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Article published In:
Dialogue and Ethics
Edited by Ronald C. Arnett and François Cooren
[Language and Dialogue 7:1] 2017
► pp. 120–133

Owning one’s past

From historical knowledge to moral accountability

| Carnegie Mellon University (USA)

In this paper, I engage with the question of historical interpretation as a form of dialogue that can face an individual conscience with disturbing choices and decisions made at an earlier time, and the expectations we might have about a proper response. My paper draws on Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical ideas, as well as on a controversial part of his biography – his alleged involvement in the Petain circle in France in the early 1940s – to propose that instead of thinking about historical knowledge as reconstruction of another time, revelation of beliefs, or even exposure of intentions, we should consider it as a form of dialogical remembering that marks two joint features of subjectivity: fallibility and attestation. My paper does articulate a defense of Ricoeur’s philosophical conception of forgiveness, but offers neither an apology for nor an accusation on moral and political grounds.

Keywords: dialogue remembering, historical interpretation, Paul Ricoeur, narrative fallibility, narrative attestation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ricoeur: Thoughtful response
  • 3.Ricoeur: Wartime writings
  • References
Published online: 29 June 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.7.1.08rit
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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Errera, Kelly & Sarah M. DeIuliis
2023. Public Memory: The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting. Southern Communication Journal 88:1 ► pp. 53 ff. DOI logo

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