A priest in a time of prophets

the publication of History and Truth in the French intellectual field of the 1950s and 1960s.

Abstract

This article examines the publication of Paul Ricoeur's work, History and Truth, in 1955, as a point of observation of the tensions taking place in the French university in that context. The hypothesis is that the debate in which History and Truth are inserted marks not only a disciplinary change in the French scenario, with the consecration of an approach centered on the question of the historical present, but, above all, a change in the disciplinary hierarchies that respond, at the limit , to a geopolitical shift: namely, the transformation of the USA into the dominant pole not only of debates about history but, above all, about the epistemic virtues that would shape its exemplary practitioners. Paul Ricoeur, therefore, appears in the argument of this article not only as a debater, but as an exemplar of a type of intellectual attitude, codified from the erudite tradition of the French academic imagination. In order to accomplish this, we provide the context for publishing History and Truth. Next, we debate some of his arguments based on the disciplinary debates of the 1950s and 1960s. The third movement positions Ricoeur's trajectory in this broader movement towards the USA. Finally, we conclude with the possibility of thinking about its contribution to a debate on history and ethics, as it presents itself to historians of the 21st century.