P. Ricoeur

'The work is in three parts, clearly delimited by theme and method. The
first, given over to memory and mnemonic phenomena, is under the guidance of
phenomenology in the Husserlian meaning of the term. The second, dedicated to
history, falls under the epistemology of historical sciences. The third, whose high point
is a meditation on forgetting, finds place in a hermeneutics of the historical condition
we humans fall under. But these three parts do not make for three books. Although
the three masts carry intertwined wings still distinct, they belong to the same
vessel, and are destined to a same and unique journey. A common problem traverses
the phenomenology of memory, the epistemology of history, the hermeneutics of the
historical condition: that of apprehending the past. I am disturbed by
the troubling spectacle given by too much memory here, too much forgetting
elsewhere, not to mention the influence of commemorations and abusive uses
of memory - and forgetting. The search for a policy of adequate memory
remains in this respect one of my explicit civic goals.' Paul Ricoeur

translation: doxa-louise

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Ricoeur found Protestant theology interesting. Having been
schooled in both Catholic and Protestant institutions, I can add
a very practical account of how adequate memory plays out in both
cultures. If Catholics are prone to take on the guilt of their ancestors
and excuse their acts as too zealous faith, Protestants take a quite
different tack. Yes, your ancestors did such and so, but the moral failing
at issue would be your not acknowledging it, or choosing to remain
ignorant that this really happened. In the first, complicity is guilty;
in the second, ignorance is.