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This paper applies Paul Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis to compare Large Language Models (LLMs) and human semantic innovation. While some studies suggest LLMs match human creativity, a broader hermeneutical approach reveals fundamental differences. Examining prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration, we identify two key distinctions. First, LLMs lack the embodied experience of time that grounds human innovation, operating through mimesis lexios (imitation of language) rather than mimesis praxeos (imitation of action). Second, following Ricoeur, we argue LLM outputs require human interpretation to constitute genuine semantic innovation. While LLMs configure narratives, their creative potential remains tied to human-embodied experience of time and interpretative engagement since the semantic arc starts in human action and includes the refiguration of meaning through the reading process. These findings should inform debates on computational creativity and AI-human collaboration in meaning-making.

This paper applies Paul Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis to compare Large Language Models (LLMs) and human semantic innovation. While some studies suggest LLMs match human creativity, a broader hermeneutical approach reveals fundamental differences. Examining prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration, we identify two key distinctions. First, LLMs lack the embodied experience of time that grounds human innovation, operating through mimesis lexios (imitation of language) rather than mimesis praxeos (imitation of action). Second, following Ricoeur, we argue LLM outputs require human interpretation to constitute genuine semantic innovation. While LLMs configure narratives, their creative potential remains tied to human-embodied experience of time and interpretative engagement since the semantic arc starts in human action and includes the refiguration of meaning through the reading process. These findings should inform debates on computational creativity and AI-human collaboration in meaning-making.

Neste artigo, proponho uma análise do conceito de tolerância a partir de um diálogo entre ética e hermenêutica. Argumento que podemos encontrar um aspecto importante do homem tolerante através de um olhar hermenêutico para a sabedoria prática e seu processo deliberativo. Desde sua origem trágica, a sabedoria prática (to phronein) está relacionada a um determinado modo de deliberação que leva em conta tanto aspectos quanto possível de uma dada situação para decidir pela melhor alternativa prática. Para analisar esse processo deliberativo, gostaria de explorá-lo a partir de uma estrutura narrativa. A ideia de densidade narrativa captura a multiplicidade de fios narrativos de um discurso. Quanto maior o número de fios narrativos que compõem um discurso narrado, maior a densidade narrativa. Sugiro que um aspecto fundamental da boa deliberação é ter uma alta densidade narrativa, que é, como discutiremos neste texto, também um traço fundamental do discurso tolerante. Um discurso intolerante é fraco em seu aspecto deliberativo, pois carece de densidade narrativa. Ao ignorar os outros em um processo hermenêutico deficiente, o intolerante delibera a partir de sua única perspectiva e ignora outras prioridades, crenças, argumentos e desejos expressos. Uma deliberação narrativa mais densa é um aspecto linguístico relevante do homem tolerante, pois lhe permite superar seu medo do desconhecido e contrabalançar suas tendências egocêntricas. A deliberação phronética é, portanto, um passo essencial para a possibilidade de respeitar os outros. É um reflexo do reconhecimento mútuo e também o ponto de partida de decisões e ações tolerantes.

Recent digital and computational developments dramatically changed overnight the pace in which new technologies are integrated into the lives of billions of people and have changed how people use their time and relate to each other and their physical environment. This paper explores how some concepts of Ricoeur’s practical philosophy can offer significant contributions to the ethical discussion of new technologies. I suggest that a narrative approach to the ethical debates on technologies helps to put them in context and to analyze them in a dialectical manner concerning the natural and human processes that will be impacted by them. I then explore how the narrative approach leads to an ethical proposal based on Ricoeur’s critical phronesis (practical wisdom).

As Ricœur scholars know, the literature by and on Ricœur is vast. Material written by Ricœur that is not collected in published volumes is often difficult to locate, and even in the published volumes it is frequently a challenge to locate where Ricœur discusses a particular topic. Given the amount of his work it can be a challenge too to determine changes in his analyses over the life of his corpus. And locating secondary literature on Ricœur can be equally problematic. In response, we have been working to establish a model for how Ricœur’s corpus might be digitized so that the issues of access, keyword location, and pattern might all be addressed. To develop the model, we are starting with Ricœur’s primary texts in English and plan to expand over time to other languages and to the secondary literature on Ricœur. In the present article we discuss our model and its five steps: digital access; copyright; text preparation for digital searches and analysis; examples of digital searches and analyses; and an archive portal interface that allows users to query based on an extensible set of search variables without needing to know or access the underlying search logic. We also invite interested researchers to help assist the development of this digitization project.