Abstract

This article points out some methodological difficulties in Time and Narrative. On the one hand, the imbalance in the re-elaboration of the mimetic model: the extensive treatment of the configurative and the refigurative components contrasts with the indeterminacy which remains in the prefigurative component. On the other hand, there is a discontinuity between narrative refiguration and the hermeneutics of historical consciousness. A certain ambiguity of the “ontological” allows for the integration of the hermeneutics of historical consciousness and the prefigurative dimension of action. By limiting the scope of refiguration in this way, the poetic circle operates solely within the hermeneutic circle. The connectors of historical time and the theory of the act of reading are also related to the hermeneutics of action. Thus an alternative view of Time and Narrative emerges, where narrative ceases to be the main axis, and where praxis gives full meaning to the hermeneutic reflection, and thereby to the experience of time.