Utopia: the political aesthetics of Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reveal the relevance of aesthetics in the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, with particular respect to the concept of utopia as presented in the Lectures published in 1986. Utopia is relevant to aesthetics at three levels. First, utopia is a literary genre and as such it shares with the artistic sphere some formal and content-related criteria. Second, utopia is an imaginative variation of reality, therefore it shares with fiction some transformative power with respect to ordinary experience. As works of fiction, utopias are always historical, singular, and creative, therefore resist sociological reduction. Third, Saint-Simon and especially Fourier's utopias put aesthetic life at the core of their reformation project, which allows Ricoeur to emphasize the role of passions in the good life. In Ricoeur's account, utopia, for its cognitive, ethical, political, and aesthetic aspects, results in an ambivalent construct that counters the modern tendence to separate and oppose science and art.

Keywords

Fiction / Imagination / Passions / Phenomenology / Utopia

References

[1] Augé M.(1995). Non-Places. An Introduction to Supermodernity. Translated by Howe J.. New York & London: Verso.

[2] Bacon F.(1974). “New Atlantis.”The Advancement of Learning. Oxford: Clarendon.

[3] Bloch E.(2000). The Spirit of Utopia. Translated by Nassar A. A.. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

[4] Di Stefano E.(2018). Che cos'è l'estetica quotidiana. Roma: Carocci.

[5] Dosse F.(1992). Histoire du Structuralisme II - le chant du cygne,1967 à nos jours. Paris: La Découverte.

[6] Einsohn H. I.(1995). "Ideology, Utopia, and Faith: Shaw, Ricoeur, and the Passion for the Possible. " Shaw, vol.15: 105-121.

[7] Eurich N.(1967). Science in Utopia. A Mighty Design. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

[8] Gregory D.(1978). Ideology, Science, and Human Geography. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

[9] Haapala A. 1999). and von Bonsdorff, P.(eds.)(Aesthetics in the Human Environment. Helsinki: Taiteiden tutkimuksen‐laitos.

[10] Hsiung H.(2021). "From Harmony to eHarmony: Charles Fourier, Social Science, and the Management of Love. " Isis112(4):787-794.

[11] Kant (2002). Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Pluhar, W. S.. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett,2002.

[12] Kearney R.(1988). "Paul Ricoeur and the hermeneutic imagination. " Philosophy & Social Criticism, 14(2):115-145.

[13] Lucas P.(2018). "Bacon's New Atlantis and the Fictional Origins of Organised Science. " Open Cultural Studies,2:114-121.

[14] Marcuse H.(1955). Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press.

[15] Martinengo A.(2016). Filosofie della metafora. Milano: Guerini & Associati.

[16] McWilliams N.(1993). Dreams of Happiness (Social Art and the French Left,1830-1850). Princeton: Princeton Univer‐sity Press.

[17] Michel J.(2004). "Paul Ricoeur's Paradoxical Modernism. " Archives de Philosophie, 67(4),:643-657.

[18] Pellauer D.(2014). "Ricoeur's Own Linguistic Turn. " Etudes Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies, 5(1):115-124.

[19] Ricoeur P.(1986). From Text to Action:Essays in Hermeneutics II. Translated by Blamey K. and Thompson J. B.. Evan‐ston: Northwestern University Press.

[20] Ricoeur P.(1976). "Ideology and Utopia as Cultural Imagination. " Philosophic Exchange, 7(1):17-28.

[21] Ricoeur P.(1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[22] Ricoeur P., Taylor G.(ed.)(1986). Lectures on Ideology and Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press.

[23] Ricoeur P., Taylor G., Sweeney R. Amalric J. -L. & Crosby P.(eds.)(2023). Lectures on Imagination. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

[24] Saito Y.(2007). Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[25] Sarcinelli F.(2013). "L'ontologia del non-ancora in Paul Ricœur e Ernst Bloch. " Lo Sguardo - Rivista di Filosofia, 12(2):179-193.

[26] Savage R.(2021). Paul Ricoeur's Philosophical Anthropology as Hermeneutics of Liberation. Abingdon: Routledge.

[27] Seamon D.(2005). "Goethe's Way to Science as a Phenomenology of Nature. " Janus Head, 8(1):86-101.

[28] Sweeney R. D.(2010). "Arts, language and hermeneutical aesthetics: Interview with Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005). ”Phi‐losophy and Social Criticism, 36(8):935-951.

[29] Taylor G.(2015). "The Phenomenological Contributions of Ricoeur's Philosophy of Imagination. " Social Imaginaries, 1(2):13-31.

[30] Vercellone F. and Tedesco S.(eds.)(2020). Glossary of Morphology. Cham: Springer.

[31] Weichert K.(2019). "The Role of Image and Imagination in Paul Ricoeur's Metaphor Theory." Eidos. A journal for Phi‐losophy of Culture, 1(7):64-77.