History in Ricoeur and Merleau-Ponty: event and institution

Abstract

The present work aims to elucidate how Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur understand history from a dialectical perspective where contingency is not seen as an error but as a constitutive element of it. The starting point will seek to clarify the two pillars upon which the logic of history is based: events, whether political, social, or historical, possess a human significance that allows for the integration of these different aspects into "a single history"; and, on the other hand, the idea that the moments of this logic unfold in an orderly manner and point towards a never-attained goal. Therefore, although events form a single text, they are not strictly connected, there is "play within the system", and the dialectic of history can deviate and become an unpredictable adventure. Similarly, for Ricoeur, historical narrative has an inherent logic, but that logic is unpredictable and imperfect; he explicitly states that it is an "imperfect mediation".