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Narrative Expresses Being: An Ontology of the Self in Community

John L. Meech

in Paul in Israel's Story: Self and Community at the Cross

Narrative articulates the self, yet the self is not its narrative. Is there a discourse that is not just another narrative but that can articulate the being of the self? At the end of his ... More

Narrative articulates the self, yet the self is not its narrative. Is there a discourse that is not just another narrative but that can articulate the being of the self? At the end of his hermeneutics of the self, Ricoeur constructs a multi-layered ontology of the self whose fragmented nature reflects the halting path of the itinerary. Yet after certain extraordinary encounters (like Paul’s encounter with the crucified and resurrected Christ) the community’s story may have to be retold to let the suffering other come into phrases. How does an ontology of the self fare in such encounters? This chapter argues that an ontology of the self is the correlate of a conversation in a community. The real that resists being interpreted otherwise can only be articulated properly when one considers simultaneously the self, the other and the community in which they meet — a community that, correlatively, only appears where self and other meet. Such an ontology of the self in community could be superseded, but only at the expense of a profound challenge to the community’s self-understanding.Less

 Paul Ricoeur and the Poetic Moral Self

John Wall

in Moral Creativity: Paul Ricoeur and the Poetics of Possibility

There can be no meaning to the notion of human moral creativity without first the ontological possibility for a poetic moral self. In the face of a range of contemporary attacks on moral selfhood, ... More

There can be no meaning to the notion of human moral creativity without first the ontological possibility for a poetic moral self. In the face of a range of contemporary attacks on moral selfhood, Paul Ricoeur’s “poetics of the will” opens the way for a new postmodern phenomenology of the moral self rooted not in the autonomous ego of modernity, but in a radical religious affirmation or wager of the human capability for making meaning of its historical and embodied world. A careful reading of Ricoeur’s extensive oeuvre over the second half of the twentieth century shows the development of a highly original moral anthropology—combining elements from Edmund Husserl, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gabriel Marcel, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and others—based on a fallible tension of finitude and freedom within the self that is nevertheless capable of giving rise to concrete historical meaning over time in the form of the self’s interpretations of symbols, traditions, and narratives. Ricoeur’s unique hermeneutical phenomenology does not, however, fully articulate the primordiality of human moral creativity itself. The decisive further step that may be taken, by more closely integrating poetics and religion, is to affirm the human self as ultimately capable, in the face of its own idolatrous fallibility, of imitating the mythical world-creative activity of the world’s own primordial Creator.Less

Introduction

John L. Meech

in Paul in Israel's Story: Self and Community at the Cross

After his encounter with the risen Christ, St. Paul had to retell Israel’s story, and in so doing, his own understanding of self and community underwent a profound shift. Is it possible that the ... More

After his encounter with the risen Christ, St. Paul had to retell Israel’s story, and in so doing, his own understanding of self and community underwent a profound shift. Is it possible that the strong tie between Paul’s understanding of self, community, and the community’s story is something we should bracket or, as Rudolf Bultmann says, demythologize? Rather, this book asserts that two conversations in philosophy and theology can mutually contribute to our present understanding of the self in community: Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self, and the new perspective debate in biblical studies about the meaning of law, works, faith and justification in St. Paul’s letters. With respect to the first conversation, the chapter places Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self in the context of theological debates about selfhood. With respect to the second conversation, the chapter demonstrates how the book’s interpretation of the Pauline texts draws critically from the new perspective studies within a Lutheran framework that is responsive to critics of the new perspective.Less

The Deferred Self: Paul Ricoeur's Oneself as Another

John L. Meech

in Paul in Israel's Story: Self and Community at the Cross

In his hermeneutics of the self, Ricoeur executes a series of detours to the self through several accounts of selfhood. Yet he refuses to grant the last word to any one of these accounts alone but ... More

In his hermeneutics of the self, Ricoeur executes a series of detours to the self through several accounts of selfhood. Yet he refuses to grant the last word to any one of these accounts alone but puts them all into play at once in a journey led by the question of who: Who speaks? Who acts (and who suffers)? Who tells her story? Who is responsible? While Ricoeur acknowledges the role of community in the constitution of the self, he never takes the explicit detour to the self through community. In a final detour to the self through community, the self can be glimpsed reflexively as the correlate of a community when ethical conflicts put the self and community at stake together. In such conflicts, the need to identify the community in a narrative attains the status of something attested, and constitutes a first aporia in Ricoeur’s account. A second aporia appears when imputation, responsibility, and recognition are affirmed of the self who is the correlate of a community. These aporias are overcome by letting the community appear as “person” through the metaphor of the “spirit” in the community.Less

 Hermeneutics and Discourse Styles in Studies of the Lotus Sutra and Dōgen

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This chapter presents a range of hermeneutical and methodological considerations related to Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, discussing approaches particularly relevant to Dōgen: skillful means; Tathāgata ... More

This chapter presents a range of hermeneutical and methodological considerations related to Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, discussing approaches particularly relevant to Dōgen: skillful means; Tathāgata garbha, or Buddha womb teaching; and practice as enactment of realization. This is followed by considerations from Paul Ricoeur's Western hermeneutical perspectives on use of metaphor and wordplay as contexts for appreciating Dōgen's creative use of language, and Ricoeur's writings about proclamation that are illuminating of Dōgen's discourse style, which to a great extent explicitly draws from the Lotus Sutra. New interest in the strong role of imagery and imagination in Buddhism is also discussed, which is important for both Mahayana sutras and for Dōgen.Less

 Touching Evil, Touching Good

Irena S. M. Makarushka

in Teaching Religion and Film

This chapter looks at the teaching of special topics in the study of religion, in this case the representation of evil. Employing the medium of film to teach this topic enables students to reflect on ... More

This chapter looks at the teaching of special topics in the study of religion, in this case the representation of evil. Employing the medium of film to teach this topic enables students to reflect on “religious” assumptions and their implications for how we experience ourselves in the world. With the focus on a particular film, Crash, and the theoretical work of Paul Ricoeur, this chapter considers evil by analyzing the racism in Crash and its relationship to alienation, confession, and redemption. The more general project of a similar course would be to introduce students to evil as a complex dimension of human experience. Reading films critically increases the likelihood that students will move beyond either/or and black/white dichotomies toward a more integrated understanding of the problem of evil.Less

. Love and Justice: A Memorial Tribute to Paul Ricoeur

Fred Dallmayr

in In Search of the Good Life: A Pedogogy for Troubled Times

This chapter discusses a moderately sized text that, in its basic orientation, can claim a certain representative quality. It also serves as a dedication to the memory of Paul Ricoeur, whose writings ... More

This chapter discusses a moderately sized text that, in its basic orientation, can claim a certain representative quality. It also serves as a dedication to the memory of Paul Ricoeur, whose writings were voluminous and multifaceted. Further on in the chapter, the topics of love and justice are discussed separately, after which the possibility as well as the significance of their mediation is explored.Less

Ricoeur: Reciprocity and Mutuality—From the Golden Rule to Agapē

Marcel Hénaff

in The Philosophers' Gift: Reexamining Reciprocity

This chapter addresses Paul Ricoeur's Oneself as Another (1992), in which he presents his most profound problematization of reciprocity through a questioning of the concepts of solicitude, promise, ... More

This chapter addresses Paul Ricoeur's Oneself as Another (1992), in which he presents his most profound problematization of reciprocity through a questioning of the concepts of solicitude, promise, otherness, and attestation, among others. Ricoeur appears to distance himself from the concept of reciprocity, and instead he promotes the concept of mutuality. He views the former as leading to conflict, and the latter to benevolence. Ritual exchanges of “mutual” gifts should then be understood as exceptional moments that lead to “states of peace,” furthermore leading to the relationship of agapē. However, it is questionable whether one can accept Ricoeur's interpretation, which underestimates the element of struggle and differentiation that is a foundational factor in the ceremonial gift and underlies every bond of reciprocity, including the bond stated by the Golden Rule.Less

Hermeneutic Theory and the Study of Jewish Theology: Toward a New Model of Jewish Theological Language

in Contemplative Nation: A Philosophical Account of Jewish Theological Language

This chapter analyzes the leading hermeneutic theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, focusing on the ways in which such theories can advance the study of Jewish theology. It discusses ... More

This chapter analyzes the leading hermeneutic theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, focusing on the ways in which such theories can advance the study of Jewish theology. It discusses Gadamer's magnum opus, Truth and Method, to shed light on the dynamics of interpretation across great historical distance, the interpretive processes within Judaism, and the challenges scholars of Judaism have faced in interpreting theological ideas that conflict with contemporary philosophical and theological sensibilities. Ricoeur's most significant contributions to the study of Jewish theology revolve around his analysis of the various forms of biblical discourse and his concern for the limits of theological language. Ricoeur argues that all the forms of biblical discourse, such as narrative, law, prophecy, wisdom, and poetry, reflect a distinct aspect of the divine-human relationship and, like Gadamer, also seeks to answer the question of what account of truth is appropriate to the arts and humanities. His hermeneutic theory borrows in part from Gottlob Frege.Less

Alpyağıl’s Case for Canon

Taraneh R. Wilkinson

in Dialectical Encounters: Contemporary Turkish Muslim Thought in Dialogue

This chapter introduces the reader to the figure and work of Istanbul theologian and philosopher of religion RecepAlpyağıl.Alpyağıl’s work reflects a deep critical interest in authenticity and the ... More

This chapter introduces the reader to the figure and work of Istanbul theologian and philosopher of religion RecepAlpyağıl.Alpyağıl’s work reflects a deep critical interest in authenticity and the formation of intellectual canon. This discussion lays out his case for an inclusive canon of philosophy of religion and explores why Alpyağıl thinks it is needed in the context of an authentically Turkish and Muslim study of philosophy of religion. In his case for an inclusive canon, Alpyağıl turns to the example of French philosopher of religion Paul Ricoeur and his discussion of intertextuality. By teasing out the parallels between Ricoeur’s legacy in philosophy of religion and Alpyağıl’s use of Ricoeur’s example for a Turkish paradigm, this chapter argues for the dialectical and complex nature of Alpyağıl’s proposed path forward: that an authentically Turkish and Muslim philosophy of religion is intertextual and inclusive.Less

Introduction

Kathryn M. Grossman

in The Later Novels of Victor Hugo: Variations on the Politics and Poetics of Transcendence

The introduction highlights the lack of closure and futuristic bent of Hugo’s later novels; the intertwining of poetics and politics in the exiled writer’s prolific literary production; the evolution ... More

The introduction highlights the lack of closure and futuristic bent of Hugo’s later novels; the intertwining of poetics and politics in the exiled writer’s prolific literary production; the evolution from harmony to transcendence of his artistic and social ideal; and the book’s critical methodology, based largely on Thomas Weiskel’s analysis in The Romantic Sublime of the negative/horizontal and the positive/vertical sublime and on Paul Ricoeur’s reflections on analogical paradigms in The Rule of Metaphor and on historical discourse in Time and Narrative. By designating metaphor as a kind of description and historical emplotment as a kind of figuration, Ricoeur suggests that the realms of mimēsis and poiēsis are intimately related. For Hugo, too, the impulses of poetry and history are not mutually exclusive but strive towards common endsLess

Paul Ricœur: Universality and the Power of Difference

Richard Kearney

in Debates in Continental Philosophy: Conversations with Contemporary Thinkers

Paul Ricoeur believes that Europe has produced a series of cultural identities which brought with them their own self-criticism, and he thinks ... More

Paul Ricoeur believes that Europe has produced a series of cultural identities which brought with them their own self-criticism, and he thinks that this is unique. Even Christianity encompassed its own critique. Plurality is within Europe itself. Europe has had different kinds of Renaissance—Carolingian, twelfth-century, Italian and French, fifteenth-century, and so on. The Enlightenment was another expression of this, and it is important that in the dialogue with other cultures people keep this element of self-criticism, which Ricoeur thinks is the only specificity of Europe (along with, of course, the enhancement of science). The kind of universality that Europe represents contains within itself a plurality of cultures which have been merged and intertwined, and which provide a certain fragility, an ability to disclaim and interrogate itself.Less

The Wager of Carnal Hermeneutics

Richard Kearney

in Carnal Hermeneutics

This chapter begins by clarifying the idea of carnal hermeneutics as such, identifying historical anticipations and precedents, and laying out some directions in which future scholarship on the ... More

This chapter begins by clarifying the idea of carnal hermeneutics as such, identifying historical anticipations and precedents, and laying out some directions in which future scholarship on the subject might proceed. It then proceeds to chart a detailed hermeneutic genealogy of touch through Aristotle’s account of flesh (sarx) as medium (metaxu), to the more contemporary phenomenological and hermeneutic accounts of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Ricoeur. In doing so, it expands the traditional notion that hermeneutics is concerned with intellectual understanding to include a hermeneutics of bodily and sensory orientation.Less

Paul Ricœur: The Poetics of Language and Myth

Richard Kearney

in Debates in Continental Philosophy: Conversations with Contemporary Thinkers

In La Métaphore vive, Paul Ricoeur tries to show how language could extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within ... More

In La Métaphore vive, Paul Ricoeur tries to show how language could extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within itself. The term vive (living) in the title of this work is all-important, for it was Ricoeur's purpose to demonstrate that there is not just an epistemological and political imagination, but also, and perhaps more fundamentally, a linguistic imagination which generates and regenerates meaning through the living power or metaphoricity. La Métaphore vive investigated the resources of rhetoric to show how language undergoes creative mutations and transformations. Ricoeur's work on narrativity, Temps et récit, develops this inquiry into the inventive power of language. Ricoeur's chief concern in this analysis is to discover how the act of telling a story can transmute natural time into a specifically human time, irreducible to mathematical, chronological “clock time”. Ricoeur questions how narrativity can be a production or creation of meaning and also shares his views on the poetics of language and myth.Less

From an Order of Fear to One of Respect

Anthony Carty

in Philosophy of International Law

This chapter is an optimistic review of possible philosophical overcomings of the Western liberal tradition, through Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological, humanist response to Hobbes and Hegel, from an ... More

This chapter is an optimistic review of possible philosophical overcomings of the Western liberal tradition, through Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological, humanist response to Hobbes and Hegel, from an order of fear to one of respect. Phenomenological analysis takes one through the cultural imperialism that Steiner can trace by means of his theories of translation. These techniques of minute analysis can be applied through the theory of ‘the Other’ developed in the Orientalism debate onto a deconstruction of all fundamentalist discourses through a phenomenological philosophy of tact and distance, a true pluralism that can ground a genuinely liberal world society. All of this can and has to be applied to conflicts characterised as easily discernible phenomena of broken, immature relationships. For Ricoeur, the final foundation for any legal order rests in the maturity of persons and communities in relation.Less