotherhood of man)). This could only be achieved by a reliance on religious principles that condensed down into two commandments, Love God above all, and Love thy Neighbour. The Old and the New Testament then, marked an advance in religious thinking toward the Greek ideal of eudaimonia(the good spirited flourishing life) whilst retaining the ideal of ethical justice(areté). The message of the new testament is, of course, the subject matter for hermeneutic attempts to interpret the new testament texts These texts, however, are not ambiguous myths but more like historical documents created ,for example, by the writings of the apostles. There can be no created plot or refiguring of time in accordance with such a plot. References to the “son of God” and various “miracles” may be the residue of the mythical tradition of story-telling using the device of “Metaphor”. Ricoeur believes, paradoxically:
“Still it belongs to the reader, now an agent, an initiator of action, to choose among the multiple proposals of ethical justice brought forth by reading.”(P.249)
The background to this is, of course, the Augustinian arguments for the fragmentation of time into the presence of the past, the presence of the present and the presence of the future, conceived of as “present”, and the consequent phenomenological attempt to glue the parts together via a “threefold present”(P.250). Kant, we know, refused to countenance such a fragmentation of the sensible function of Time by claiming that:
“Different times are but parts of one and the same time”(A31, B47)
The protentions and retentions attached to a “living present” are, of course, phenomenological attempts to unite the Augustinian fragments under the guise of a “phenomenological reduction” or “phenomenological bracketing”, attempts which do not engage with Heideggers perspective of “Being-as-a-whole”. “Being-as-a-whole” refers, in turn, to both Care, and a “being-towards-death”, which Heidegger emphasised as part of his attempt to move away from the present as the primary temporal orientation of Dasein. For Heidegger, the future was the primary concern of the human being. The above Husserlian phenomenological aspects also fail to engage with the “infinity of time” and thus make possible myths and narratives that assume mythical absolute beginnings (creation myths)and mythical absolute ends(the Hegelian Absolute).
The narrative identity of a person or a character could never answer the Kantian anthropological question “What is a human being?”, in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason and/or the categories of understanding. This question is not in search of particular truths, but rather essence-specifying definitions or characterisations. We know the Aristotelian answer to this question is “rational animal capable of discourse”, and we also know that memory, for example, is a necessary condition of the unity of apperception of Kant’s account–a unity characterised in terms of “I think” rather than “I am conscious”. The thinking process conceived of in this case, unites representations in a manifold. The “I think”, for Kant, unites the sensible and intellectual aspects of our minds: apriori intuitions and categories of the concepts formed by our understanding are related in truth-making judgements or value-judgements(judgements guided by the principle or form of “The Good”). These judgements, in turn, can be combined to form arguments for knowledge-claims or value-claims, in accordance with the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. In the case of value-judgements, we also encounter the establishment of limits for both understanding and reason which cannot, it is claimed, fathom the depths of the issue of the origin of evil. A similar limit appears also to apply to the conception of the summum bonum, and the conceiving of the idea of the “holy will”. These Kantian limits of representational thinking are also encountered at the other end of the spectrum of the mind, namely the representations connected with space, time and matter. These limits follow from the fact that we are finite beings-in-the-world unable to “think” the infinite in accordance with the principles of reason. Being finite beings, we are therefore placed “in” space and “in” time as witnesses of motion and change, and this finitude explains or justifies the fact that we must then conceive of beginnings and ends in terms of “principles” or laws. We are not Gods, and this, for Aristotle, explained why we needed to live in communities “with” each other in the space of hope and lamentation, sharing only one aspect of God’s thinking, namely, rationality. Perhaps it is in discourse or language that we can best realise our potentiality for rational thinking.
Ecclesiastes claims that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. What is being talked about are rational animals capable of discourse. In relation to this discussion, the later Wittgenstein also pointed to certain limits of the human conception of time when he claimed that it does not make sense to say that it is 5 o clock on the sun. Now whilst there may be some truth to the claim that the limits of my language are the limits of my world, this does not warrant jettisoning the intellectual powers of reasoning and understanding that operate in relation to the conditions of human representations of space and time. It is, Kant argues, substance determined by the “principle” of the permanent that constitutes what he refers to as “time in general”. Kant would certainly have rejected any attempts to reduce the above categorical forms of judgement to the protentions and retentions of an internal time-consciousness. The self-constitution of Consciousness, for Kant, would have been explained in terms of the unity of apperception and its role in human thinking.
Ricoeur raises the question of how narrative can refigure Time, if time itself is unrepresentable. The ideas of plot, character, and event are used for fictional reconfigurations, and ideas of quasi-plot, quasi-character, and quasi-event are used for historical reconfigurations of time. These types of reconfiguration are then used by Ricoeur to “explain” or justify” how this mysterious process of “reconfiguration” occurs.
The whole adventure through these three volumes ends with the suggestion that it is the individual’s and community’s search for narrative identity which constitutes the historical form of consciousness: a form of consciousness in which the imagination is the most significant power of the mind and provides us with the most promising avenue of justifying any answer to the aporetic question “What is time?”