Anna Borisenkova’s research while affiliated with School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and other places

Nous sommes heureux de vous présenter le quatrième numéro de Études Ricœuriennes/Ricœur Studies (ERRS). La conception de ce numéro a été largement inspirée par la Conférence Internationale des Etudes Ricœuriennes (International Conference on Ricœur Studies "New Perspectives on Hermeneutics in the Social Sciences and Practical Philosophy"), qui s’est tenue à l'École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Economiques à Moscou du 13 au 16 Septembre 2011.

The analysis of events has been a central issue for social sciences for a long time. The problem of an event's definition and distinction is still at stake in sociological debates. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the contribution of Paul Ricoeur's narrative theory to social events studies. First, this is done through the explication of the concept in the framework of narrative approach. Secondly, the paper highlights the narrative's capacity of 'refiguring' the social by re-describing social events, subordinating their succession to the logic of story-telling and transforming temporal characteristics as well. Apart from some insights, interpretative explanations and illustrations the paper provides critical arguments concerning the limitations of Paul Ricoeur's narrative approach with respect to sociological event-analysis. L'analyse des événements a toujours été une question centrale pour l'histoire et les sciences sociales. Le problème de la définition et de la distinction des événements est encore en jeu dans les débats sociologiques contemporains. L'objectif de cet article est de s'attarder sur la contribution de la théorie de Paul Ricœur aux études des événements sociaux. Après avoir montré les limites d'une conception impersonnelle de l'événement, l'auteur se penche sur la solution narrative proposée par Ricœur, à savoir la capacité du récit à “refigurer” du Social par la re-description des événements sociaux. Il s'agit de soumettre la logique de la succession temporelle à la logique de la narration. Tout en rendant justice à la valeur heuristique de telles analyses (à travers une série d'explicitations et d'illustrations), l'article pointe les limites de l'approche narrative de Paul Ricœur au regard des analyses sociologique des événements.

The article deals with the problem that for a long time has been unnoticed in sociology. Knowledge is one of the primary research objects in social science. However, the existing theories, aimed at the exploration of knowledge, provide certain limitations. Sociological models are intended to explain the social aspects. But they fail to answer a fundamental question: 'What is knowledge?' The article introduces a broad analytical scheme for the sociology of knowledge that is narrative in its foundations. This approach focuses on such inner characteristics of knowledge as meaning, coherence, causality, and discourse. Two aspects of narrative construction of sociological knowledge are considered. The first is making a narrative history of science. The second is the embededness of narrative in the process of sociological explanation. The article then discusses the problem of applicability of narrative to the scientific description of large-scale matters such as macro-history and social change. It provides both criticisms and arguments in favour of narrative research of major issues. It concludes that narrative as an analytical scheme has a universal dimension and that it has to be further developed in the framework of a sociological investigation.