Paul Ricœur
We understand ourselves through the stories we tell about our lives, and interpreting texts means staying open to meanings beyond the obvious.
Placement
Hermeneutics of the self: identity is narrative identity; Marx, Nietzsche and Freud as “masters of suspicion.”
Key ideas
- Narrative identity
- Hermeneutics of suspicion
Students: Paulin Hountondji
Influence
Influenced by 13
Aristotle
influenced by
Ricœur built his theory of narrative on Aristotle’s Poetics, reading muthos as emplotment and mimesis as a threefold process (Time and Narrative I, 1983). P. Ricœur, Temps et récit I (1983); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Edmund Husserl
influenced by
As a prisoner of war Ricœur translated Husserl’s Ideas I (publ. 1950) and set out his philosophy as a phenomenology of the will (Le volontaire et l’involontaire, 1950). E. Husserl, Idées directrices pour une phénoménologie, trans. P. Ricœur (1950); P. Ricœur, Philosophie de la volonté I: Le volontaire et l’involontaire (1950); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Karl Jaspers
influenced by
In captivity Ricœur studied Jaspers’s philosophy of existence with Mikel Dufrenne (Karl Jaspers et la philosophie de l’existence, 1947) and contrasted his paradox with Marcel’s mystery (1948). M. Dufrenne and P. Ricœur, Karl Jaspers et la philosophie de l’existence (1947); P. Ricœur, Gabriel Marcel et Karl Jaspers. Philosophie du mystère et philosophie du paradoxe (1948); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Karl Jaspers › 1883–1969
Martin Heidegger
influenced by
Ricœur accepted Heidegger’s grounding of understanding in existence but took a ‘long route’ through interpretation of symbols and texts instead of his ‘short route’ (‘Existence et herméneutique’, 1965). P. Ricœur, “Existence et herméneutique” (1965), in Le conflit des interprétations (1969); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Hans-Georg Gadamer
influenced by
Ricœur adopted Gadamer’s belonging to tradition and effective history but added a moment of distanciation and explanation, mediating between Gadamer and Habermas (‘Herméneutique et critique des idéologies’, 1973). P. Ricœur, “Herméneutique et critique des idéologies” (1973), in Du texte à l’action (1986); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Hans-Georg Gadamer › 1900–2002
Emmanuel Levinas
influenced by
Ricœur took up Levinas’s injunction from the other (Oneself as Another, 1990) but objected that a self must be capable of receiving it, against pure asymmetry. P. Ricœur, Soi-même comme un autre (1990); Autrement. Lecture d’Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence d’Emmanuel Levinas (1997); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Emmanuel Levinas › 1906–1995
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Augustine
influenced by
Ricœur opened Time and Narrative (1983) with Augustine’s analysis of time in Confessions XI, whose distentio animi he answered with Aristotle’s concordant emplotment. P. Ricœur, Temps et récit I (1983); Augustine, Confessiones XI; SEP “Augustine of Hippo”
Evidence: AI draft
Augustine › 354–430
Sigmund Freud
influenced by
In De l’interprétation (1965) Ricœur read Freud’s psychoanalysis as a hermeneutics of suspicion that deciphers desire in symbols, combining an energetics of drives with interpretation. P. Ricœur, De l’interprétation. Essai sur Freud (1965); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: AI draft
Sigmund Freud › 1856–1939
Jan Patočka
influenced by
Ricœur prefaced the French edition of Patočka’s Heretical Essays (1981), presenting his philosophy of history, care for the soul and ‘solidarity of the shaken’ to French readers. J. Patočka, Essais hérétiques sur la philosophie de l’histoire, trans. E. Abrams, preface by P. Ricœur (1981)
Evidence: AI draft
Jan Patočka › 1907–1977
Georg Henrik von Wright
influenced by
Ricœur took from von Wright’s Explanation and Understanding (1971) the model of intervention, which joins causal and teleological explanation, for historical explanation (Time and Narrative I, 1983). P. Ricœur, Temps et récit I (1983); Du texte à l’action (1986); G. H. von Wright, Explanation and Understanding (1971)
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Henrik von Wright › 1916–2003
Reinhart Koselleck
influenced by
Ricœur took over Koselleck’s categories ‘space of experience’ and ‘horizon of expectation’ (Vergangene Zukunft, 1979) for his hermeneutics of historical consciousness (Time and Narrative III, 1985). P. Ricœur, Temps et récit III (1985); R. Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Reinhart Koselleck › 1923–2006
Clifford Geertz
influenced by
In his Chicago lectures (1975; publ. 1986) Ricœur took up Geertz’s ‘Ideology as a Cultural System’ (1964): at its basic level ideology integrates a community symbolically. P. Ricœur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (ed. G. H. Taylor, 1986); C. Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System” (1964), in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973)
Evidence: AI draft
Clifford Geertz › 1926–2006
Hayden White
influenced by
In Time and Narrative I (1983) Ricœur drew on White’s Metahistory (1973) for emplotment in historiography, later objecting that its tropology loosens reference to the real past (2000). P. Ricœur, Temps et récit I (1983); La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (2000); H. White, Metahistory (1973)
Evidence: AI draft
Hayden White › 1928–2018
Influenced 2
Enrique Dussel
influenced
Dussel attended Ricoeur’s courses at the Sorbonne in the 1960s and drew on his hermeneutics of symbols in his early studies of Semitic thought; in 1991 the two debated hermeneutics and liberation. E. Dussel, El humanismo semita (1969); Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty y la filosofía de la liberación (1993); E. Téllez Fabiani, “Ricoeur y Dussel”, Inter-American Journal of Philosophy (2022)
Evidence: AI draft
Enrique Dussel › 1934–2023
Paulin Hountondji taught
taught
Hountondji wrote his doctoral thesis on the idea of science in Husserl’s Prolegomena and First Logical Investigation under Ricœur’s supervision and defended it at Nanterre in June 1970, before a jury that included Suzanne Bachelard and Emmanuel Levinas. P. J. Hountondji, “My Experience with Paul Ricœur”, Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies 12:1 (2021), 50–59
Evidence: AI draft
Paulin Hountondji › 1942–2024
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Claude Lévi-Strauss
criticised
Ricœur called Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism ‘a Kantianism without a transcendental subject’ and argued that it suits totemic myth but not traditions that reinterpret themselves historically (‘Structure et herméneutique’, 1963). P. Ricœur, “Structure et herméneutique”, Esprit (Nov. 1963), repr. in Le conflit des interprétations (1969); Lévi-Strauss’s reply in the same issue
Evidence: AI draft
Claude Lévi-Strauss › 1908–2009
Algirdas Julien Greimas
criticised
Ricœur argued that Greimas’s semiotic model of narrative presupposes, rather than replaces, the temporal understanding of plot from which it is derived (Temps et récit II, 1984). P. Ricœur, Temps et récit II (1984), ch. 2; “La grammaire narrative de Greimas” (1980)
Evidence: AI draft
Algirdas Julien Greimas › 1917–1992
Works
The hermeneutics of suspicion.
Augustine's aporias of time and Aristotle's emplotment – time becomes human by being narrated.
Idem and ipse: narrative and ethical identity.
Position
Ricœur built bridges between phenomenology, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, linguistics and analytic philosophy. Self-understanding, he argued, is never immediate; it always takes a detour through signs, symbols and texts. In his reading of Freud he contrasted the “hermeneutics of suspicion” – Marx, Nietzsche and Freud unmasking hidden motives – with a hermeneutics that recovers meaning. In Time and Narrative he showed that time becomes human time when it is narrated, and in Oneself as Another he developed the idea of narrative identity: we understand who we are through the stories we tell about our lives. His ethics aims at a good life lived with and for others in just institutions.
Life & context
Orphaned early – his father was killed in the First World War – Ricœur grew up in a Protestant family in Brittany. As a prisoner of war in Germany he translated Husserl’s Ideas. He taught in Strasbourg, at the Sorbonne and in Nanterre, and later for many years at the University of Chicago. He remained productive into old age.
Further main works
- Freedom and Nature (1950)
- The Rule of Metaphor (1975)
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