Small narrative of the narrative: Metaphor, identity, image

This article analyzes and criticizes from the perspective of the philosophy of language Ricoeur's homology between one of the main tenets of hermeneutics-the hermeneutic circle- and the concept of (individual and collective) narrative. Narrative is a topic much discussed in contemporary political philosophy in connection with the problem of identity. The goal of the article is to retain the concept of narrative as valid for political philosophy in reference to identity-formation, but only if we leave aside many of its hermeneutic presuppositions, such as the priority of metaphor over metonymy, and of identity over difference. In order to sustain this thesis, it establishes a parallel between metaphor, narrative and the visual image using as on example a commentary on the work of the video-artist Bill Viola.