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The world of action and testimony are the conditions for the production of transcribed documents that find their way into our archives, as part of the “work of remembering”. Ricoeur delineates three phases of this process, culminating in the representative function of the Historical text. The created text is, then, subjected to peer-criticism and comment and must be defended on many levels, including that of the sources reaching back beyond archives, i.e. to the world of action and testimony. The historians representation is the result of the “work of remembering”, that is part of our human being-in-the-world or our human existence, which Ricoeur defines in terms of our effort to exist and desire to be. For Ricoeur, then, this representation is situated in a context of interpretation, but it is not clear whether this context is dialectical, i.e. subject to the conflict of interpretations. There is an attempt to link the term of “representation” to rhetoric and its intent to “persuade” rather than the more obvious strategy of connecting the historical narrative to the evidence of action and testimony.
The historical narrative is constituted by very different principles to those which constitute fictional narratives. The “work of remembering” is not the major task of fictional narratives. The latter form of narrative is rather constituted by a work of imagination, in a context of emotion and feelings of pleasure and pain. Ricoeur, in the context of this discussion refers to the “image of absence” as a common denominator linking the historical to the fictional narrative, at the same time acknowledging the aporetic problem of “entanglement”(P.238), but he does not subscribe to the above “rational” appeal to “faculties” or “powers” of the mind. Hylomorphic accounts would regard such faculties and powers in terms of material/efficient conditions.
Ricoeur discusses the work of Braudel and the Annales School of History and makes the following claim:
“To be sure, no one ignores the fact that before becoming an object of historical knowledge, the event is the object of some narrative.”(P.239)
There are strong arguments for this position, but it can disguise the importance of focussing upon action and testimony that are important components of the events being written about by Historians. Traditionally, action-oriented historical narratives can be associated with “individual-based”, “psychological” “descriptions”. In such descriptions the “work of remembering” focuses upon the singularity of the event, rather than its “conceptualisation” in universal terms. Such a move away from, in particular, the ethical universality of actions and testimony, move the context of discourse from a context of explanation/justification, toward a context of exploration/discovery, where observational knowledge plays a more important role in the discussion of “causation”. The move away from singularity, and towards conceptual universality, is a move that is in line with the political dimension of History: a dimension that is related more to rational ethical concerns, than the more emotional rhetorical concerns connected with fictional narratives. Neither the Aristotelian hylomorphic matrix, nor the Kantian Critical matrix, are referenced in Ricoeur’s discussion. Inserting the fundamentals of action/testimony/event into the above ethically and metaphysically oriented matrices would not, for example necessitate regarding events as singular, unrepeateable and individual entities, but rather conceptualise such entities in practical imperative-related discourse where we attempt to answer the question, “Ought this event to have occurred(whether the event concerned be a peace treaty or a war). By no stretch of the imagination can this form of rational-conceptual history be characterised as “serial-history” (in which the narrative designates a series of “point-like” events). Events, of course, follow upon each other in time, but their relations are more complex, and cannot be captured in a simple matrix of space-time-causation. Narrating, that is, in relation to a field of episodic events, is a very different matter to narrating over a field of forms of life “living” in a complex environment like a “world”, in which action, testimony understanding, judgement, and reason play decisive roles in determining what is happening. Historical narratives are also restricted to a “work of remembering” in contrast to the “working through”(catharsis) that occurs in a fictional “work of imagination”.
Ricoeur points out that we do encounter historical narratives that might seem to be conflicting with each other. The scope of this “field of possibilities” includes clearly false narratives “constructed” by agents, with a specific anti-democratic agendas in powerful institutional positions, as well as narratives that are basically the same, but are “nuanced”, emphasising one aspect of the past at the expense of others. Narratives generally possess a temporal structure with a beginning, a middle, and an end, but it is nevertheless the significant actions/testimony/events which determine how these events are to be conceptualised. Ricoeur refers to what he calls “period-designators” such as “The Renaissance”, and agrees that these cannot be “reduced” to events. This is partly because this designator is a telos of earlier beginnings that relate to the birth of Western Civilisation. This rebirth also refers to the the end of an earlier beginning.
Hylomorphic theory favours regarding the relation between a Principle, and that which it regulates, as the key explanatory/justificatory elements of any deliberation upon the relation of “The Renaissance”, and events such as the intensification of scientific, artistic and political activity. We have previously argued that events “happen” whereas actions seem to belong to a different ontological category of “something that is done for a reason”. One “interpretation” of the concept of “that which happens” is the substantive interpretation that can end in an ontological dualism presented by Sartre in terms of “being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself”. Heidegger’s metaphysical response to such a substantive interpretation (which builds upon an operation of negation) was the formation of the existential principle “Being-in-the-world”, which, if interpreted in terms of Kantian ontology, ranges over both events that happen, events that happen to me, and events or states of affairs that I bring about via my actions. Events that happen when viewed through the perspective of History, or the “work of remembering”, are states of affairs that are best conceptualised in terms of the aim at “facts” or “The Truth”. So, events that happen are remembered not as isolated facts or even as a totality of facts, but rather as states of affairs regulated by maxims, principles, and laws: states of affairs that ought to have happened or ought not to have happened. Clearly the types of maxims, principles and laws take the form of imperatives that are embraced in the spirit of areté(agents doing the right thing in the right way at the right time). Ricouer for obvious reasons would not be happy about either the Heideggerian or Greek positions for the following reasons:
“Shall we say it is life, presumed to have the form of a history that confers the force of truth on this narrative? But life is not a history and only wears this form insofar as we confer it upon it. How, then, can we still claim that we found this form in life, our own life, and, by extension those of others, of institutions, groups, societies, nations?…The result is that it is no longer possible to take refuge in the idea of “universal history as lived”(P.242)
We can see how this way of thinking discourages appeals to Kantian ideas of universal history, and its appeal to a free will and a nature that has endowed man with Reason to regulate that will. The teleological aspect of this account is unmistakeable as is its grounding in the powers man both possesses and uses in the course of a life. For Kant, this teleological account aligns perfectly with Aristotle and is expressed well in his 8th Proposition from “ideas of a Universal History”(Kant’s Political Writings, Ed., Reiss, H, Cambridge, CUP, 1970,):
“The history of the human race as a whole can be regarded as the realisation of a hidden plan of nature to bring about an internally–and for this purpose also externally– perfect political constitution as the only possible state with which all natural capacities of mankind can be developed completely.”(P.50)
In the above quote, Kant is clearly arguing for an important connection of the “work of remembering” with bringing about future states of affairs, i.e. with a “work of expectation” in relation to both the telos of human nature and the resultant political kingdom of ends in which citizens are all treated as ends in themselves. This dimension of teleological argument has largely been lost in modern Philosophies of History. This teleological aspect was, of course, clearly represented in Ancient Greek ideas such as areté and eudaimonia(the good spirited flourishing life). For Kant ,”good-spirited” means “ethical” which, in turn, is very technically defined in terms of a good will regulated by universal law and practical reason. This kind of account is clearly not merely a history of events and states of affairs, but rather a history of agents living in a world of actions and testimony structured by expectations of what ought and what ought not to occur. This, to be clear, is not in accordance with the perspective Ricouer is inviting us to consider, namely a perspective which wishes to situate historical texts in a work of remembering confined by narrow epistemological concerns requiring some form of dialectical “interpretation”. Rational “absolutes” are rejected in favour of the power of the imagination that tie threads of narratives together in some kind of emplotment. In one sense, the focus upon the plot of the narrative, requires a focus, not just on events that happen in the sphere of influence of a “character”, but rather in a matrix of actions and testimony performed in a spirit of areté. Events are located in a spatio-temporal framework that must admit of explanations/justifications in terms of cause-effect and must also be subject to a process of investigation in contexts of exploration /discovery in order to determine material/efficient causality. The switch, however, to the context of explanation/justification requires focus upon actions and testimonies of magnitude issuing from characters, institutions, cities, and nations of significance. Practical metaphysics becomes, then, more important than theoretical metaphysics and its tendency to focus upon God and souls. The idea of representation has to be situated in this practical matrix: such a matrix is not defined by the rules of rhetoric but rather by the principles of politics and the laws of ethics.
Ricoeur leads us through the debate that led to narratives being analysed by structuralist theorists, and points to the importance of distinguishing historical from fictional narratives. “Events”, and not actions, become the fundamental unit lying at the core of the metaphysical heart of History. If we succumb to the temptation of paring away the ethical content of historical statements and judgements, we may well find ourselves speechless in the face of events of magnitude such as Auschwitz etc. Such events will then become opaque, and testimony will disappear as part of the effect of consigning to silence judgments relating to these events. This, of course, is not a typically human response to such events which appear to cry out for ethical and legal judgements, not to mention everyday rhetorical outrage at the lack of respect for humanity and human rights. What such reflections reveal is, firstly, that there are two different meanings of the phrase “work of remembering: one in which the historian “makes history” by the structuring of historical texts in contexts of discovery. Secondly, when the text created is then subject to review and criticism this is also a part of the work of remembering that situates itself squarely in contexts of explanation/justification.
Ricoeur takes up the interesting relation that exists between the representation of power and the power of representation. Power can be animated by an image of the absolute which, for example, attached to monarchs who were deemed to embody some form of “divine right”. This, argues, Ricoeur, is reminiscent of the eucharistic imaginative exercise connected to the presence-absence of Christ’s body that is somehow manifested in the ceremonial presence of bread. Ricoeur refers to this as the “eucharistic motif”(P.264). This kind of discourse is embedded in a rhetoric of praise, which is, in turn, a manifestation of the power of the imagination in relation to the representation of power. History is one academic attempt to neutralise the power of the imagination in favour of the more “objective” powers of understanding and reason. The representation of power thus becomes sublimated to the representation of justice, thus signifying a move towards the truth and the knowledge required to, for example, pass laws. In this shift there is a transition from “right obeying might” to the democratic ideal of “might obeying right” which places freedom, equality and human rights at the centre of political discourse. The role of the imagination is then characterised as an “arrogant force”(P.269) that encourages a negative view of categorical reason but perhaps results in the application of the Ancient Greek/Aristotelian idea of the Golden Mean being used in the search for areté.
From the point of view of view of desire and imagination, man can then be represented as dispossessed of power(P.271). Indeed, one act of representation, the portrait, is an aesthetic object which psychically distances itself from action and testimony, and situates itself far from the madding crowd of world-activity in general. History shifts attention from the aesthetic portrait of the individual manifesting power to the narrative of more abstract entities such as the nation-state and areté. The state, the Greeks assumed, ought to be free and self determined. It is a social manifestation of the ethical soul writ large–in contemporary terms what we are confronting here is the democratic soul of a people.
The ethical principle of “Promises ought to be kept” lies at the heart of our practical understanding and reasoning. The fact that “promises are not kept”, and result in a betrayal of our trust, is an event in the imagination, and does not affect the rational idea of what nevertheless ought to have occurred. The Principle “Promises ought to be kept” is, of course, a representation of how things ought to be in a context of explanation/justification, and not an invitation to embark upon an investigation in a context of exploration/discovery. Non-historical narratives describe “what is actually happening” in the hypothetical context of fiction. Such narratives can also be conceptualised “ethically”. The intention of an author might, for example, be to show what happens if promises are not kept. Perhaps historical narratives also have the function of “showing” what happens in circumstances where the “promises” are of magnitude, e.g. important treaties..
Ranke claimed(P.279) that History should not judge, but only “show” events–a kind of “picture theory” of Historical meaning that might be relevant in a context of exploration/discovery, but is only a necessary condition of judgements belonging in contexts of explanation/justification. Ricoeur ends his account by admitting that epistemological accounts of historical events has limitations, and perhaps the wider question to raise here concerns the ontology of historical being which is also a question about time: a question about the nature of the past.