Name: JULIANA DAS NEVES CORREA MARQUES
Publication date: 28/03/2025
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| JORGE AUGUSTO DA SILVA SANTOS | Presidente |
| MARCELO MARTINS BARREIRA | Examinador Interno |
| NOELI DUTRA ROSSATTO | Examinador Externo |
Summary: This paper investigates Paul Ricoeur’s reading of Book XI of Augustine’s Confessions, as
developed in Temps et Récit. The main objective is to identify elements in Augustine’s work
that support Ricoeur’s thesis that time becomes human as it is narratively structured. To guide
our research, we have formulated some central and general questions that we seek to answer
throughout this investigation, namely: In what way does Augustine attempt to solve the enigma
of time? What elements does Ricoeur find in Book XI that support his thesis that the solution to
the paradoxes of time is narrative? Does Ricoeur ignore the relationship between time and
eternity in his interpretation of Book XI of Confessions? To answer these questions, it is
necessary to reconstruct Augustine’s meditation contained in Book XI of Confessions, in light
of Ricoeur’s reading as presented in Temps et Récit. Augustine suggests a subjective conception
of time, experienced internally in the soul as distentio animi (the distension of the mind). To
reach this conclusion, Augustine reflects on the relationship between time and eternity, the
ontological paradoxes of being and non-being of time, and the measurement of time. He
contrasts the skeptical argument, which denies the existence of time, with everyday language,
which inexplicably suggests that time does indeed exist. It seems that, in examining Augustine’s
meditation on time, Ricoeur perceives that the Christian philosopher, in attempting to explain
time, necessarily resorts to narrative, although without realizing it. Thus, Ricoeur argues that
time only becomes human when it is narrated. For him, time acquires meaning and dimension
through narrative, becoming incomprehensible otherwise: time exists because we narrate it.
