Literatura y Autocomprensión en Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

Paul Ricoeur's philosophy offers a way to self-understanding through literature. This self-understanding points towards a self identity that can be understood in two fashions: as sameness (from idem, which rather tends to equivalence) or as ipseity or selfhood (from ipse, which requires reflexivity). Here are observed the models of the person's permanence in time, such as character -the what of the who- and fidelity to oneself. The temporal existence of man finds its sense when coordinated as narration, and narration makes sense thanks to its reference to temporal experience. Text's mediator function, that is, the discourse fixed by writing, is highly important to self-understanding because the text works as mediation between the man and the world (reference), as mediation between a man and other man (dialogue) and as mediation between the man and him or herself (reflexion).