O si-mesmo e os outros: um estudo sobre a teoria da identidade narrativa em Paul Ricoeur, sua dimensão ética e seus desdobramentos para os Estudos Culturais

Abstract

This work intends to present and analyze Paul Ricoeur’s theory of narrative identity, discussing its ethical implications and drawing some entailments for the field of Cultural Studies in an interdisciplinary key. What is narrative identity? What can we in fact designate as identity? What is the influence of the Other in each person’s identity? Does it still make sense to talk about narrative identity in Contemporary history? Ricoeur seeks to define, throughout his work, the construction of narrative identity. In Time and Narrative I, drawing upon Augustine’s Confessions and Aristotle’s Poetics, Ricoeur highlights the aporia of time and the theory of mythos as elements for narrative. Time can only be measured when narrated. Therefore, mythos is the configuration of the narrative’s plot. The construction of identity through narrative operates by what Ricoeur calls Mimesis I, II and III. In his Oneself as Another, Ricoeur defines narrative identity as the understanding of self through a dialectic between sameness and ipseity. Ipseity is given through reflection of the self in relation to the Other. Narrative identity is the unfolding of a subject who writes his autobiography, but as Another, resulting in the “little ethics”. The “little ethics” means “aiming at a good life lived with and for others in just institutions”. Through an appropriation of Aristotelian theory, Ricoeur describes the Other as a means to self-esteem through solicitude. Later, some authors related to the Cultural Studies perspective in order to establish some approximations with Ricoeurian theory. Pierre Bourdieu criticizes what he calls the common-sense “biographical illusion”, arguing that not only it is artificial, but also useless as a research tool. Stuart Hall, Kathryn Woodward, and Tomaz Tadeu da Silva, are authors who write about identity in the Contemporary period. According to these authors, there is a fragmentation and multiplicity of identities, so that speaking of a cohesive and continuous identity no longer makes sense. We attempt to answer these objections in light of Ricoeur’s theory of narrative identity. Therefore, social determinations, language and performativity are some of the elements we discuss through this approximation between the Cultural Studies perspectives and the narrative identity theory of Paul Ricoeur.