DISCUSSIONS about hermeneutics–the theories and practices of interpretation–are ubiquitous. We all read texts–whether these be histories, novels, musical scores, paintings, playscripts or anything else humans produce that has meaning–and we are all interpreters of texts who argue over their meaning and over our interpretations. The question of our time is: Is there anything beyond our various interpretations?
Paul Ricoeur, the leading hermeneutic philosopher of the 20th century, “disappeared” (as the French say) in May at the age of 92. Of what special significance is his passing to pastors and theologians? Why should we care? We should care about Ricoeur because his philosophy enables us, jaded denizens of a post-Christian world, to care–to believe, to hope, to love–again, and this without sacrificing our intellect. He is the hermeneutical equivalent of John the Baptist, preparing the way for a new hearing of hopeful words.
Ricoeur’s central insight is that understanding depends on interpreting texts that mediate the meaning of and nourish our existence–especially poetic and religious texts that foster memory, faith and hope. Understanding comes from situating ourselves “in front of” texts that display the full range of human possibilities and capacities.
“The symbol gives rise to thought” (Symbolism of Evil). Ricoeur never tired of insisting that creative language gives to thought something that reason cannot discover on its own. Thus the whole style and substance of Ricoeur’s philosophy concerns faith and is colored with a distinctly Christian hue. In contrast to that of Jean-Paul Sartre, his contemporary in postwar France, who described being human as “a useless passion,” Ricoeur’s philosophy is positively charged: “Man is the Joy of Yes in the sadness of the finite” (Fallible Man).
His conviction of the primordial goodness of things also accounts for his charity toward other thinkers. He went out of his way to include others in a conversation oriented to something bigger than any one disciplinary aim or agenda. In Memory, History, and Forgetting, he brought the historian’s work of remembering into dialogue with different forms of forgetting: repressed memories (psychology), amnesty (politics) and repentance (religion). He even dealt with what the neurosciences contribute to the discussion, though here too he refused to reduce the rich conversation to one discourse only (the biochemical).
Ricoeur’s texts display a conspicuous lack of vitriol; his typical response to attack was: “Thank you for contributing to my self-understanding.” He even hoped that those with whom he disagreed were somehow in the truth: “Each time we sense deep affinities between realities, points of view, or disparate personages, we are happy” (History and Truth). His instinct was not to dilute differences but creatively to mediate them. This was, perhaps, his special talent. While the rest of us line up on either side–modern vs. postmodern; analytic philosophy vs. continental philosophy; religion vs. atheism; red vs. blue–Ricoeur displayed an astounding ability to discern helpful points from all sides and hence to attain higher ground.
Ricoeur’s mediating method also informs the three-part structure in his most important works, as well as his famous “hermeneutical arc.” The arc begins with a precritical moment of “naive” understanding. The second moment involves testing that understanding (testing memory by historical investigation, or testing reading by methods of critical exegesis). The crucial third phase of appropriation culminates in a “second naivete.” This is the moment of truth, of grasping not factuality (the literal truth of things) but existence (the metaphorical truth about human possibilities).
These three parts form a single project. To use a Ricoeurian metaphor: they are three masts that carry distinct but interlocking sails that belong to the same ship setting off on a single itinerary. To set sail on Ricoeur’s three-masted ship is to embark on a heady philosophical project: a voyage to new worlds–refigurations of human existence–projected by poetic texts.
Ricoeur is an excellent guide through the present cultural and intellectual inferno, and engages major intellectual figures across a host of disciplines. He confronts critical approaches–Freudian, structuralist and Marxist–by maintaining that there is something in language that survives our critical suspicion.
For years, Ricoeur has inspired and challenged the way I do theology, both my overall method and some of my material concerns. This despite his stated preference to take the exegete, not the dogmatician, as his dialogue partner. (He meant it: he coauthored Thinking Biblically with his longtime friend, Andre LaCocque, an Old Testament scholar.) Systematic theologians, he felt, moved from sacra pagina to sacra doctrina too fast, reducing the rich feast of biblical literature to a mess of conceptual pottage.