For Paul Ricoeur, human identity is not a fixed essence but a story we tell about ourselves. He developed the influential concept of narrative identity to explain how people make sense of their lives through stories. In works such as Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another, Ricoeur shows how identity is configured through narrative, balancing continuity with change, sameness with selfhood.
Idem and Ipse: Two Dimensions of Identity
Ricoeur distinguishes between two modes of identity:
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Idem (sameness): the stable traits, habits, and features that make a person recognizable over time.
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Ipse (selfhood): the capacity to promise, to act, and to remain responsible even when circumstances change.
Narrative identity emerges from the interplay of idem and ipse. Stories hold together both the permanence and the fragility of the self.
Narrative as the Configuration of Time
In Time and Narrative, Ricoeur explains that human time becomes intelligible through emplotment—the act of weaving events into a meaningful story. Life itself has the texture of narrative: beginnings, crises, turning points, and resolutions. By telling stories, individuals and communities configure their past, orient their present, and project their future.
Narrative identity, then, is the synthesis of these temporal dimensions. It allows us to answer the question “Who am I?” not with an abstract definition, but with a story.
The Role of Interpretation
Narrative identity is not static; it evolves through interpretation. Each new reading of our life story can reconfigure its meaning. This is why Ricoeur links narrative identity to hermeneutics: just as texts invite interpretation, so too does the self. Life is read and re-read, interpreted and re-interpreted, as circumstances shift.
Narrative Identity and Ethical Responsibility
For Ricoeur, narrative identity has profound ethical implications. To have a self is to be capable of attestation—the assurance of being able to act, promise, and take responsibility. A person’s narrative is bound up with their commitments and their accountability.
This is particularly clear in the act of promising. When someone keeps their word over time, they demonstrate ipse-identity: fidelity to themselves and to others. Narrative identity thus grounds ethical life, linking selfhood to responsibility and justice.
Collective Dimensions of Narrative Identity
Ricoeur also extends the idea of narrative identity to communities. Nations, religions, and cultures sustain themselves through shared narratives. Collective identity is shaped by stories of origin, suffering, struggle, and hope. But just like individual narratives, collective narratives can be contested, reinterpreted, or transformed over time. This makes narrative identity a critical category for political and cultural analysis.
Narrative identity is never immune to critique. Ricoeur emphasizes the importance of the hermeneutics of suspicion: stories can conceal ideology, exclude voices, or mask injustices. But he also insists that narratives can be reconfigured. Through reinterpretation, individuals and societies can reshape their identities toward more just and inclusive forms.
Living Through Stories
For Ricoeur, narrative identity captures the essence of human existence: to live is to tell, retell, and revise stories. Identity is not a substance but a dynamic process, woven through time and open to reinterpretation. In affirming narrative identity, Ricoeur gives us a powerful tool for thinking about selfhood, ethics, and community.
In an age where personal and collective identities are constantly being reshaped, Ricoeur’s concept reminds us that we are always, in some sense, authors of our lives—and that the stories we tell matter.
Glossary of Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics
See also:
Hayden White – The Historical Text as Literary Artifact
Narrative and Ethnography: Geertz’s Influence on Literary Anthropology
Myth and Narrative: The Power of Stories in Shaping Human Consciousness
