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Ricoeur, Paul
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Paul Ricoeur: A Hermeneutical Theologian (Peter Heltzel, 1999)
Peter Heltzel, 1999
Ricoeur's Hermeneutical Alternative to Rational Religion
The philosophical vision of French thinker Paul Ricoeur has provided an alternative to the rational approaches to religion in the Enlightenment, through a theology of symbols placed within the framework of Continental hermeneutical philosophy. One of the primary polemics throughout his large corpus is his repudiation of Cartesian rationalism. Schleiermacher had earlier challenged the conceptual distance of Descarte's project and suggested what was really at issue for theology was immediacy and relationality (1977). Interpretation is communal within the context of Schleiermacher's romanticism, not the solitary exercise on which Descarte embarked in order to discover the scope of doubt and knowledge. Throughout his writing Ricoeur has consistently demonstrated the problematic nature of what he calls "the Cartesian cogito" (1976; 1992: 4-6). Following Heidegger, Ricoeur no longer identitifies the self with the subject. The self is distinct from that of the cogito. The self "I am" is prior to the "I think," the thinking thing. Moreover, Ricoeur is not preoccupied with a definitive starting point of philosophy, like the autonomous doubting self. For him it is sufficient to commence with language through a meditation on symbols and the meaning that is inherent in language.
Ricoeur employs this linaguistic/symbolic epistemology in his book The Symbolism of Evil. In this work, R examines the language of fault and accusation and concludes that the Cartesian ideal of a free and indubitable starting point for knowledge is an impossibility: "it is necessary to renounce the chimera of a philosophy without presuppositions and begin from a full language" (1967: 19). Because it cannot hld every assumption in abeyance, skeptical thought must start "from speech that has already taken place, and in which everything has already been said in unconscious resources encoded in the history of language and human experience; for this reason, the moral past is alive in present speech. Ricoeur writes of "the gift of meaning from the symbol." In his words, "the symbol gives; but what it gives is occasion of thought, something to think about" (1967:348). For the philosophical hermeneutics of R, knowledge is a gift before it becomes a task; it must be received before it can be doubted.
The "gift" is given to the community. R picks up on this theme of intersubjectivity in his constructive alternative to the individualistic rationalism of Descartes. His joined by Gadamer and others in more of a communal, friendship model of hermeneutics compared to the earlier individual model. For example, Gadamer says "the task of hermeneutics is to clarify this miracles of understanding, which is not a mysterious communion of souls, but sharing in a common meaning" (Gadamer 1993:292). Only through conversation with the other are we really able to begin to exhaust the possibility of understanding a text or experience. Thus, inter-religious as well as dialogue with the non-religious and practitioners of all academic disciplines is given a high premium in Ricoeur's work. For Ricoeur, genuine "understanding" of a text or of another human person arise only when we explore new worlds of possibility (1984-88: vol. 3, 253-261; vol. 2, 100-160).
Ricoeur's Theory of Symbol
After critiquing Enlightenment skepticism, Ricoeur stresses the need for a reaffirmation of commitment and the will after an experience of doubt and denial. He laments and then proclaims "in every way, something has been lost, irremediably lost: immediacy of belief. But if we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can, we modern men, aim at a second naivete in and through criticism. In short it is by interpreting that we hear again" (1967: 351). Thus, interpretation is the way that the modern person is able to reaffirm life through an honest act of willing and reflecting on symbols. Symbolic, communal interpretation, instead of detached rational thought, is the way that one assesses reality.
Ricoeur does not see the completely interpreted nature of reality as threatening personal agency and personal identity. Taking up the argument of his Time and Narrative (1984-1988, vol. 3: 235-40), he introduces the notion of "narrative identity" in one of his most recent works Oneself as Another (1992:17). Whereas for Descartes, either there are ideas, objects or essences, or there is nothing; for Ricoeur, narrative opens up the notion of an entity who acts and suffers within a framework of continuity and change through the changes and continuities of time. Placing the self within a greater plot of characters which is moving from the past to the future undermines both modern and postmodern accounts of the self. Against the modern autonomous self, as mentioned above, the self is defined in its relations, conversations, service and resistance to others. Against the post-modern reduced, de-centerd self, R argues that diachronic narrative and communal reflection of symbols provide a poetic context to reconcile the polarities of existential displacement in the world (1967: 13ff).
Three Levels of Subjectivity
The modern problem of human subjectivity does not go away, it simply is reinterpreted. Ricoeur frames the problem in terms of a three-tiered literary program. In the first phase of the program, Ricoeur attempts to depict human nature in its essential primordial wholeness. Since this depiction also describes what it is about the human being that makes him capable of fault, the title of the book The Symbolism of Evil. Here the focus shifts to a description of the human's actual existential situation. Phase one of the study is called eidetics, while the second phase is called empirics.
The third phase is called poetics. Its purpose is to bring the analyses of the two previous studies together, to demonstrated how the human's actual situation can be reconciled with his essential conditions. This is R's constructive theological vision of a humanity reconciled with itself. It is here that he will describe the dynamics of transcendence. Originally, R set out to describe a poetic of the will; however, this third phase did not turn out the way that he expected it to, it has gravitated toward the area of biblical hermeneutics.
Conclusion: From Poetic to Biblical Hermeneutics
As he has gotten older he has become increasingly interested in biblical exegesis. Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermenutical Studies (1999), his recent collection of essays written in collaboration with an Old Testament scholar demonstrate his interest in a dialogical treatment of the biblical text. With his interest in the biblical literature he has a common subject of study with Hans Frei and the New Yale school. Although Kevin Vanhoozer (1990) tries to argue for even more continuity between Frei and Ricoeur, it is simply not there. First, Ricoeur actively employs historical crticism (in the Bultmanian tradition), while this is a non-issue for the narrative/canonical approach of post-liberalism. Secondly, Frei focuses exclusively on the genre of narrative, while Ricoeur affirms the breadth of biblical genres. For example, in Thinking Bibllically, he comments on texts representing all of the major genres of the Hebrew bible (e.g., Gen 2,3; Ex 3:14; Psalm 22). Thirdly, Ricoeur does not want to think of everything in terms of intra-textuality, but rather in terms of some of the latest French reception theory. Finally, Ricoeur encourages a much stronger dialogue of non-theological and theological readings, in constrast to Frei's more ecclesial based hermeneutic.
Part of the reason for these different hermeneutics is the place that theology holds in theological method. Both make a harsh distinctioni between the philosophical and exegetical modes. Ricoeur affirms the autonomy of philosophical thinking which can ssist theology in making its claims more intelligible. For Frei, philosophy idestracts the theologian from the primary task of elucidating the identity of Jesus as presented in the gospel narratives. Frei creates a false antithesis between the two disciplines.
Although he sees theology and philosophy as distinct in terms of their own autonomy, Ricoeur repudiates a harsh antithesis between the two. Philosophy reminds theology of its epistemic limitations so it can not be dogmatic. Philosophy can function as "a friend of the court" in terms of explicating the doctrines of Christian faith with precision and intelligibility. Since theology is hermeneutical, philosophy can be an indirect aid in thinking about hermeneutics. The general hermeneutic of Ricoeur allows for a plurality and specificity of regional hermeneutics (e.g., biblical hermeneutics), yet also allows for a continuing cross-traditional, cross-disciplinary conversational quest for truth.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. The Conflict of Interpretation—Essays in Hermeneutics. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
--------. 1984-1988. Time and Narrative. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
--------. 1992. Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
--------. 1995. Figure of the Sacred. Minneapolis: Fortress.
--------; La Cocque, Andre. 1999. Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Secondary Sources
Gadamer, Hans Georg. 1993. Truth and Method. London: Sheed & Ward.
Schleiermacher, F.D.E. 1977. Hermeneutics: The Handwritten Manuscripts, ed. H. Kimmerle, Eng. Missoula: Scholars Press.
Vanhoozer, Kevin. 1990. Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
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