Utopic imagination as an attribute of freedom. A comment stemming from Paul Ricoeur’s conception of the social imaginary.

Abstract

When post-modern thinking has declared the end of utopias and considers enlightenment optimism as a repertoire of unfulfilled promises, we wonder: how do we go back to talking about utopias today? We believe that, even though the diagnostic made by postmodern opinion as regards what is factually verifiable may be right, it does not go beyond the surface of historical and sociological analysis and  overlooks that utopic imagination has its roots in an experience inherent in man, namely, freedom and desire. Our research stems from this anthropological root. Finding the foundations of utopic thinking in the ontological core of man is what will allow us to answer the question above. To carry out this task, we will resort to Paul Ricoeur’s study of the social imaginary concept, focusing mainly on one of his most attractive expressions, that of utopia. The highlights of Ricoeur’s thought on utopia will be dealt with and we will seek to show how this utopic imagination, which makes new worlds bloom, unfolds as an attribute of freedom. For this purpose, we will briefly address the etymological analysis of the term utopia and the development of Paul Ricouer’s theory of imagination, mainly focusing on the difference between reproductive and productive imagination, which will lead us to a concept of utopia that, as Ricoeur claims, will appear to us as that no place from which “the most formidable questions of what is will bloom.”