"La carne de la historia: Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur y los entrelazamientos del sentido histórico"

GARCÍA, ESTEBAN ANDRÉS

Escritos de Filosofía

Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Buenos Aires

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2001 p. 277 - 309

0325-4933

This article examines the notion of a "flesh of history" as it was developed by M. Merleau-Ponty, and intends to enrich its meaning by taking into account the structural parallels found by P. Ricoeur between the historical and fictional narrative. It also traces the phenomenological roots of both Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur´s analysis in Husserl´s thinking on time and history. By following that dialogical method various characters of the "flesh of history" are elucidated. The consideration of history as flesh means the intertwining of several areas: a.) that of objective temporality (or time of the world) and subjective temporality (or time of consciousness) in intersubjective history; b.) that of past determination and future projects -as well as individual action and social movements- in the initiative of the historical present; c.) that of objectivistic explanation and fictional construction in historical narrative; d.) that of a deterministic historical teleology based on reason, and a pure nonsensical or hazardous collection of events, in a weakened form of teleology (Merleau-Ponty) or an imperfect or unfinished mediation (Ricoeur), implying in both cases an ethical demand of truth and freedom inherent to the precariousness of the present.