외른 뤼젠(Jörn Rüsen)의 역사의식 이론

Abstract

This paper deals with Jörn Rüsen’s theory of historical consciousness. Rüsen succeeded Karl-Ernst Jeismann’s theory of historical consciousness, but he attempted to theorize historical consciousness by emphasizing the productive and constructive feature of learner’s activity through narrative theory. Rüsen worked with the extended concept of narrative by Arthur Danto and was informed by Paul Ricoer’s narrative theory. Consequently, Rüsen understood history as meaning-making in time-experience through the process of narrative, and the work of historian as a kind of historical narrative. In this narrative process where time-experience is combined with intention, time of nature is transformed into human time and the human being is set in time. In addition, Rüsen emphasized the role of memory in historical narratives, arguing that intentionally remembered past affects both present and future. To sum up, Rüsen describes historical consciousness as “all mental operations-including emotional, cognitive, unconscious and conscious ones- by which time-experience is processed into orientations of the life-practice, with memory as a medium”. He tried to establish history as science related to life through narrative theory. His theory of historical consciousness has great significance in history education.