Functioning of the P. Ricoeur's mimetic circle in the various narrative representations of the past

Abstract

Scholar’s and mythological historical narratives coexist independently, but now they have been increasingly confused. To find ways to compare them and highlight the properties which distinguish them, we turn to P. Ricoeur's concept of triple mimesis. Narratives are cognitive tools, so they are almost omnipresent. Since there is nothing in the narrative that would distinguish one type from another, it is necessary to pay attention to how they function, to the ways of representing reality that use different types of narratives. For this, the article uses the concept of P. Ricoeur's mimetic circle, which takes into account not only the narrative dimension itself, but also its “depth”, the degree of approximation to reality.