Paul Ricoeur: Empowering Education, Politics and Society

This book uses Paul Ricoeur's methodologies to identify, challenge, and replace abuses of power, such as in the university curriculum and international discourse of right-wing populism. It provides a meta-frame for current debates and a pragmatic micro-frame for developing conversations on campus. It introduces the Community of Inquiry approach and reveals a bias blind spot in Ricoeur's work on Algeria and Chicago. It encourages readers to think differently about racism, epistemic injustice, forced polarities, and pedagogy of hope.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 122 pages
Publication date: 22 August 2023
Publisher: Springer Verlag, Singapore

This open-access book employs Paul Ricoeur's methodologies to identify, challenge, and replace with responsible language the many ongoing abuses of power, including in the university curriculum and in the international discourse of right-wing populism. Using Ricoeur's philosophy, the book provides a meta-frame for current debates about the university and a pragmatic micro-frame for supporting staff and students to develop important conversations on campus. It introduces the Community of Inquiry approach and describes its use to engage with complex ideas on which society has recently become silent. By contrasting Ricoeur's work on Algeria and his work in Chicago, USA, a bias blind spot is revealed in his desire for dialectical balance and reciprocity. This prevented him (and for some years the author) from accepting the connections between colonialism, slavery, and racism and the urgent need for reparative justice.

With Ricoeur, the readers can think differently: how to recognize and tackle racism and the democratic deficit, how to reduce epistemic injustice by learning how to speak out, how to move away from forced polarities and develop a pedagogy of hope as well as an acceptance of provisionality and the intractability of certain existential problems.

This book is a valuable resource for educators, students, and activists seeking to understand and address the ongoing abuses of power and promote a more just and equitable society. It offers a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of Ricoeur's philosophy and its application to contemporary issues, providing a framework for thinking differently and taking action to create a better world.

Weight: 224g
Dimension: 155 x 234 x 11 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789819934744
Edition number: 1st ed. 2023