John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The self has become a problem in postmodern thought, and this problem poses a sharp challenge for dialogue between Christians and others who tell different stories of self and community. A healthy ...
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The self has become a problem in postmodern thought, and this problem poses a sharp challenge for dialogue between Christians and others who tell different stories of self and community. A healthy suspicion of the self’s transcendence lets the self approach the other in humility, but what can create the community where the self and other can embrace? Paul was humbled before Christ, yet to embrace the crucified Christ in one community he had to retell his community’s story. Can the Church today repeat Paul’s costly embrace? Paul in Israel’s Story addresses the problem of the self in community in a theological hermeneutics that brings together recent biblical scholarship and constructive theology. Proponents and critics of the new perspective on Paul join philosophers in an ongoing conversation about selfhood. Paul’s story extends Paul Ricoeur’s “hermeneutics of the self” into stories of communities; hermeneutics deepens our sense of Paul’s “I have been crucified with Christ” and “Christ lives in me”. Linking hermeneutics with Paul’s story is a critical engagement with Rudolf Bultmann. Avoiding the stark either/or that can characterize critiques of Bultmann, the book reconceives demythologizing as an ongoing conversation about how to embrace the other from out of the past in one community. It concludes by situating the communal self in a contextual framework built on Jürgen Moltmann’s “community in Christ” and Robert Jenson’s pneumatology. This framework carries communal selfhood into interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, ecclesiology, and pneumatology. Just as retelling Israel’s story challenged Paul’s self-understanding, Paul in Israel’s Story challenges us to risk our reliable understandings of self and community to embrace Christ crucified and the other in Christ.Less
The self has become a problem in postmodern thought, and this problem poses a sharp challenge for dialogue between Christians and others who tell different stories of self and community. A healthy suspicion of the self’s transcendence lets the self approach the other in humility, but what can create the community where the self and other can embrace? Paul was humbled before Christ, yet to embrace the crucified Christ in one community he had to retell his community’s story. Can the Church today repeat Paul’s costly embrace? Paul in Israel’s Story addresses the problem of the self in community in a theological hermeneutics that brings together recent biblical scholarship and constructive theology. Proponents and critics of the new perspective on Paul join philosophers in an ongoing conversation about selfhood. Paul’s story extends Paul Ricoeur’s “hermeneutics of the self” into stories of communities; hermeneutics deepens our sense of Paul’s “I have been crucified with Christ” and “Christ lives in me”. Linking hermeneutics with Paul’s story is a critical engagement with Rudolf Bultmann. Avoiding the stark either/or that can characterize critiques of Bultmann, the book reconceives demythologizing as an ongoing conversation about how to embrace the other from out of the past in one community. It concludes by situating the communal self in a contextual framework built on Jürgen Moltmann’s “community in Christ” and Robert Jenson’s pneumatology. This framework carries communal selfhood into interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, ecclesiology, and pneumatology. Just as retelling Israel’s story challenged Paul’s self-understanding, Paul in Israel’s Story challenges us to risk our reliable understandings of self and community to embrace Christ crucified and the other in Christ.
John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
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 ...
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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
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.
John Wall
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195182569
- eISBN:
- 9780199835737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195182561.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
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, ...
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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
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.
John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
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 ...
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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
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.
John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
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 ...
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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
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.
Tania Oldenhage
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195150520
- eISBN:
- 9780199834549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515052X.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter turns to Paul Ricoeur's contributions to American New Testament parable studies in the 1970s. In his essay “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Ricoeur argues that structuralism can offer new and ...
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This chapter turns to Paul Ricoeur's contributions to American New Testament parable studies in the 1970s. In his essay “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Ricoeur argues that structuralism can offer new and helpful approaches to the parables but that it needs to be combined with an existential interpretation. He moves on to make metaphor theory fruitful for parable studies and thereby offers a new, interpretive vision of the parables of Jesus. Understood as metaphorical narratives, the parables are said to offer a new vision of reality. Ricoeur argues, moreover, that, as limit‐expressions, the parables refer to limit‐experiences of human life, including death, suffering, guilt, and hatred. Throughout the essay, Ricoeur emphasizes the limitations of historical criticism and calls for a more comprehensive interpretive theory.Less
This chapter turns to Paul Ricoeur's contributions to American New Testament parable studies in the 1970s. In his essay “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Ricoeur argues that structuralism can offer new and helpful approaches to the parables but that it needs to be combined with an existential interpretation. He moves on to make metaphor theory fruitful for parable studies and thereby offers a new, interpretive vision of the parables of Jesus. Understood as metaphorical narratives, the parables are said to offer a new vision of reality. Ricoeur argues, moreover, that, as limit‐expressions, the parables refer to limit‐experiences of human life, including death, suffering, guilt, and hatred. Throughout the essay, Ricoeur emphasizes the limitations of historical criticism and calls for a more comprehensive interpretive theory.
Taigen Dan Leighton
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195320930
- eISBN:
- 9780199785360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320930.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
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 ...
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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
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.
Tania Oldenhage
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195150520
- eISBN:
- 9780199834549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515052X.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter develops a critical reading of what Oldenhage calls the “limit‐rhetoric” in Ricoeur's 1975 essay “Biblical Hermeneutics.” Oldenhage points out that during the 1970s the notion of limit ...
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This chapter develops a critical reading of what Oldenhage calls the “limit‐rhetoric” in Ricoeur's 1975 essay “Biblical Hermeneutics.” Oldenhage points out that during the 1970s the notion of limit was already becoming a crucial trope within Holocaust literary studies. Focusing on Terrence Des Pres's study of Holocaust testimonies, Oldenhage explores how notions such as “limit‐situation” or “extremity” helped Des Pres to draw attention to the experiences of Holocaust survivors that so far had been ignored or misinterpreted. By cross‐reading the fields of Holocaust studies and New Testament parable studies, Oldenhage raises questions about Ricoeur's deployment of the charged trope of “limit‐experiences” in relation to the parables of Jesus.Less
This chapter develops a critical reading of what Oldenhage calls the “limit‐rhetoric” in Ricoeur's 1975 essay “Biblical Hermeneutics.” Oldenhage points out that during the 1970s the notion of limit was already becoming a crucial trope within Holocaust literary studies. Focusing on Terrence Des Pres's study of Holocaust testimonies, Oldenhage explores how notions such as “limit‐situation” or “extremity” helped Des Pres to draw attention to the experiences of Holocaust survivors that so far had been ignored or misinterpreted. By cross‐reading the fields of Holocaust studies and New Testament parable studies, Oldenhage raises questions about Ricoeur's deployment of the charged trope of “limit‐experiences” in relation to the parables of Jesus.
Irena S. M. Makarushka
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335989
- eISBN:
- 9780199868940
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335989.003.0020
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
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 ...
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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
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.
Fred Dallmayr
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813124575
- eISBN:
- 9780813134994
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813124575.003.0013
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
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 ...
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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
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.
Brian Treanor
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226849
- eISBN:
- 9780823235100
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226849.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental ...
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“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim “every other is wholly other”. But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate. This book traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness by examining the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Ultimately, this book makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude.Less
“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim “every other is wholly other”. But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate. This book traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness by examining the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Ultimately, this book makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776646
- eISBN:
- 9780804781008
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776646.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
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 ...
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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
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.
John Wall
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195182569
- eISBN:
- 9780199835737
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195182561.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book combines ancient, modern, and postmodern resources to argue that moral life and thought are inherently and radically creative. Human beings are called by their own primordially created ...
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This book combines ancient, modern, and postmodern resources to argue that moral life and thought are inherently and radically creative. Human beings are called by their own primordially created depths to exceed historical evil and tragedy through the ongoing creative transformation together of their world. This creative capability can be understood in its fullest dimensions only as a religious or mythological affirmation of humanity as an image of its Creator. This thesis challenges Greek and biblical separations of ethics and poetic image-making, as well as contemporary conceptions of moral life as grounded in fixed principles or preconstituted traditions. It instead recasts a range of mythic, prophetic, and tragic resources to uncover moral life’s poetics, tension, dynamism, catharsis, disruptiveness, excess, and impossible possibility for renewal. The book takes as its starting point a critical reading of the hermeneutical poetics of the will of Paul Ricoeur, and from there enters into a range of conversations with Aristotle and contemporary Aristotelianism, Immanuel Kant and modernism, and current Continental, narrative, liberationist, and feminist ethics such as in Emmanuel Levinas, Richard Kearney, Martha Nussbaum, Jürgen Habermas, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Luce Irigaray, and Sallie McFague. In the process, it develops a meta-ethical phenomenology of moral creativity along the lines of four increasingly complex dimensions: ontology (creativity of the self), teleology (positive creativity of narrative goods), deontology (negative creativity in response to otherness), and social practice (mixed creativity between plural others in society). Moral creativity is in the end an original and necessary religious capability for responding anew to the tensions within and between selves in the world by forming over time, in love and hope, an ever more radically inclusive humanity.Less
This book combines ancient, modern, and postmodern resources to argue that moral life and thought are inherently and radically creative. Human beings are called by their own primordially created depths to exceed historical evil and tragedy through the ongoing creative transformation together of their world. This creative capability can be understood in its fullest dimensions only as a religious or mythological affirmation of humanity as an image of its Creator. This thesis challenges Greek and biblical separations of ethics and poetic image-making, as well as contemporary conceptions of moral life as grounded in fixed principles or preconstituted traditions. It instead recasts a range of mythic, prophetic, and tragic resources to uncover moral life’s poetics, tension, dynamism, catharsis, disruptiveness, excess, and impossible possibility for renewal. The book takes as its starting point a critical reading of the hermeneutical poetics of the will of Paul Ricoeur, and from there enters into a range of conversations with Aristotle and contemporary Aristotelianism, Immanuel Kant and modernism, and current Continental, narrative, liberationist, and feminist ethics such as in Emmanuel Levinas, Richard Kearney, Martha Nussbaum, Jürgen Habermas, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Luce Irigaray, and Sallie McFague. In the process, it develops a meta-ethical phenomenology of moral creativity along the lines of four increasingly complex dimensions: ontology (creativity of the self), teleology (positive creativity of narrative goods), deontology (negative creativity in response to otherness), and social practice (mixed creativity between plural others in society). Moral creativity is in the end an original and necessary religious capability for responding anew to the tensions within and between selves in the world by forming over time, in love and hope, an ever more radically inclusive humanity.
Kathryn M. Grossman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199642953
- eISBN:
- 9780191739231
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199642953.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
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 ...
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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
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 ends
Richard Kearney
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265886
- eISBN:
- 9780823266951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265886.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
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 ...
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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
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.
Richard Kearney
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823223176
- eISBN:
- 9780823235155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823223176.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Paul Ricoeur believes that Europe has produced a series of cultural identities which brought with them their own self-criticism, and he thinks ...
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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
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.
Richard Kearney
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823223176
- eISBN:
- 9780823235155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823223176.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
In La Métaphore vive, Paul Ricoeur tries to show how language could extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within ...
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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
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.
Anthony Carty
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622559
- eISBN:
- 9780748652525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622559.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
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 ...
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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
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.
Nathan M. Bell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254255
- eISBN:
- 9780823260959
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254255.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Paul Ricoeur defines the ethical intention as “aiming at the good life, with and for others, in just institutions.” This essay addresses Ricoeur’s ethical intention in relation to environmental ...
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Paul Ricoeur defines the ethical intention as “aiming at the good life, with and for others, in just institutions.” This essay addresses Ricoeur’s ethical intention in relation to environmental ethics with particular reference to environmental identity. The ecological self is, hermeneutically, a direct result of one’s environmental ethic understood in terms of the good life, how this good life is lived with and for human and non-human others, and how social institutions justly embody it. In turn, one’s own self-concept (environmental identity or the ecological self) is shaped through how the good life is understood. Because of the social nature of an environmental ethical intention, questions of social justice related to environmental issues (also known as environmental justice) can be addressed in this framework.Less
Paul Ricoeur defines the ethical intention as “aiming at the good life, with and for others, in just institutions.” This essay addresses Ricoeur’s ethical intention in relation to environmental ethics with particular reference to environmental identity. The ecological self is, hermeneutically, a direct result of one’s environmental ethic understood in terms of the good life, how this good life is lived with and for human and non-human others, and how social institutions justly embody it. In turn, one’s own self-concept (environmental identity or the ecological self) is shaped through how the good life is understood. Because of the social nature of an environmental ethical intention, questions of social justice related to environmental issues (also known as environmental justice) can be addressed in this framework.
Jonathan Brant
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199639342
- eISBN:
- 9780191738098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199639342.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society, Theology
A grounded account is never final or closed; rather than an end result it is an ongoing process. This chapter considers the results of the empirical research which suggest engagement with parts of ...
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A grounded account is never final or closed; rather than an end result it is an ongoing process. This chapter considers the results of the empirical research which suggest engagement with parts of Tillich’s theology as yet unconsidered, for example, his presentation of the ‘spiritual community’ in his Systematic Theology. In light of questions raised by the empirical research, Tillich’s approach is contrasted with essays on revelation by Paul Ricoeur and Rowan Williams. The chapter closes with the suggestion that Tillich’s account is sensitive and compelling precisely because of its phenomenological attentiveness to real life experience, notably his own experience, of the power of art. However, it also suggests that it might be helpful to identify a stronger link than Tillich allows between the subject matter of the artwork, the content of revelation and the effect of revelation.Less
A grounded account is never final or closed; rather than an end result it is an ongoing process. This chapter considers the results of the empirical research which suggest engagement with parts of Tillich’s theology as yet unconsidered, for example, his presentation of the ‘spiritual community’ in his Systematic Theology. In light of questions raised by the empirical research, Tillich’s approach is contrasted with essays on revelation by Paul Ricoeur and Rowan Williams. The chapter closes with the suggestion that Tillich’s account is sensitive and compelling precisely because of its phenomenological attentiveness to real life experience, notably his own experience, of the power of art. However, it also suggests that it might be helpful to identify a stronger link than Tillich allows between the subject matter of the artwork, the content of revelation and the effect of revelation.
