Ricoeur and the Negation of Happiness

<p>Ricoeur lectured and wrote for over twenty years on negation ('Do I understand something better if I know what it is not and what is not-ness?') and never published his extensive writings on this subject. Ricoeur concluded that there are multiple forms of negation; it can for example be the<i> other person</i> (Plato) the <i>not knowable nature of our world</i> (Kant) the <i>included opposite</i> (Hegel) <i>apophatic spirituality</i> (Plotinus on not being able to know God) and <i>existential nothingness</i> (Sartre). Ricoeur working on Kant Hegel and Sartre decided that all these forms of negation are incompatible and also fatally flawed because they fail to resolve false binaries of negative: positive. Alison Scott-Baumann demonstrates how Ricoeur subsequently incorporated negation into his linguistic turn using dialectics metaphor narrative parable and translation in order to show how negation is in us not outside us: language both creates and clarifies false binaries. He bestows upon negation a strong and central role in the human condition and its inevitability is reflected in his writings if we look carefully. <i>Ricoeur and the Negation of Happiness</i> draws on Ricoeur's published works previously unavailable archival material and many other sources.<br>Alison Scott-Baumann argues that thinking positively is necessary but not sufficient for aspiring to happiness - what is also required is affirmation of negative impulses: we know we are split by contradictions and still try to overcome them. She also demonstrates the urgency of analysing current socio-cultural debates about wellbeing education and equality which rest insecurely upon our loose use of the negative as a category mistake.</p>