1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,299 So in 1962, there was this French geologist, 2 00:00:04,900 --> 00:00:07,360 Michel Cipher, and he did something that, well, 3 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:09,119 honestly, it sounds absolutely terrifying to 4 00:00:09,119 --> 00:00:10,859 most people. Oh, the glacier experiment, right? 5 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,960 Yes, exactly. He literally descended into this 6 00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:18,239 subterranean glacier in the Alps, set up a tiny 7 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,120 little camp in complete pitch black darkness, 8 00:00:21,679 --> 00:00:24,059 and just stayed there for two straight months. 9 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:26,370 Just completely isolated. Completely. I mean, 10 00:00:26,370 --> 00:00:29,030 he had no clock, no calendar, obviously no sunlight. 11 00:00:29,570 --> 00:00:31,829 His entire goal was just to figure out what happens 12 00:00:31,829 --> 00:00:34,350 to the human mind when you completely unplug 13 00:00:34,350 --> 00:00:37,570 it from, you know, the external markers of time. 14 00:00:37,789 --> 00:00:39,149 Right. He was trying to track his internal clock. 15 00:00:39,210 --> 00:00:41,350 Yeah. So he would just call his surface team 16 00:00:41,350 --> 00:00:43,549 on a little radio whenever he woke up or ate 17 00:00:43,549 --> 00:00:46,329 or went to sleep. And here's the crazy part. 18 00:00:46,750 --> 00:00:48,710 When his team finally called down and told him, 19 00:00:48,729 --> 00:00:50,450 hey, the experiment's over. Come on up. It's 20 00:00:50,450 --> 00:00:53,689 September 14th. Cifro was just completely shocked. 21 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:57,000 because his internal clock was way off. Way off. 22 00:00:57,240 --> 00:00:59,859 In his mind, based purely on his own internal 23 00:00:59,859 --> 00:01:02,320 sense of duration, she thought it was only August 24 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:04,900 20th. He had somehow just like mentally lost 25 00:01:04,900 --> 00:01:07,299 nearly a whole month of his life. That's wild. 26 00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:10,040 It really is. Right. His brain's perception of 27 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:12,540 time had just completely decoupled from the actual 28 00:01:12,540 --> 00:01:14,900 physical turning of the Earth. And I mean, that's 29 00:01:14,900 --> 00:01:17,000 one of the most famous isolation experiments 30 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:20,099 ever conducted for a reason, because it perfectly 31 00:01:20,099 --> 00:01:22,599 illustrates the central problem we're tackling 32 00:01:22,599 --> 00:01:25,219 today. Which is that time isn't just one simple 33 00:01:25,219 --> 00:01:27,840 thing. Exactly. Time is not just one thing. You 34 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:30,780 have the time of the universe, right? The relentless 35 00:01:30,780 --> 00:01:33,700 objective ticking of reality that marched right 36 00:01:33,700 --> 00:01:36,540 past Sifri while he was down in that cave. The 37 00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:39,040 actual days going by. Yeah, the literal rotation 38 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:42,219 of the planet. But then you have the time of 39 00:01:42,219 --> 00:01:45,060 the human mind. Which is the subjective totally 40 00:01:45,060 --> 00:01:48,200 elastic and honestly utterly unreliable way that 41 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:50,620 we actually experience our lives it drags It 42 00:01:50,620 --> 00:01:53,579 flies it skips a month in a cave precisely and 43 00:01:53,579 --> 00:01:56,500 bridging that get that huge gap between the ticking 44 00:01:56,500 --> 00:02:00,599 clock and the human mind That's the mission of 45 00:02:00,599 --> 00:02:03,180 this deep dive today because we are taking a 46 00:02:03,180 --> 00:02:06,239 massive journey through Well, one of the most 47 00:02:06,239 --> 00:02:08,699 monumental challenging and I think ultimately 48 00:02:08,699 --> 00:02:11,180 rewarding works of 20th century philosophy. Oh, 49 00:02:11,180 --> 00:02:13,060 absolutely. It's a masterpiece We're talking 50 00:02:13,060 --> 00:02:15,919 about Paul Ricoeur's absolute magnum opus, Time 51 00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:18,939 and Narrative. Now this is a staggering three 52 00:02:18,939 --> 00:02:21,000 -volume work, so we have a huge stack of sources 53 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,539 today. Excerpts spanning volumes one, two, and 54 00:02:24,539 --> 00:02:27,080 three, all translated by Kathleen Blamey and 55 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:29,539 David Pellauer. And it is a dense stack, let 56 00:02:29,539 --> 00:02:31,699 me tell you. It really is. But our goal is to 57 00:02:31,699 --> 00:02:35,069 trace Ricoeur's central, incredibly bold thesis, 58 00:02:35,590 --> 00:02:38,710 which is he argues that time only becomes what 59 00:02:38,710 --> 00:02:42,090 he calls human time when we actively structure 60 00:02:42,090 --> 00:02:44,169 it like a story. Right, when we narrativize it. 61 00:02:44,270 --> 00:02:46,969 Yes. And conversely, a story only actually means 62 00:02:46,969 --> 00:02:49,610 something to us if it captures our fundamental 63 00:02:49,610 --> 00:02:52,389 lived experience of time passing. So we're going 64 00:02:52,389 --> 00:02:54,919 to go volume by volume. Starting with the most 65 00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:57,139 basic mind -bending philosophy of time and going 66 00:02:57,139 --> 00:02:59,379 straight into the actual academic battlegrounds 67 00:02:59,379 --> 00:03:01,080 of how history itself is written. It's quite 68 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,280 the ride. It's this labyrinthine journey Ricoeur 69 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:06,699 takes us on. He essentially, he builds an architectural 70 00:03:06,699 --> 00:03:09,560 bridge between the sheer terrifying chaos of 71 00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:11,919 lived time and the structured reality that we 72 00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:14,539 end up calling history. Wow, terrifying chaos. 73 00:03:14,699 --> 00:03:17,460 I like that. Well, it is. And he builds this 74 00:03:17,460 --> 00:03:19,500 bridge entirely through the mechanics of narrative. 75 00:03:20,099 --> 00:03:23,039 But to appreciate the bridge, we first have to 76 00:03:23,039 --> 00:03:25,000 really understand the chasm that it crosses. 77 00:03:25,180 --> 00:03:27,219 OK, let's unpack this because he doesn't just 78 00:03:27,219 --> 00:03:29,159 start with an easy answer about storytelling, 79 00:03:29,259 --> 00:03:31,840 right? He starts with a paradox. He starts by 80 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:34,000 basically proving that philosophy, completely 81 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,900 on its own, has failed. It has totally failed 82 00:03:36,900 --> 00:03:39,020 to solve the problem of time. I want to start 83 00:03:39,020 --> 00:03:41,879 right there. In the first volume, Ricoeur introduces 84 00:03:41,879 --> 00:03:44,900 this concept that really sets the stage for everything 85 00:03:44,900 --> 00:03:48,259 else. He calls it the aporias of temporality. 86 00:03:49,300 --> 00:03:51,560 Now, for you listening, an aporia from the Greek, 87 00:03:51,879 --> 00:03:54,120 it's essentially a puzzle with no solution, like 88 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:57,080 an impassable path. The dead end. Yeah, a logical 89 00:03:57,080 --> 00:03:59,259 contradiction that you just cannot think your 90 00:03:59,259 --> 00:04:02,139 way out of. And that is the absolute core of 91 00:04:02,139 --> 00:04:05,250 his opening argument. Ricoeur's provocative claim 92 00:04:05,250 --> 00:04:08,490 is that there is absolutely no purely philosophical 93 00:04:08,490 --> 00:04:11,830 approach to time, no phenomenology, no stripped 94 00:04:11,830 --> 00:04:14,189 logical framework that doesn't eventually crash 95 00:04:14,189 --> 00:04:16,889 head -first into an arborea. So he's telling 96 00:04:16,889 --> 00:04:19,490 the reader right out of the gate like, hey, you 97 00:04:19,490 --> 00:04:21,389 can't just think your way out of the problem 98 00:04:21,389 --> 00:04:24,490 of time using abstract philosophy. Exactly. The 99 00:04:24,490 --> 00:04:27,149 tools of logic are just insufficient for the 100 00:04:27,149 --> 00:04:29,889 actual nature of time. Which is a huge statement 101 00:04:29,889 --> 00:04:32,050 for a philosopher to make. Philosophy can't fix 102 00:04:32,050 --> 00:04:35,110 this. It's a massive concession. And to prove 103 00:04:35,110 --> 00:04:38,990 this impossible impasse, he sets up this massive 104 00:04:38,990 --> 00:04:41,970 intellectual collision between two undisputed 105 00:04:41,970 --> 00:04:44,329 giants of Western thought. Heavyweights. Total 106 00:04:44,329 --> 00:04:47,290 heavyweights. He takes St. Augustine, who basically 107 00:04:47,290 --> 00:04:49,689 represents the time of the soul, and he smashes 108 00:04:49,689 --> 00:04:52,149 him right into Aristotle, who represents the 109 00:04:52,149 --> 00:04:53,930 time of the world. OK, let's bring Augustine 110 00:04:53,930 --> 00:04:57,579 into the ring first. Ricoeur dives really deep 111 00:04:57,579 --> 00:05:00,800 into Book 11 of Augustine's Confessions. And 112 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:03,060 Augustine is essentially having this profound 113 00:05:03,060 --> 00:05:06,720 existential crisis about time. He famously writes 114 00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:09,579 something to the effect of, you know, if no one 115 00:05:09,579 --> 00:05:11,759 asks me what time is, I know what it is. But 116 00:05:11,759 --> 00:05:13,740 if I want to explain it to someone who asks me, 117 00:05:13,759 --> 00:05:16,779 I simply do not know. Which is, I mean, that's 118 00:05:16,779 --> 00:05:18,560 incredibly relatable. It's probably the most 119 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:20,160 honest thing a philosopher has ever written. 120 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,699 Right. So how does Augustine actually attempt 121 00:05:22,699 --> 00:05:25,269 to define it? Well, Augustine looks at the physical 122 00:05:25,269 --> 00:05:27,889 world and he realizes he can't actually find 123 00:05:27,889 --> 00:05:30,069 time anywhere in it. Because think about it, 124 00:05:30,490 --> 00:05:33,689 the past, by definition, is gone. It no longer 125 00:05:33,689 --> 00:05:36,129 exists. Right. And the future, by definition, 126 00:05:36,329 --> 00:05:38,509 hasn't happened yet. So it doesn't exist either. 127 00:05:39,269 --> 00:05:41,389 The only thing that technically exists in physical 128 00:05:41,389 --> 00:05:43,970 reality is the present moment. But what is the 129 00:05:43,970 --> 00:05:45,910 present? I mean, it doesn't really have a duration, 130 00:05:46,069 --> 00:05:48,730 does it? Exactly. It has zero duration. It is 131 00:05:48,730 --> 00:05:51,410 just a razor -thin mathematical instant that 132 00:05:51,410 --> 00:05:53,649 immediately vanishes into the past the second 133 00:05:53,649 --> 00:05:56,410 it happens. OK, but if that is true, if the past 134 00:05:56,410 --> 00:05:59,129 is literally gone and the future is just a ghost, 135 00:05:59,670 --> 00:06:02,610 then how do we experience an hour? Or, you know, 136 00:06:02,649 --> 00:06:04,850 going back to Sifri, how did he experience weeks 137 00:06:04,850 --> 00:06:07,250 in that cave? Where does duration actually come 138 00:06:07,250 --> 00:06:09,529 from? And this is Augustine's brilliant conclusion. 139 00:06:09,750 --> 00:06:11,689 He says, duration does not exist in the physical 140 00:06:11,689 --> 00:06:14,709 world at all. It exists entirely within the human 141 00:06:14,709 --> 00:06:17,750 mind. Oh, wow. He calls it the distinto enemy. 142 00:06:18,009 --> 00:06:20,069 which means the distension or the stretching 143 00:06:20,069 --> 00:06:22,990 of the soul. For Augustine, time is completely 144 00:06:22,990 --> 00:06:25,629 psychological. So how does the soul stretch? 145 00:06:25,709 --> 00:06:28,209 What does that mean? He argues that the past 146 00:06:28,209 --> 00:06:30,990 exists within us as memory, the present exists 147 00:06:30,990 --> 00:06:33,689 within us as attention, and the future exists 148 00:06:33,689 --> 00:06:36,689 within us as expectation. Time is simply the 149 00:06:36,689 --> 00:06:39,569 mind stretching itself across these three faculties 150 00:06:39,569 --> 00:06:41,990 to hold reality together. Okay, let's ground 151 00:06:41,990 --> 00:06:45,189 this so we aren't just floating in like abstract 152 00:06:45,189 --> 00:06:48,129 theology. Think about listening to a piece of 153 00:06:48,129 --> 00:06:50,689 music. Let's say you're listening to a live jazz 154 00:06:50,689 --> 00:06:54,029 band, right? You are hearing a specific trumpet 155 00:06:54,029 --> 00:06:57,310 note right in this exact microsecond. That is 156 00:06:57,310 --> 00:07:00,589 your attention. But that single note has absolutely 157 00:07:00,589 --> 00:07:03,149 no musical meaning on its own. None. It's just 158 00:07:03,149 --> 00:07:05,560 a sound. Right. It only becomes a melody because 159 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:07,699 your mind is simultaneously holding onto the 160 00:07:07,699 --> 00:07:09,439 notes that the trumpet player just played 10 161 00:07:09,439 --> 00:07:11,879 seconds ago. And that is your memory. Yes. And 162 00:07:11,879 --> 00:07:14,040 at the same exact time, based on the rhythm and 163 00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:16,620 the key, your brain is actively anticipating 164 00:07:16,620 --> 00:07:19,160 the note the player is about to hit next. Yeah. 165 00:07:19,319 --> 00:07:22,220 Which is your expectation. So your mind is physically, 166 00:07:22,639 --> 00:07:24,480 or I guess psychologically, stretching in both 167 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:26,879 directions to make the song actually exist as 168 00:07:26,879 --> 00:07:29,910 a song. If you somehow lost your memory and your 169 00:07:29,910 --> 00:07:32,230 expectation, you wouldn't hear music. You'd just 170 00:07:32,230 --> 00:07:35,610 hear a sequence of isolated, meaningless bursts 171 00:07:35,610 --> 00:07:39,250 of noise. That analogy perfectly captures Augustine's 172 00:07:39,250 --> 00:07:42,629 distensio animi. Without the mind there to measure 173 00:07:42,629 --> 00:07:45,149 it, to actively hold the pieces together through 174 00:07:45,149 --> 00:07:49,050 memory and expectation, time is nothing. It is 175 00:07:49,050 --> 00:07:51,889 a completely internal phenomenon. It's beautiful, 176 00:07:52,069 --> 00:07:54,569 honestly. It is beautiful, but... Here's where 177 00:07:54,569 --> 00:07:57,589 Ricoeur steps in he points out a massive fatal 178 00:07:57,589 --> 00:08:00,709 blind spot in this brilliant theory Psychological 179 00:08:00,709 --> 00:08:02,930 time is a beautiful explanation for human experience 180 00:08:02,930 --> 00:08:05,430 But it completely falls apart the second you 181 00:08:05,430 --> 00:08:07,350 look up at the night sky because the universe 182 00:08:07,350 --> 00:08:09,930 is out there, right? And to expose that blind 183 00:08:09,930 --> 00:08:12,529 spot, Ricoeur brings in Aristotle. Right, because 184 00:08:12,529 --> 00:08:14,829 if time is only in my head, how do we explain 185 00:08:14,829 --> 00:08:17,050 the fact that the universe was churning along 186 00:08:17,050 --> 00:08:19,589 for literally billions of years before a human 187 00:08:19,589 --> 00:08:22,189 brain ever evolved to remember or expect anything? 188 00:08:22,509 --> 00:08:26,050 Precisely the issue. So, Ricoeur jumps from Augustine's 189 00:08:26,050 --> 00:08:29,529 introspective confessional theology to Aristotle's 190 00:08:29,529 --> 00:08:32,809 highly objective physical framework. Specifically, 191 00:08:33,190 --> 00:08:35,769 book four of Aristotle's physics. Okay, so Aristotle 192 00:08:35,769 --> 00:08:38,580 isn't looking inward. Not at all. Aristotle doesn't 193 00:08:38,580 --> 00:08:41,320 look inward to find time. He looks outward at 194 00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:44,899 the cosmos. For Aristotle, time is inextricably 195 00:08:44,899 --> 00:08:47,220 linked to movement and change in the physical 196 00:08:47,220 --> 00:08:49,740 universe. And Aristotle's famous definition, 197 00:08:49,940 --> 00:08:53,000 right? He says time is the number of motion in 198 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,340 respect of before and after. Yeah, it is a very 199 00:08:56,340 --> 00:08:58,679 clinical mathematical definition. Aristotle argues 200 00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:01,220 that time surrounds us. It envelops us and it 201 00:09:01,220 --> 00:09:03,299 dominates us, regardless of whether a human mind 202 00:09:03,299 --> 00:09:05,460 is present to witness it or not. So it's totally 203 00:09:05,460 --> 00:09:08,039 independent of us. Completely. Think of the movement 204 00:09:08,039 --> 00:09:10,759 of the planets orbiting a star, or the really 205 00:09:10,759 --> 00:09:13,500 slow geological decay of a mountain. The universe 206 00:09:13,500 --> 00:09:16,980 is ticking. It is objective, immense, and entirely 207 00:09:16,980 --> 00:09:19,419 indifferent to human psychology. Right. If a 208 00:09:19,419 --> 00:09:22,059 star goes supernova a million light years away, 209 00:09:22,259 --> 00:09:24,240 it takes a specific measurable amount of time 210 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:26,700 for that light to reach Earth. Exactly. And that 211 00:09:26,700 --> 00:09:29,340 duration has absolutely nothing to do with your 212 00:09:29,340 --> 00:09:31,620 personal memories or your anxieties about the 213 00:09:31,620 --> 00:09:33,419 future. OK, hold on. Let me play devil's advocate 214 00:09:33,419 --> 00:09:35,860 here for a second. If Aristotle believes time 215 00:09:35,860 --> 00:09:38,460 is just the measurement of motion, what happens 216 00:09:38,460 --> 00:09:40,779 if everything in the universe just stops moving? 217 00:09:41,059 --> 00:09:43,700 Does time just cease to exist in Aristotle's 218 00:09:43,700 --> 00:09:45,779 view? Well, that is a classic philosophical trap, 219 00:09:46,019 --> 00:09:49,679 but Aristotle essentially argues that the cosmos 220 00:09:49,679 --> 00:09:52,279 doesn't stop. The motion of the heavenly bodies 221 00:09:52,279 --> 00:09:55,860 is eternal and continuous. So time is just the 222 00:09:55,870 --> 00:09:58,929 infinite measurable continuum of that cosmic 223 00:09:58,929 --> 00:10:01,529 movement. It's the grand container in which all 224 00:10:01,529 --> 00:10:03,330 physical changes happen. OK, so we have these 225 00:10:03,330 --> 00:10:06,409 two absolute titans of philosophy. Augustine 226 00:10:06,409 --> 00:10:08,610 gives us the time of the soul, which is elastic, 227 00:10:08,870 --> 00:10:10,750 psychological, tied to human meaning. Right. 228 00:10:10,850 --> 00:10:12,889 And Aristotle gives us the time of the world. 229 00:10:13,250 --> 00:10:15,330 Objective, mathematical, completely indifferent 230 00:10:15,330 --> 00:10:19,500 to us. Yes. So why can't we just say, cool, time 231 00:10:19,500 --> 00:10:22,039 is both? Like, it's a physical reality that we 232 00:10:22,039 --> 00:10:24,879 happen to experience psychologically. Problem 233 00:10:24,879 --> 00:10:27,500 solved, right? Why does Ricoeur say this is an 234 00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:31,379 unsolvable aporia? Because structurally, philosophically, 235 00:10:31,879 --> 00:10:34,559 they mutually occlude each other. They actively 236 00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:36,899 block each other out. Wait, how do they block 237 00:10:36,899 --> 00:10:39,809 each other out? Well, if you take Augustine's 238 00:10:39,809 --> 00:10:43,009 premise seriously, that time only exists as the 239 00:10:43,009 --> 00:10:46,129 dissension of the mind, you have absolutely no 240 00:10:46,129 --> 00:10:48,370 logical way to account for the objective age 241 00:10:48,370 --> 00:10:50,610 of the universe. I mean, Augustine actually tries 242 00:10:50,610 --> 00:10:53,409 to wave away the movement of the heavens in his 243 00:10:53,409 --> 00:10:55,549 writings, basically saying the stars don't matter 244 00:10:55,549 --> 00:10:58,240 to time. but it logically fails. Ah, okay, I 245 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:00,840 see, and vice versa, right. Exactly. If you take 246 00:11:00,840 --> 00:11:03,179 Aristotle's premise that time is just the objective 247 00:11:03,179 --> 00:11:05,259 measurement of physical motion, you completely 248 00:11:05,259 --> 00:11:07,299 erase the human experience. Right, because a 249 00:11:07,299 --> 00:11:10,200 ticking clock does not feel regret. A decaying 250 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:12,620 carbon atom does not feel anxiety about tomorrow. 251 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:15,899 Exactly. If time is purely physical motion, the 252 00:11:15,899 --> 00:11:19,720 human emotions of nostalgia, dread, impatience... 253 00:11:19,769 --> 00:11:22,529 They're just neurological illusions. The physics 254 00:11:22,529 --> 00:11:24,169 equations don't care that you feel like you've 255 00:11:24,169 --> 00:11:26,090 been waiting in line at the DMV for a decade. 256 00:11:26,649 --> 00:11:30,350 Right. The aporia is that abstract philosophy 257 00:11:30,350 --> 00:11:33,129 cannot merge these two truths. You either have 258 00:11:33,129 --> 00:11:36,009 a human time with no cosmos or a cosmic time 259 00:11:36,009 --> 00:11:38,529 with no humans. The theories are fundamentally 260 00:11:38,529 --> 00:11:41,590 divorced. Man, that is a bleak dead end. It is. 261 00:11:41,769 --> 00:11:44,190 But what's fascinating here is that Ricoeur's vital 262 00:11:44,190 --> 00:11:46,789 insight is to stop trying to force a logical 263 00:11:46,789 --> 00:11:49,519 philosophical solution. He says the philosophers 264 00:11:49,519 --> 00:11:51,700 have done all they can and they ended up in a 265 00:11:51,700 --> 00:11:54,080 dead end. So what's the way out? To bridge this 266 00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:56,179 terrifying gap between the indifferent universe 267 00:11:56,179 --> 00:11:58,600 and the anxious human soul, Ricoeur says we need 268 00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:01,440 a poetic solution. A poetic solution. And this 269 00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:03,340 is the massive pivot of volume one, isn't it? 270 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:06,629 Yes. Since abstract logic fails, Ricoeur returns 271 00:12:06,629 --> 00:12:09,009 to the act of storytelling. He turns to the plot. 272 00:12:09,370 --> 00:12:11,409 He basically believes that narrative is the only 273 00:12:11,409 --> 00:12:14,129 mechanism humans have ever invented that successfully 274 00:12:14,129 --> 00:12:16,649 sews together the time of the soul and the time 275 00:12:16,649 --> 00:12:19,210 of the world. That's his grand thesis. And to 276 00:12:19,210 --> 00:12:20,970 explain how this actually works mechanically, 277 00:12:21,429 --> 00:12:23,990 he introduces one of his most famous frameworks. 278 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:27,980 the threefold mimesis. Right. And mimesis is 279 00:12:27,980 --> 00:12:29,899 an ancient Greek term. It was famously used by 280 00:12:29,899 --> 00:12:32,480 Aristotle himself in his poetics, often translated 281 00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:35,720 as imitation or representation. But recruit doesn't 282 00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:37,799 just mean copying, right? Like tracing a picture. 283 00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:41,080 No, not at all. He breathes entirely new dynamic 284 00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:43,850 life into it. He doesn't mean just copying reality 285 00:12:43,850 --> 00:12:46,330 like a passive mirror reflecting a room. For 286 00:12:46,330 --> 00:12:49,190 Ricoeur, mimesis is an active creative process 287 00:12:49,190 --> 00:12:51,549 of making meaning out of action. And he breaks 288 00:12:51,549 --> 00:12:53,830 this down into three distinct stages, mimesis 289 00:12:53,830 --> 00:12:56,549 one, mimesis two, and mimesis three, which basically 290 00:12:56,549 --> 00:12:59,309 function as this continuous endless cycle. Okay, 291 00:12:59,350 --> 00:13:01,509 let's dissect this cycle because this is really 292 00:13:01,509 --> 00:13:03,610 the engine of the entire philosophy. Let's start 293 00:13:03,610 --> 00:13:06,470 with Mimesis 1. Rekru calls this prefiguration. 294 00:13:07,210 --> 00:13:09,070 What does the world actually look like before 295 00:13:09,070 --> 00:13:11,629 a story is ever told? Mimesis 1 is our practical, 296 00:13:11,649 --> 00:13:14,350 everyday competence in the world. It is the raw, 297 00:13:14,509 --> 00:13:16,690 unwritten reality of human action. Before you 298 00:13:16,690 --> 00:13:18,509 ever sit down to read a novel or write a history 299 00:13:18,509 --> 00:13:21,190 book, you already have a deep, implicit understanding 300 00:13:21,190 --> 00:13:23,480 of how human beings operate. You already know 301 00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:25,960 the rules of the game. Exactly. You understand 302 00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:30,230 what Recruer calls the semantics of action. Okay, 303 00:13:30,230 --> 00:13:31,970 give me an example of that semantics. What does 304 00:13:31,970 --> 00:13:34,870 that look like? Well, imagine you are sitting 305 00:13:34,870 --> 00:13:37,470 at a cafe and you see a man suddenly leap up 306 00:13:37,470 --> 00:13:39,990 from his chair, knock over his coffee, and sprint 307 00:13:39,990 --> 00:13:41,950 down the street, constantly looking over his 308 00:13:41,950 --> 00:13:44,529 shoulder. Okay. You don't need a narrator to 309 00:13:44,529 --> 00:13:46,970 explain this scene to you. You instantly understand 310 00:13:46,970 --> 00:13:50,070 concepts like motive, fear, agent, and goal. 311 00:13:50,730 --> 00:13:53,110 You recognize that his running is an action. 312 00:13:53,190 --> 00:13:56,309 not just a random physical spasm. We live in 313 00:13:56,309 --> 00:13:58,409 a world that is already pre -structured by human 314 00:13:58,409 --> 00:14:00,610 intentions and cultural symbols. Oh, that makes 315 00:14:00,610 --> 00:14:02,690 total sense. We inherently get it. And Wakuu 316 00:14:02,690 --> 00:14:04,590 brings in the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, 317 00:14:04,710 --> 00:14:06,470 here, doesn't he? He does, yeah. Specifically, 318 00:14:06,570 --> 00:14:10,529 this concept of within -timeness or inner -zeitigkeit 319 00:14:10,529 --> 00:14:13,090 in German. And I want to make sure we don't just 320 00:14:13,090 --> 00:14:15,269 drop a dense Heideggerian term without cracking 321 00:14:15,269 --> 00:14:18,029 it open for you listening. What does within -timeness 322 00:14:18,029 --> 00:14:20,710 actually mean for us? It's a crucial piece of 323 00:14:20,710 --> 00:14:23,600 Mimesis 1. Heidegger argued that we don't naturally 324 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,299 experience time as a sequence of abstract seconds 325 00:14:26,299 --> 00:14:29,679 ticking by. Like Aristotle's clock. Right. We 326 00:14:29,679 --> 00:14:32,740 experience time through our preoccupations. Through 327 00:14:32,740 --> 00:14:35,299 what we actually care about. We measure time 328 00:14:35,299 --> 00:14:37,360 by our actions. Yeah. Like you look at a clock 329 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:39,639 and you don't think, ah, it is 12 zero UPM. You 330 00:14:39,639 --> 00:14:42,919 think, it is time for lunch. Exactly. Or, I don't 331 00:14:42,919 --> 00:14:44,639 have enough time to finish this email before 332 00:14:44,639 --> 00:14:47,610 my meeting. Time is defined by our immersion 333 00:14:47,610 --> 00:14:50,289 in the world of doing things. So Mimesis 1 is 334 00:14:50,289 --> 00:14:53,809 this messy, chaotic, prefigured world where we 335 00:14:53,809 --> 00:14:55,529 are all just running around with our own intentions, 336 00:14:55,990 --> 00:14:58,529 acting, failing, interacting. It is full of meaning, 337 00:14:58,889 --> 00:15:01,289 but it lacks a cohesive structure. It's just 338 00:15:01,289 --> 00:15:04,950 a jumble of events. Exactly. Mimesis 1 provides 339 00:15:04,950 --> 00:15:07,690 the raw material. It is life as it is genuinely 340 00:15:07,690 --> 00:15:11,049 lived. But raw material isn't a story. To make 341 00:15:11,049 --> 00:15:13,470 it a story, to make sense of the chaos, We need 342 00:15:13,470 --> 00:15:16,730 mimesis 2. Mimesis 2. Configuration. This is 343 00:15:16,730 --> 00:15:18,210 where the magic happens, I feel like. This is 344 00:15:18,210 --> 00:15:20,389 the realm of emplotment, drawing again on Aristotle, 345 00:15:20,570 --> 00:15:22,690 specifically his concept of muthos, or plot. 346 00:15:23,190 --> 00:15:25,529 Mimesis 2 is the act of taking all that chaotic 347 00:15:25,529 --> 00:15:27,570 raw material from mimesis 1 and synthesizing 348 00:15:27,570 --> 00:15:30,929 it. Yes, it is the ultimate mediator. Mimesis 349 00:15:30,929 --> 00:15:34,549 2 takes discordant heterogeneous elements. So 350 00:15:34,549 --> 00:15:37,169 like a character's hidden jealousy, a sudden 351 00:15:37,169 --> 00:15:39,809 shift in the weather, a chance encounter on a 352 00:15:39,809 --> 00:15:42,309 train, a deliberate political assassination, 353 00:15:42,309 --> 00:15:45,470 and it forces them into a concordant whole. It 354 00:15:45,470 --> 00:15:47,789 organizes the chaos. It organizes it by giving 355 00:15:47,789 --> 00:15:50,309 it a deliberate beginning, a middle, and an end. 356 00:15:50,409 --> 00:15:52,590 And this is such a critical distinction. It turns 357 00:15:52,590 --> 00:15:55,450 one thing after another into one thing because 358 00:15:55,450 --> 00:15:57,210 of another. That's the key right there. Let's 359 00:15:57,210 --> 00:15:59,950 use an analogy here to really picture this. Think 360 00:15:59,950 --> 00:16:03,090 about a trial lawyer. When a defense attorney 361 00:16:03,090 --> 00:16:05,809 or a prosecutor stands in front of a jury, they're 362 00:16:05,809 --> 00:16:08,850 handed a pile of Mimesis 1 chaos. Right, the 363 00:16:08,850 --> 00:16:11,669 evidence. Yeah. A bloody glove found in an alley, 364 00:16:12,250 --> 00:16:15,090 a phone call made at 2 .0 a .m., a history of 365 00:16:15,090 --> 00:16:17,629 gambling debt, an argument overheard by a neighbor. 366 00:16:18,009 --> 00:16:20,470 In real life, these things just happen chronologically. 367 00:16:20,549 --> 00:16:23,029 They're just a jumble. Just isolated facts. But 368 00:16:23,029 --> 00:16:26,190 the lawyer performs Mimesis 2. They weave those 369 00:16:26,190 --> 00:16:28,610 random facts into a plot. They look at the jury 370 00:16:28,610 --> 00:16:31,360 and say... Because the defendant was in debt, 371 00:16:31,679 --> 00:16:33,799 he made the phone call to the victim, which led 372 00:16:33,799 --> 00:16:36,100 to the argument, which resulted in the glove 373 00:16:36,100 --> 00:16:39,600 in the alley. They have created causal necessity 374 00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:42,659 out of chronological randomness. The ending the 375 00:16:42,659 --> 00:16:45,080 crime is made to seem like the inevitable result 376 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:47,340 of the beginning. That is a brilliant analogy 377 00:16:47,340 --> 00:16:49,580 because it highlights the synthetic power of 378 00:16:49,580 --> 00:16:52,720 the plot. And in doing this, Mimesis 2 does something 379 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:55,980 miraculous to time. It creates a completely new 380 00:16:55,980 --> 00:16:59,149 artificial experience of time. How so? Think 381 00:16:59,149 --> 00:17:01,289 about the ticking clock of Aristotle's cosmos. 382 00:17:01,690 --> 00:17:03,990 It just goes on forever, endlessly, pointlessly. 383 00:17:04,809 --> 00:17:07,589 But a narrative has a conclusion. Right. It ends. 384 00:17:07,750 --> 00:17:09,609 And because it has an ending, we can look back 385 00:17:09,609 --> 00:17:11,950 over the whole plot and understand it as a single, 386 00:17:12,250 --> 00:17:15,789 unified, meaningful action. Implotment rescues 387 00:17:15,789 --> 00:17:18,529 us from the terrifying, infinite flow of cosmological 388 00:17:18,529 --> 00:17:21,750 time by carving out a human -sized, understandable 389 00:17:21,750 --> 00:17:24,269 chunk of it. So we can actually digest it. But 390 00:17:24,269 --> 00:17:26,529 the process doesn't stop with the book being 391 00:17:26,529 --> 00:17:29,130 written or the lawyer making their closing argument, 392 00:17:29,309 --> 00:17:32,230 right? The story has to land somewhere. Which 393 00:17:32,230 --> 00:17:36,029 brings us to the final gear in the engine, Mimesis 394 00:17:36,029 --> 00:17:39,289 3. Right, Mimesis 3, which is Refiguration. This 395 00:17:39,289 --> 00:17:41,509 is the intersection between the world of the 396 00:17:41,509 --> 00:17:44,710 text and the world of the reader. A story does 397 00:17:44,710 --> 00:17:47,329 not complete its life cycle until it is read 398 00:17:47,329 --> 00:17:50,450 and absorbed by an audience. So how does reading 399 00:17:50,450 --> 00:17:53,210 a book actually change our experience of time? 400 00:17:53,369 --> 00:17:55,190 I mean, mechanically, what is happening in our 401 00:17:55,190 --> 00:17:57,829 brains during Mimesis III? Well, when you read 402 00:17:57,829 --> 00:17:59,990 a compelling narrative, whether it is a history 403 00:17:59,990 --> 00:18:02,769 of the Roman Empire or like a massive fantasy 404 00:18:02,769 --> 00:18:06,490 novel, the text opens up a new world. It exposes 405 00:18:06,490 --> 00:18:09,170 you to new ways of structuring time, new causal 406 00:18:09,170 --> 00:18:11,710 relationships, new emotional depths. You're absorbing 407 00:18:11,710 --> 00:18:14,130 a new blueprint. Exactly. And when you close 408 00:18:14,130 --> 00:18:16,869 that book and return to your own life, your internal 409 00:18:16,869 --> 00:18:19,170 map of reality, what the philosopher Hans -Jörg 410 00:18:19,170 --> 00:18:22,089 Gadamer called your horizon of expectation, has 411 00:18:22,089 --> 00:18:23,789 been altered. It's like putting on a new pair 412 00:18:23,789 --> 00:18:27,329 of glasses. It really is. You return to the messy, 413 00:18:27,450 --> 00:18:30,650 chaotic world of Mimesis I, but you are changed. 414 00:18:31,109 --> 00:18:33,670 The text has given you new cognitive tools to 415 00:18:33,670 --> 00:18:36,259 understand your own lived time. So if you just 416 00:18:36,259 --> 00:18:39,579 read a sprawling narrative about, say, how small, 417 00:18:39,779 --> 00:18:42,640 seemingly insignificant political compromises 418 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:45,799 led to the catastrophic outbreak of World War 419 00:18:45,799 --> 00:18:48,819 I, you are going to look at the minor political 420 00:18:48,819 --> 00:18:51,339 news of your own day differently. Your brain 421 00:18:51,339 --> 00:18:53,440 will start looking for those same narrative patterns 422 00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:55,440 in your own life. Because you've been refigured. 423 00:18:55,819 --> 00:18:57,809 The circle is complete. But really it's more 424 00:18:57,809 --> 00:19:00,210 of a spiral, isn't it? Yes, a continuous spiral. 425 00:19:00,349 --> 00:19:02,349 You start in Mimesis 1, you configure reality 426 00:19:02,349 --> 00:19:04,809 through Mimesis 2, and you re -figure your brain 427 00:19:04,809 --> 00:19:08,309 in Mimesis 3, which then becomes your new, slightly 428 00:19:08,309 --> 00:19:10,549 wiser starting point for the next Mimesis 1. 429 00:19:10,750 --> 00:19:13,089 And this is how time becomes human. We basically 430 00:19:13,089 --> 00:19:15,089 use the architecture of a narrative to build 431 00:19:15,089 --> 00:19:17,609 a shelter for ourselves right between the fleeting 432 00:19:17,609 --> 00:19:19,710 anxiety of Augustine's soul and the crushing 433 00:19:19,710 --> 00:19:23,009 indifference of Aristotle's cosmos. It is a profound 434 00:19:23,009 --> 00:19:25,670 realization. We are narrative creatures to our 435 00:19:25,670 --> 00:19:28,710 absolute core. We need stories to survive time. 436 00:19:29,109 --> 00:19:31,650 OK, so Ricoeur has built this incredible theoretical 437 00:19:31,650 --> 00:19:34,410 engine in volume one. He's proven that human 438 00:19:34,410 --> 00:19:37,089 time requires a narrative plot. We are all natural 439 00:19:37,089 --> 00:19:40,609 storytellers. But Ricoeur is writing this the 440 00:19:40,609 --> 00:19:44,750 mid 1980s, and he is writing it in France, right 441 00:19:44,750 --> 00:19:47,549 in the middle of a massive academic civil war. 442 00:19:47,609 --> 00:19:50,589 Oh, huge one. Regarding how history should actually 443 00:19:50,589 --> 00:19:52,829 be done. And here is where the friction really 444 00:19:52,829 --> 00:19:55,410 starts. What happens when the very professionals 445 00:19:55,410 --> 00:19:58,710 whose entire job is to remember the past, the 446 00:19:58,710 --> 00:20:01,769 historians decide they absolutely despise the 447 00:20:01,769 --> 00:20:03,589 concept of narrative? Yeah, this brings us to 448 00:20:03,589 --> 00:20:05,910 part two of volume one, which recurred dedicates 449 00:20:05,910 --> 00:20:08,609 entirely to this epistemological crisis in modern 450 00:20:08,609 --> 00:20:11,490 historiography. The fundamental question he wrestles 451 00:20:11,490 --> 00:20:13,950 with is, does history genuinely belong to the 452 00:20:13,950 --> 00:20:16,309 narrative field? Like, does the historian actually 453 00:20:16,309 --> 00:20:18,329 tell a story? Which seems obvious to us, right? 454 00:20:18,369 --> 00:20:20,210 Right. For centuries, from Herodotus all the 455 00:20:20,210 --> 00:20:22,150 way to the 19th century, the answer was obviously 456 00:20:22,150 --> 00:20:24,710 yes. History was the grand narrative of kings, 457 00:20:24,950 --> 00:20:26,690 sweeping battles, treaties, and the rise and 458 00:20:26,690 --> 00:20:29,950 fall of nations. But in the 20th century, a powerful, 459 00:20:30,150 --> 00:20:32,529 highly influential movement emerged in France 460 00:20:32,529 --> 00:20:34,930 that violently rejected this entire premise. 461 00:20:35,309 --> 00:20:37,690 We are talking about the infamous Annales School. 462 00:20:37,910 --> 00:20:41,109 Yes, the Annales School, spearheaded by brilliant 463 00:20:41,109 --> 00:20:43,750 French historians like Fernand Braudel, Lucien 464 00:20:43,750 --> 00:20:47,180 Fever, and Marc Bloch. They launched a total 465 00:20:47,180 --> 00:20:49,640 intellectual assault on traditional narrative 466 00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:52,799 history, which they dismissively labeled Histoire 467 00:20:52,799 --> 00:20:55,339 de la Venmociade. And meaning the history of 468 00:20:55,339 --> 00:20:58,299 mere events. Exactly. The history of mere events. 469 00:20:58,519 --> 00:21:00,500 But why the hostility? I mean, what was so wrong 470 00:21:00,500 --> 00:21:03,220 with writing a history about King Philip II or 471 00:21:03,220 --> 00:21:05,759 the Battle of Waterloo? Because they viewed political, 472 00:21:05,940 --> 00:21:09,200 military and diplomatic history as entirely superficial. 473 00:21:09,309 --> 00:21:11,930 They felt it was bad science. I mean, Brodell 474 00:21:11,930 --> 00:21:14,490 famously compared historical events, you know, 475 00:21:14,589 --> 00:21:16,269 the assassinations, the declarations of war, 476 00:21:16,410 --> 00:21:18,930 the crowning of kings. He compared them to fireflies 477 00:21:18,930 --> 00:21:20,490 in the night. Fireflies in the night. I mean, 478 00:21:20,630 --> 00:21:22,970 that is a beautiful but incredibly dismissive 479 00:21:22,970 --> 00:21:25,150 metaphor. It is so dismissive. A firefly gives 480 00:21:25,150 --> 00:21:27,269 off a brief flash of light, but it illuminates 481 00:21:27,269 --> 00:21:30,289 absolutely nothing of the massive, dark, complex 482 00:21:30,289 --> 00:21:33,440 landscape around it. The Annals historians argue 483 00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:36,019 that if you want to understand the true deep 484 00:21:36,019 --> 00:21:38,680 reality of the human past, looking at individual 485 00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,799 humans is a total waste of time. They championed 486 00:21:41,799 --> 00:21:45,039 what Braudel called the long durée, the long 487 00:21:45,039 --> 00:21:47,339 time span. Okay, give me a concrete example of 488 00:21:47,339 --> 00:21:49,839 what a long durée history actually looks like 489 00:21:49,839 --> 00:21:52,279 compared to, you know, a traditional narrative. 490 00:21:52,700 --> 00:21:56,759 The perfect example is Braudel's own magnum opus 491 00:21:56,759 --> 00:21:59,039 on the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip 492 00:21:59,039 --> 00:22:02,069 II. Now, a traditional historian would write 493 00:22:02,069 --> 00:22:05,349 about King Philip, right? His personality, his 494 00:22:05,349 --> 00:22:07,829 advisors, the battles he fought, the specific 495 00:22:07,829 --> 00:22:10,769 ships he sank. Sure, the drama. Right. Braudel 496 00:22:10,769 --> 00:22:13,710 practically ignores the king. Instead, he writes 497 00:22:13,710 --> 00:22:15,650 hundreds of pages about the geography of the 498 00:22:15,650 --> 00:22:18,190 Mediterranean Basin, the slow, centuries -long 499 00:22:18,190 --> 00:22:20,730 shifts in climate patterns, the evolution of 500 00:22:20,730 --> 00:22:23,329 agricultural technology, demographic birth rates, 501 00:22:23,410 --> 00:22:25,930 and the deep -seated economic structures of trade 502 00:22:25,930 --> 00:22:28,210 routes. So he's looking at the tectonic plates, 503 00:22:28,309 --> 00:22:30,720 not... the buildings falling down on the surface. 504 00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:33,259 Exactly. They wanted history to be rigorous, 505 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,079 quantitative, and scientific. They advocated 506 00:22:36,079 --> 00:22:39,000 for serial history, literally crunching massive 507 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,079 data sets over hundreds of years. They wanted 508 00:22:41,079 --> 00:22:43,420 charts mapping wheat yields over three centuries, 509 00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:46,000 not dramatic retellings of a cavalry charge. 510 00:22:46,279 --> 00:22:49,099 Precisely. And to achieve this scientific rigor, 511 00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,880 they explicitly demanded that history must divorce 512 00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,140 itself from narrative. narrative to them was 513 00:22:56,140 --> 00:22:59,240 just subjective, unscientific fiction about individuals. 514 00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,859 OK, I have to step in here and push back hard 515 00:23:01,859 --> 00:23:04,660 on behalf of the listener because while tracking 516 00:23:04,660 --> 00:23:07,180 wheat yields is certainly interesting data, sure, 517 00:23:07,460 --> 00:23:09,480 it feels like they are throwing the baby out 518 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,599 with the bathwater. If history just becomes charts 519 00:23:12,599 --> 00:23:14,940 of agricultural output and demographic shifts 520 00:23:14,940 --> 00:23:17,740 over three centuries, hasn't it ceased to be 521 00:23:17,740 --> 00:23:20,700 history? Hasn't it just become retrospective 522 00:23:20,700 --> 00:23:23,599 sociology or like? geography? That's the huge 523 00:23:23,599 --> 00:23:25,299 critique against them. And more importantly, 524 00:23:25,420 --> 00:23:28,140 isn't this incredibly dangerous? If you say individual 525 00:23:28,140 --> 00:23:30,079 events and human actions are just meaningless 526 00:23:30,079 --> 00:23:33,279 fireflies, what happens to the monumental tragedies 527 00:23:33,279 --> 00:23:35,920 of history? Are you saying the Holocaust or the 528 00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:37,740 transatlantic slave trade or the dropping of 529 00:23:37,740 --> 00:23:40,279 the atomic bomb are just minor statistical fluctuations 530 00:23:40,279 --> 00:23:43,039 in the long deray of industrial output? Are racing 531 00:23:43,039 --> 00:23:45,160 the narrative feels like erasing human suffering? 532 00:23:45,390 --> 00:23:48,509 You are hitting on the exact moral and philosophical 533 00:23:48,509 --> 00:23:51,710 crisis that Ricoeur sees in the annals approach. 534 00:23:52,529 --> 00:23:54,710 If you completely strip away the event, you strip 535 00:23:54,710 --> 00:23:57,250 away the human agent. History without humans 536 00:23:57,250 --> 00:24:00,029 doing things is, as you said, just geography 537 00:24:00,029 --> 00:24:02,589 or climate science. So how does Ricoeur respond? 538 00:24:03,289 --> 00:24:06,130 Ricoeur mounts a massive, brilliant, defensive 539 00:24:06,130 --> 00:24:09,420 narrative. against the Enel school. But this 540 00:24:09,420 --> 00:24:11,880 key, he doesn't do it by rejecting their science. 541 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,680 Oh, he doesn't. No, he actually praises the longue 542 00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,140 durée as a major advancement in historical understanding. 543 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,000 But, he argues, the Annals historians are suffering 544 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,460 from a profound self -deception if they think 545 00:24:24,460 --> 00:24:26,579 they have actually escaped narrative. How does 546 00:24:26,579 --> 00:24:29,019 he prove that? If Brodell is literally just writing 547 00:24:29,019 --> 00:24:31,519 about the slow strangulation of a Mediterranean 548 00:24:31,519 --> 00:24:34,660 trade route over 200 years, where is the narrative 549 00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:38,049 plot? recur points out that even massive impersonal 550 00:24:38,049 --> 00:24:40,430 social structures have a trajectory listen to 551 00:24:40,430 --> 00:24:42,930 the words you just used the slow strangulation 552 00:24:42,930 --> 00:24:44,930 of a trade route think of other structural terms 553 00:24:44,930 --> 00:24:48,329 they use the decline of an empire the rise of 554 00:24:48,329 --> 00:24:50,630 a merchant class the collapse of a demographic 555 00:24:50,630 --> 00:24:53,849 decline rise strangulation collapse these are 556 00:24:53,849 --> 00:24:56,849 narrative concepts they are plots wow they inherently 557 00:24:56,849 --> 00:25:00,009 require a beginning a middle, and an end, even 558 00:25:00,009 --> 00:25:02,210 if that middle spans three entire centuries. 559 00:25:02,609 --> 00:25:05,130 Oh, that is fascinating. So the animal school 560 00:25:05,130 --> 00:25:07,430 didn't destroy the plot, they just stretched 561 00:25:07,430 --> 00:25:10,490 it out. The scale of time changed, but the cognitive 562 00:25:10,490 --> 00:25:13,559 shape of how we understand it didn't. Exactly. 563 00:25:14,059 --> 00:25:16,960 Recour argues that if history were to genuinely 564 00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,420 sever all connection to our basic pragmatic competence 565 00:25:20,420 --> 00:25:23,599 to follow a story, if it totally cut off Mimesis 566 00:25:23,599 --> 00:25:26,980 I and Mimesis II, it would literally become unreadable. 567 00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,420 It would lose its distinct identity as a historical 568 00:25:29,420 --> 00:25:31,619 discipline. Because what makes history historical 569 00:25:31,619 --> 00:25:34,119 is that ultimately no matter how abstracted it 570 00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:36,500 gets, it must refer back to human action and 571 00:25:36,500 --> 00:25:40,490 human suffering. Yes. A 300 -year economic structure 572 00:25:40,490 --> 00:25:43,529 only matters to history because it constrained, 573 00:25:43,910 --> 00:25:46,490 crushed, or enabled the actions of human beings 574 00:25:46,490 --> 00:25:50,190 living within it. The Inals historians expanded 575 00:25:50,190 --> 00:25:53,089 the definition of an event to include structural 576 00:25:53,089 --> 00:25:55,390 shifts, and they stretched the time frame of 577 00:25:55,390 --> 00:25:58,130 the plot. But fundamentally, they were still 578 00:25:58,130 --> 00:26:00,890 telling a story about human societies moving 579 00:26:00,890 --> 00:26:03,809 through time. That is such a brilliant checkmate 580 00:26:03,809 --> 00:26:06,690 by Ricoeur. They tried to build a purely scientific 581 00:26:06,690 --> 00:26:09,230 skyscraper, but Ricoeur proves the foundation is 582 00:26:09,230 --> 00:26:11,769 still entirely made of narrative bricks. Perfectly 583 00:26:11,769 --> 00:26:14,349 said. But this does lead us to a very tricky 584 00:26:14,349 --> 00:26:16,630 crossroads in volume one, because while we've 585 00:26:16,630 --> 00:26:18,410 established that history is still a narrative, 586 00:26:18,730 --> 00:26:21,450 it is obviously a very specific, rigorous kind 587 00:26:21,450 --> 00:26:23,849 of narrative. I mean, when I read a dense historical 588 00:26:23,849 --> 00:26:25,650 text about the causes of the French Revolution, 589 00:26:25,730 --> 00:26:27,710 it feels fundamentally different from reading 590 00:26:27,710 --> 00:26:29,869 a fantasy novel like The Lord of the Rings, even 591 00:26:29,869 --> 00:26:31,650 though they both have a plot, a beginning and 592 00:26:31,650 --> 00:26:33,589 an end. Right, the vibe is totally different. 593 00:26:33,690 --> 00:26:36,549 Exactly, because the historian is trying to explain 594 00:26:36,549 --> 00:26:39,210 why something objectively happened. So how does 595 00:26:39,210 --> 00:26:41,630 Ricoeur define the difference between a historical 596 00:26:41,630 --> 00:26:43,789 explanation and just telling a really good story? 597 00:26:44,569 --> 00:26:47,009 This moves us into the deep logic of historical 598 00:26:47,009 --> 00:26:51,210 inquiry. Ricoeur has to show how history utilizes 599 00:26:51,210 --> 00:26:54,549 narrative implatment but elevates it into a rigorous 600 00:26:54,549 --> 00:26:57,759 evidence -based discipline. He does this by dissecting 601 00:26:57,759 --> 00:27:00,400 the concept of historical intentionality and 602 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:02,819 contrasting two very different types of explanation. 603 00:27:02,839 --> 00:27:06,220 Which of our? Causal explanation versus teleological 604 00:27:06,220 --> 00:27:08,680 explanation. Here's where it gets really interesting. 605 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:10,660 Let's break those down because this is the mechanics 606 00:27:10,660 --> 00:27:12,839 of how historians actually work. Let's start 607 00:27:12,839 --> 00:27:15,460 with causal explanation. This sounds like we're 608 00:27:15,460 --> 00:27:17,720 borrowing from the hard sciences like physics 609 00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,480 or chemistry. Yes, causal explanation is often 610 00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,180 associated with the philosopher David Hume. In 611 00:27:23,180 --> 00:27:25,539 the natural sciences, you have Humean causes. 612 00:27:25,769 --> 00:27:28,670 A cause and an effect are logically independent, 613 00:27:29,069 --> 00:27:31,690 but they are bound together by a universal, repeatable 614 00:27:31,690 --> 00:27:34,490 law. Like gravity making a dropped rock fall. 615 00:27:35,029 --> 00:27:38,609 Exactly. Heat applied to water causes it to boil. 616 00:27:39,410 --> 00:27:41,490 Early attempts to make history scientific in 617 00:27:41,490 --> 00:27:44,009 the 19th century tried to apply these strict, 618 00:27:44,309 --> 00:27:47,670 universal causal laws to human events. They wanted 619 00:27:47,670 --> 00:27:50,349 to find rules like, whenever economic disparity 620 00:27:50,349 --> 00:27:53,390 reaches level X, a political revolution inevitably 621 00:27:53,390 --> 00:27:55,549 follows. But human history doesn't work like 622 00:27:55,549 --> 00:27:58,250 thermodynamics. People aren't rocks, and societies 623 00:27:58,250 --> 00:28:00,990 aren't boiling water. We are wildly unpredictable. 624 00:28:01,269 --> 00:28:03,809 Precisely. And that is why history cannot rely 625 00:28:03,809 --> 00:28:06,589 solely on causal laws. People have minds. They 626 00:28:06,589 --> 00:28:08,930 have reasons, beliefs, and goals. And that is 627 00:28:08,930 --> 00:28:11,470 where teleological explanation comes in. Kaleological, 628 00:28:11,509 --> 00:28:14,289 meaning purpose -driven. Right. Teleology deals 629 00:28:14,289 --> 00:28:16,950 with purpose and intention. When a historian 630 00:28:16,950 --> 00:28:19,349 wants to explain why a historical figure acted 631 00:28:19,349 --> 00:28:21,349 a certain way, they aren't looking for a law 632 00:28:21,349 --> 00:28:23,289 of physics. They're trying to understand the 633 00:28:23,289 --> 00:28:26,190 person's internal intentions within their specific 634 00:28:26,190 --> 00:28:29,089 historical context. To explain this, Ricoeur 635 00:28:29,089 --> 00:28:31,430 highlights the philosopher Jorg Henrik von Wright 636 00:28:31,430 --> 00:28:34,109 and his formal model of practical inference. 637 00:28:34,369 --> 00:28:36,130 Practical inference. Walk me through how this 638 00:28:36,130 --> 00:28:39,069 logic works in practice. It is a logical syllogism 639 00:28:39,069 --> 00:28:41,769 for understanding human action. It works like 640 00:28:41,769 --> 00:28:45,660 this. First premise. Person A intends to bring 641 00:28:45,660 --> 00:28:47,920 about a specific state of affairs. Let's call 642 00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,319 it P. Second premise. Person A considers that 643 00:28:51,319 --> 00:28:53,700 they cannot bring about P unless they perform 644 00:28:53,700 --> 00:28:56,599 a specific action. Let's call it a conclusion. 645 00:28:57,259 --> 00:29:00,140 Therefore, person A sets out to do action A. 646 00:29:00,420 --> 00:29:03,160 OK, let's put some historical flesh on that algebraic 647 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,579 skeleton. Let's take Julius Caesar. Great example. 648 00:29:05,900 --> 00:29:09,460 Premise one. Caesar intends to secure total unchallenged 649 00:29:09,460 --> 00:29:12,660 political control over Rome. Premise two. Caesar 650 00:29:12,660 --> 00:29:14,960 considers he cannot achieve this unless he defies 651 00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,220 the Senate and marches his army across the Rubicon 652 00:29:17,220 --> 00:29:20,559 River. Conclusion. Therefore, Caesar crosses 653 00:29:20,559 --> 00:29:41,819 the Rubicon. History is the collision of millions 654 00:29:41,819 --> 00:29:44,420 of competing intentions at the exact same time, 655 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,359 combined with sheer accidents, natural disasters, 656 00:29:47,859 --> 00:29:50,940 and massive unintended consequences. Right, because 657 00:29:50,940 --> 00:29:53,759 Caesar intends to take over Rome, but he doesn't 658 00:29:53,759 --> 00:29:56,299 intend to get stabbed 23 times on the Senate 659 00:29:56,299 --> 00:29:59,640 floor. Exactly. The outcome of history is rarely 660 00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,039 what the individual agents actually intended. 661 00:30:02,269 --> 00:30:05,069 So the historian's job is incredibly complex. 662 00:30:05,450 --> 00:30:07,910 They must weave together teleological explanations, 663 00:30:07,930 --> 00:30:09,809 understanding what the humans were actually trying 664 00:30:09,809 --> 00:30:11,890 to do with the causal forces of the environment, 665 00:30:12,130 --> 00:30:14,750 economics, and unintended collisions. Yes. And 666 00:30:14,750 --> 00:30:16,569 Ricker brings in another philosopher here, W 667 00:30:16,569 --> 00:30:19,309 .B. Galley, who argues that despite all this 668 00:30:19,309 --> 00:30:21,890 massive complexity, history fundamentally tracks 669 00:30:21,890 --> 00:30:24,690 the major achievement or failure of men living 670 00:30:24,690 --> 00:30:27,150 and working together. And here is where it connects 671 00:30:27,150 --> 00:30:29,789 back to narrative, right? No matter how deep 672 00:30:29,789 --> 00:30:32,069 into the weeds the historian gets with economic 673 00:30:32,069 --> 00:30:35,329 models or tracing competing intentions, the reader 674 00:30:35,329 --> 00:30:37,710 is able to follow it because our brains are utilizing 675 00:30:37,710 --> 00:30:40,549 mimesis, too. Exactly. We want to know how the 676 00:30:40,549 --> 00:30:42,829 clash of intentions and circumstances is going 677 00:30:42,829 --> 00:30:46,750 to resolve. We are following a plot. Yes. All 678 00:30:46,750 --> 00:30:50,369 the massive abstract historical models like Braudel's 679 00:30:50,369 --> 00:30:53,279 structural time of the Mediterranean. They are 680 00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:56,019 secondary structures. They are highly sophisticated 681 00:30:56,019 --> 00:30:58,539 intellectual tools, but they are built on top 682 00:30:58,539 --> 00:31:01,339 of lived human time. They don't replace it. No, 683 00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,420 they always indirectly refer back to Mises 1 684 00:31:04,420 --> 00:31:06,400 people doing things in the world, and they're 685 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,180 delivered to us via the narrative form of Mises 686 00:31:09,180 --> 00:31:12,259 2, which is the historian organizing those actions 687 00:31:12,259 --> 00:31:15,819 into a coherent explanation. History is a specialized, 688 00:31:16,079 --> 00:31:18,059 incredibly rigorous branch of the narrative tree, 689 00:31:18,319 --> 00:31:20,569 but it never leaves the tree. This brings us 690 00:31:20,569 --> 00:31:23,549 to a massive critical intersection as we transition 691 00:31:23,549 --> 00:31:26,190 from volume two and to volume three of Ricoeur's 692 00:31:26,190 --> 00:31:28,710 work. We have firmly established that history 693 00:31:28,710 --> 00:31:32,490 uses narrative plots. It uses Mimesis II to configure 694 00:31:32,490 --> 00:31:35,490 events into an understandable sequence. But fiction 695 00:31:35,490 --> 00:31:39,589 also uses narrative plots. A novelist configures 696 00:31:39,589 --> 00:31:43,470 events into a story using the exact same cognitive 697 00:31:43,470 --> 00:31:46,930 machinery. So if history and fiction are both 698 00:31:46,930 --> 00:31:49,900 using the exact same narrative engine, How do 699 00:31:49,900 --> 00:31:51,859 we fundamentally tell them apart? I mean, how 700 00:31:51,859 --> 00:31:54,200 does a historian claim to be reaching the actual 701 00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,619 real past that is no longer there, while a novelist 702 00:31:57,619 --> 00:31:59,740 is just spinning a world out of thin air? This 703 00:31:59,740 --> 00:32:02,799 is the exact epistemological problem Recour has 704 00:32:02,799 --> 00:32:05,660 to resolve in volume three. He has to explain 705 00:32:05,660 --> 00:32:08,779 the bifurcation of narrative. History and fiction 706 00:32:08,779 --> 00:32:11,339 are siblings. They both utilize the employment 707 00:32:11,339 --> 00:32:14,180 of mimesis too, but they differ fundamentally, 708 00:32:14,220 --> 00:32:17,460 completely, in their truth claims. Truth claims, 709 00:32:17,700 --> 00:32:19,480 meaning the specific contract they make with 710 00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,319 the reader. Exactly. Let's look at the contract 711 00:32:21,319 --> 00:32:23,339 of fiction first. When you pick up a novel, what 712 00:32:23,339 --> 00:32:25,480 is the truth claim? Well, when I open a work 713 00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:29,079 of fiction, the text asks me for a willing suspension 714 00:32:29,079 --> 00:32:31,480 of disbelief. It says, step into this alternate 715 00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:34,180 reality. Fiction does not claim that its events 716 00:32:34,180 --> 00:32:36,140 literally occurred in the physical timeline of 717 00:32:36,140 --> 00:32:38,559 our universe. Right. Instead, it claims a different 718 00:32:38,559 --> 00:32:41,380 kind of truth, a poetic or metaphorical truth. 719 00:32:41,579 --> 00:32:45,059 A great novel explores the depths of human possibility, 720 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:47,980 moral complexities, and emotional realities. 721 00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,299 It refigures our experience of time by presenting 722 00:32:51,299 --> 00:32:54,119 favors about time that resonate deeply with our 723 00:32:54,119 --> 00:32:56,740 own internal psychological experiences. Which 724 00:32:56,740 --> 00:32:58,940 goes all the way back to Augustine's Time of 725 00:32:58,940 --> 00:33:01,680 the Soul. Exactly. When I read a profound piece 726 00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:04,960 of fiction, I don't stop every single page to 727 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,200 fact check the street names to see if the protagonist 728 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,980 actually walked down them on a specific Tuesday 729 00:33:09,980 --> 00:33:13,029 in 1984. That would just ruin the experience. 730 00:33:13,509 --> 00:33:15,650 The truth of the novel is in the emotional reality 731 00:33:15,650 --> 00:33:18,910 of the character's journey, but history. History 732 00:33:18,910 --> 00:33:21,650 demands a completely different contract. History 733 00:33:21,650 --> 00:33:24,190 makes a highly specific, very fragile truth claim. 734 00:33:24,910 --> 00:33:27,109 It claims to represent a past that actually happened. 735 00:33:27,230 --> 00:33:29,490 It asserts that its narrative is not just plausible 736 00:33:29,490 --> 00:33:32,130 or emotionally resonant, but that it is actively 737 00:33:32,130 --> 00:33:34,869 tethered to physical reality. It claims the status 738 00:33:34,869 --> 00:33:38,869 of the having been, yes. But here is the massive 739 00:33:38,869 --> 00:33:41,029 philosophical terror that the historian faces. 740 00:33:42,410 --> 00:33:45,569 The past is completely gone. It is an absolute 741 00:33:45,569 --> 00:33:48,130 absence. The actual events of the French Revolution 742 00:33:48,130 --> 00:33:50,069 do not exist anywhere in the universe right now. 743 00:33:50,289 --> 00:33:52,710 Right. They're gone. So how on earth can the 744 00:33:52,710 --> 00:33:55,009 historian claim to accurately represent something 745 00:33:55,009 --> 00:33:57,269 that is entirely absent? They can't observe it. 746 00:33:57,269 --> 00:33:59,410 They can't put it in a beaker and test it. The 747 00:33:59,410 --> 00:34:01,529 past is basically a ghost. So what is the anchor? 748 00:34:01,769 --> 00:34:04,289 The anchor is one of the most haunting and beautiful 749 00:34:04,289 --> 00:34:06,920 concepts in Ricker's entire philosophy. It is 750 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,139 the concept of the trace. The trace. OK, this 751 00:34:09,139 --> 00:34:11,500 is where he borrows heavily from the philosopher 752 00:34:11,500 --> 00:34:14,539 Emmanuel Levinas, right? What exactly is a trace? 753 00:34:14,780 --> 00:34:17,000 If we connect this to the bigger picture, Levinas 754 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,139 describes the trace as a profound paradox. A 755 00:34:20,139 --> 00:34:23,000 trace is a physical remain in the present, a 756 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,840 piece of parchment, a shard of pottery, a census 757 00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,699 record, a crumbling stone wall. It is physically 758 00:34:28,699 --> 00:34:31,739 here right now. You can touch it. Yes. But it 759 00:34:31,739 --> 00:34:34,449 is not just a meaningless object. it is a sign 760 00:34:34,449 --> 00:34:37,769 of an absolute past. It signifies, in Levinas's 761 00:34:37,769 --> 00:34:41,150 words, something without making it appear. The 762 00:34:41,150 --> 00:34:43,269 trace is a presence that points entirely toward 763 00:34:43,269 --> 00:34:45,610 an absolute. I love this concept. Let's use an 764 00:34:45,610 --> 00:34:48,170 analogy to really visualize the power of the 765 00:34:48,170 --> 00:34:50,969 trace. Imagine you are walking through a dense 766 00:34:51,460 --> 00:34:54,179 snowy forest. You look down and you see a massive 767 00:34:54,179 --> 00:34:56,920 footprint in the snow. Okay. The footprint itself 768 00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,500 is physically here right now in the present. 769 00:34:59,599 --> 00:35:02,860 You can touch the compressed snow, but the footprint's 770 00:35:02,860 --> 00:35:05,659 entire meaning, its entire significance, relies 771 00:35:05,659 --> 00:35:08,059 on the fact that something else, a wolf, a bear, 772 00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:10,920 a hiker was here previously, made the mark. and 773 00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,860 is now gone. Yes. The footprint is literally 774 00:35:13,860 --> 00:35:16,380 a physical presence whose sole meaning is that 775 00:35:16,380 --> 00:35:19,460 something passed by and vanished. And the historian 776 00:35:19,460 --> 00:35:21,380 is essentially tracking footprints through the 777 00:35:21,380 --> 00:35:23,679 archives. Oh, wow. That is a phenomenal way to 778 00:35:23,679 --> 00:35:26,619 understand it. The archive is literally a repository 779 00:35:26,619 --> 00:35:29,360 of footprints. And if we follow this logic, it 780 00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,099 radically changes how we view historical documents. 781 00:35:32,599 --> 00:35:34,800 Think about a piece of paper in an archive. Let's 782 00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:36,539 say it's a merchant's ledger from 16th century 783 00:35:36,539 --> 00:35:39,679 Venice detailing the sale of spices. OK, a mundane 784 00:35:39,679 --> 00:35:42,730 ledger. That merchant did not create that ledger 785 00:35:42,730 --> 00:35:45,329 to be a historical document for a scholar to 786 00:35:45,329 --> 00:35:48,730 read 500 years later. He created it as a practical 787 00:35:48,730 --> 00:35:52,230 object in his everyday mimesis one world to keep 788 00:35:52,230 --> 00:35:54,409 track of his money. Right. He was just doing 789 00:35:54,409 --> 00:35:57,610 his job. Exactly. It was left behind. It somehow 790 00:35:57,610 --> 00:36:00,670 survived the ravages of time. And now, centuries 791 00:36:00,670 --> 00:36:03,710 later, the historian finds it. And Ricoeur says 792 00:36:03,710 --> 00:36:06,230 the historian invents the document, doesn't he? 793 00:36:06,449 --> 00:36:08,389 And we should clarify the double meaning of that 794 00:36:08,389 --> 00:36:10,909 word in French and Latin. Yes. Inventio means 795 00:36:10,909 --> 00:36:13,949 both to discover and to create. The historian 796 00:36:13,949 --> 00:36:15,989 discovers the physical trace in the archive, 797 00:36:16,429 --> 00:36:19,110 but they have to create its status as a historical 798 00:36:19,110 --> 00:36:21,510 document through the active process of inquiry. 799 00:36:21,670 --> 00:36:23,789 They have to interrogate it. Right. They ask 800 00:36:23,789 --> 00:36:25,929 questions of the ledger that the Venetian merchant 801 00:36:25,929 --> 00:36:28,590 never intended to answer. They cross -reference 802 00:36:28,590 --> 00:36:31,190 it with ship manifests to deduce the overall 803 00:36:31,190 --> 00:36:33,989 economic health of the Republic. History is the 804 00:36:33,989 --> 00:36:36,809 hermeneutics, the rigorous science of interpretation, 805 00:36:37,110 --> 00:36:39,289 of trying to deduce the meaning of the vanished 806 00:36:39,289 --> 00:36:42,730 past through these surviving traces. So the trace 807 00:36:42,730 --> 00:36:45,269 is the iron tether that prevents history from 808 00:36:45,269 --> 00:36:48,050 just floating away into pure fiction. It is the 809 00:36:48,050 --> 00:36:50,690 physical guarantee that something actually happened, 810 00:36:50,969 --> 00:36:53,909 even if the historian has to imaginatively reconstruct 811 00:36:53,909 --> 00:36:56,619 what that something was. You nailed it. This 812 00:36:56,619 --> 00:36:59,719 is a breathtaking intellectual structure. History 813 00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,420 is tethered to reality by the physical trace, 814 00:37:02,679 --> 00:37:05,360 the footprint in the snow. Fiction is tethered 815 00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,159 to reality by the emotional and imaginative truth 816 00:37:08,159 --> 00:37:11,079 of the human condition. They basically take two 817 00:37:11,079 --> 00:37:13,800 diverging paths out of the chaos of Mimesis 1. 818 00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:16,860 But Rekur doesn't just leave them separated in 819 00:37:16,860 --> 00:37:19,519 their own silos, does he? He does not. And as 820 00:37:19,519 --> 00:37:22,119 we reach the climax of Volume 3, he brings them 821 00:37:22,119 --> 00:37:24,719 crashing back together. Oh, I love a good synthesis. 822 00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:28,139 It is his grand unifying synthesis. Having spent 823 00:37:28,139 --> 00:37:30,400 hundreds of pages carefully separating the truth 824 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,320 claims of history and fiction, Ricoeur argues that 825 00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,380 to truly solve the aporia of time to truly heal 826 00:37:36,380 --> 00:37:38,920 that agonizing rupture between Augustine's internal 827 00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,500 time of the soul and Aristotle's external time 828 00:37:41,500 --> 00:37:44,389 of the cosmos, history and fiction. actually 829 00:37:44,389 --> 00:37:47,230 need each other. They need each other? How? They 830 00:37:47,230 --> 00:37:49,550 perform what he calls an interweaving reference. 831 00:37:49,949 --> 00:37:52,269 They cross over into each other's territory to 832 00:37:52,269 --> 00:37:54,530 complete the work of making time human. Okay, 833 00:37:54,530 --> 00:37:56,449 let's look at this interweaving, starting with 834 00:37:56,449 --> 00:37:59,409 how history needs fiction. How does the rigorous, 835 00:37:59,730 --> 00:38:02,469 trace -obsessed historian actually use the tools 836 00:38:02,469 --> 00:38:04,969 of a novelist? Well, think about the historians 837 00:38:04,969 --> 00:38:06,949 sitting in the archive with their pile of traces. 838 00:38:07,510 --> 00:38:09,469 They have the merchant's ledger, the baptismal 839 00:38:09,469 --> 00:38:12,030 records, the casualty lists. These are dead, 840 00:38:12,550 --> 00:38:15,949 dry, fragmented physical remains. Just raw data 841 00:38:15,949 --> 00:38:18,210 points. Right. To turn those disconnected footprints 842 00:38:18,210 --> 00:38:20,670 into a readable history, the historian must use 843 00:38:20,670 --> 00:38:23,809 the imaginative poetic tools of fiction. They 844 00:38:23,809 --> 00:38:26,510 have to use mimesis to, emplotment. They have 845 00:38:26,510 --> 00:38:28,929 to decide the pacing, create narrative arcs, 846 00:38:29,030 --> 00:38:31,530 and synthesize the disparate facts into a cohesive 847 00:38:31,530 --> 00:38:34,190 vision. They have to tell a story. Exactly. More 848 00:38:34,190 --> 00:38:36,949 importantly, the historian has to imaginatively 849 00:38:36,949 --> 00:38:40,130 re -inhabit the past to understand the hidden 850 00:38:40,130 --> 00:38:43,739 intentions of the actors. History, to be compelling 851 00:38:43,739 --> 00:38:46,099 and understandable, must borrow the narrative 852 00:38:46,099 --> 00:38:48,039 artistry of fiction to bring the dead traces 853 00:38:48,039 --> 00:38:51,199 back to life. It constructs what Ricoeur calls 854 00:38:51,199 --> 00:38:54,800 a quasi -present out of the absolute past. It's 855 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,219 like the historian is building a house out of 856 00:38:57,219 --> 00:39:00,019 historical bricks, but they are using fiction's 857 00:39:00,019 --> 00:39:02,000 mortar to actually hold it together. That's a 858 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,519 great way to put it. So flip it around. How does 859 00:39:04,519 --> 00:39:07,949 fiction use history? Fictional narratives, even 860 00:39:07,949 --> 00:39:10,769 the most fantastical ones, constantly borrow 861 00:39:10,769 --> 00:39:13,210 the weight and structure of historical reality 862 00:39:13,210 --> 00:39:16,409 to make their invented worlds resonate. When 863 00:39:16,409 --> 00:39:19,070 a novelist creates a fictional universe, they 864 00:39:19,070 --> 00:39:22,170 imbue it with a deep sense of historicality. 865 00:39:22,670 --> 00:39:25,909 Meaning the world feels lived in. Yes. The characters 866 00:39:25,909 --> 00:39:28,329 have rich backstories. The fictional societies 867 00:39:28,329 --> 00:39:31,050 have deep -seated traditions. The fictional clocks 868 00:39:31,050 --> 00:39:34,329 tick irreversibly forward. Fiction borrows the 869 00:39:34,329 --> 00:39:36,369 structural feeling of history, the heaviness 870 00:39:36,369 --> 00:39:38,769 of time passing, the permanence of death, the 871 00:39:38,769 --> 00:39:41,130 weight of consequence to make its fables of time 872 00:39:41,130 --> 00:39:44,670 matter to us emotionally. As Ricoeur puts it, fiction 873 00:39:44,670 --> 00:39:47,590 historicizes itself to feel real, while history 874 00:39:47,590 --> 00:39:51,030 fictionalizes itself to become readable. It is 875 00:39:51,030 --> 00:39:54,269 an unbelievably elegant, massive philosophical 876 00:39:54,269 --> 00:39:58,170 circle. We start with the sheer terrifying chaos 877 00:39:58,170 --> 00:40:01,849 of live time. The irreconcilable clash between 878 00:40:01,849 --> 00:40:04,150 our inner anxiety and the ticking of the cosmic 879 00:40:04,150 --> 00:40:07,280 clock. We process that chaos through the plot 880 00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,059 -making, imaginative power of fiction, and the 881 00:40:10,059 --> 00:40:12,800 rigorous, trace -seeking proof of history. They 882 00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,059 interweave, they support each other. And through 883 00:40:15,059 --> 00:40:18,380 this massive cognitive process, time is returned 884 00:40:18,380 --> 00:40:21,420 to us. It is refigured. It comes back to us not 885 00:40:21,420 --> 00:40:23,559 as a meaningless sequence of ticks, but as human 886 00:40:23,559 --> 00:40:26,519 meaning. We literally conquer the terror of time 887 00:40:26,519 --> 00:40:29,039 by narrating it. And that is the ultimate soaring 888 00:40:29,039 --> 00:40:32,260 triumph of time and narrative. Ricoeur proves that 889 00:40:32,260 --> 00:40:34,500 while abstract logic and philosophy alone cannot 890 00:40:34,500 --> 00:40:37,280 solve the mystery of time, the human act of storytelling 891 00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,719 in both its historical and fictional forms provides 892 00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,420 a practical poetic salvation. It gives us a world 893 00:40:42,420 --> 00:40:44,579 we can actually live in and understand. I have 894 00:40:44,579 --> 00:40:46,619 to say, looking back over the ground we've covered 895 00:40:46,619 --> 00:40:49,460 today, it is staggering. I mean, we started with 896 00:40:49,460 --> 00:40:53,119 the ancient, unsolvable dispute between Augustine's 897 00:40:53,119 --> 00:40:55,320 stretching soul and Aristotle's moving stars. 898 00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:58,820 We explored how the threefold mimesis, prefiguration, 899 00:40:59,300 --> 00:41:02,119 configuration, and refiguration acts as the engine 900 00:41:02,119 --> 00:41:05,260 of human understanding, turning chaos into causality. 901 00:41:05,559 --> 00:41:07,780 We covered a lot of ground. We really did. We 902 00:41:07,780 --> 00:41:10,599 watched Recour defend the very soul of history 903 00:41:10,599 --> 00:41:12,860 against the Annals School, proving that even 904 00:41:12,860 --> 00:41:15,619 a 300 -year economic shift has a narrative plot. 905 00:41:16,300 --> 00:41:18,880 We learned how historians combine causes and 906 00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,260 human intentions to explain the past, and how 907 00:41:21,260 --> 00:41:23,300 they hunt for the trace, the physical footprint 908 00:41:23,300 --> 00:41:25,980 in the archive, to anchor their truth. And finally, 909 00:41:26,199 --> 00:41:28,920 we saw history and fiction interweave, borrowing 910 00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:30,840 each other's strengths to make the terror of 911 00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,530 time bearable. It's a beautiful system. So what 912 00:41:33,530 --> 00:41:36,570 does this massive philosophical journey mean 913 00:41:36,570 --> 00:41:39,250 for you, the listener? It means that you are 914 00:41:39,250 --> 00:41:42,090 an active, creative participant in the flow of 915 00:41:42,090 --> 00:41:45,369 time. You aren't just floating passively in the 916 00:41:45,369 --> 00:41:47,530 indifferent river of the cosmos every single 917 00:41:47,530 --> 00:41:50,469 time. You construct a memory of your past. Every 918 00:41:50,469 --> 00:41:52,630 time you plan a goal for your future, every time 919 00:41:52,630 --> 00:41:54,789 you sit down with a friend and tell a story about 920 00:41:54,789 --> 00:41:57,409 your day, you are using the poetics of narrative 921 00:41:57,409 --> 00:42:00,150 to make time human. You are. You are performing 922 00:42:00,150 --> 00:42:03,809 the exact same fundamental meaning making act 923 00:42:03,809 --> 00:42:06,849 as the greatest historians and novelists. You 924 00:42:06,849 --> 00:42:09,670 are giving shape to the void. It is a deeply 925 00:42:09,670 --> 00:42:12,070 empowering thought. We are the authors of our 926 00:42:12,070 --> 00:42:14,730 own time. But and I think this is important because 927 00:42:14,730 --> 00:42:16,829 reliance on the physical trace does leave us 928 00:42:16,829 --> 00:42:19,440 with a profound almost unsettling challenge. 929 00:42:19,619 --> 00:42:22,360 Oh, how so? Well, particularly in the technological 930 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,059 era we find ourselves in right now. Ricoeur grounds 931 00:42:25,059 --> 00:42:27,460 the ultimate truth of history entirely on the 932 00:42:27,460 --> 00:42:30,099 tangible trace of the past. The physical ledger, 933 00:42:30,300 --> 00:42:31,960 the footprint in the mud, the ink on the parchment. 934 00:42:32,139 --> 00:42:35,139 but it leaves you with a massive question for 935 00:42:35,139 --> 00:42:38,380 our modern, completely digital era. In a world 936 00:42:38,380 --> 00:42:41,159 where our data, our communications, our very 937 00:42:41,159 --> 00:42:45,059 lives are recorded in endlessly alterable, easily 938 00:42:45,059 --> 00:42:48,000 deleted digital formats, where texts and historical 939 00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:50,519 -looking images can be generated without any 940 00:42:50,519 --> 00:42:53,420 human action by algorithms, what happens to the 941 00:42:53,420 --> 00:42:57,460 trace? Oh, wow. That's a scary thought. If our 942 00:42:57,460 --> 00:42:59,590 footprints are no longer physical, If they can 943 00:42:59,590 --> 00:43:01,989 be wiped from existence with a single keystroke, 944 00:43:02,309 --> 00:43:04,329 will future historians actually be able to re 945 00:43:04,329 --> 00:43:07,210 -figure our time? Or are we entering an age where 946 00:43:07,210 --> 00:43:09,789 the reliable narrative of history itself becomes 947 00:43:09,789 --> 00:43:12,030 impossible to write just because the physical 948 00:43:12,030 --> 00:43:15,010 anchor has vanished? That is a chilling and absolutely 949 00:43:15,010 --> 00:43:17,530 vital question to leave off on. If the physical 950 00:43:17,530 --> 00:43:20,010 trace vanishes, does the human story vanish with 951 00:43:20,010 --> 00:43:22,219 it? Thank you so much for joining us on this 952 00:43:22,219 --> 00:43:24,380 incredibly deep dive into Paul Ricoeur's thought. 953 00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:26,739 It has been a total privilege to unpack this 954 00:43:26,739 --> 00:43:29,260 dense, beautiful philosophy with you. Until next 955 00:43:29,260 --> 00:43:31,360 time, keep questioning the world, keep hunting 956 00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,719 for traces, and keep exploring the deep dive.