Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning

by Paul Ricœur, Ted Klein (Preface)

Ricoeur, Paul

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Science, Language, Ebooks

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished philosophers of the twentieth century. In the course of his long career he wrote on a broad range of issues. His books include a multi-volume project on the philosophy of the will: Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950, Eng. tr. 1966), Fallible Man (1960, Eng. tr. 1967), and The Symbolism of Evil (1960, Eng. tr. 1970); a major study of Freud: Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (1965, Eng. tr. 1970); The Rule of Metaphor (1975, Eng. tr. 1977); Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (1976); the three-volume Time and Narrative (1983-85, Eng. tr. 1984–88); Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986); the published version of his Gifford lectures: Oneself as Another (1990, Eng. tr. 1992); Memory, History, Forgetting (2000, Eng. tr. 2004); and The Course of Recognition (2004, Eng. tr. 2005). In addition to his books, Ricoeur published more than 500 essays, many of which appear in collections in English: History and Truth (1955, Eng. tr. 1965); Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology (1967); The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (1969, Eng. tr. 1974); Political and Social Essays (1974); Essays on Biblical Interpretation (1980); Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (1981); From Text to Action (1986, Eng. tr. 1991); Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination (1995); The Just (1995, Eng. tr. 2000); On Translation (2004, Eng. tr. 2004); and Reflections on the Just (2001, Eng. tr. 2007).

The major theme that unites his writings is that of a philosophical anthropology. This anthropology, which Ricoeur came to call an anthropology of the “capable human being,” aims to give an account of the fundamental capabilities and vulnerabilities that human beings display in the activities that make up their lives. Though the accent is always on the possibility of understanding the self as an agent responsible for its actions, Ricoeur consistently rejects any claim that the self is immediately transparent to itself or fully master of itself. Self-knowledge only comes through our relation to the world and our life with and among others in that world.

In the course of developing his anthropology, Ricoeur made a major methodological shift. His writings prior to 1960 were in the tradition of existential phenomenology. But during the 1960s Ricoeur concluded that properly to study human reality he had to combine phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation. For this hermeneutic phenomenology, whatever is intelligible is accessible to us in and through language and all deployments of language call for interpretation. Accordingly, “there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols, and texts; in the final analysis self-understanding coincides with the interpretation given to these mediating terms” (Oneself as Another, 15, translation corrected). This hermeneutic or linguistic turn did not require him to disavow the basic results of his earlier investigations. It did, however, lead him not only to revisit them but also to see more clearly their implications.

Reviews

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Ricoeur's focus is interpretation--how to decipher texts. Language is ". . .itself the process by which private experience is made public." When we try to understand the author of a written text, we no longer have the immediate dialogue that we have with a person to whom we are speaking. As a result, we have a ". . .detachment of meaning from the event." In essence, we now must interpret the words in a piece of writing without being able to clarify them through dialogue with the author.

But how can we make sense of this alien written discourse, now separated from the mind of its author by the simple act of putting words to paper? First, the reader must take a guess! Ricoeur says:

"With writing, the verbal meaning of the text no longer coincides with the mental meaning of intention of the text. This intention is both fulfilled and abolished by the text, which is no longer the voice of someone present . The text is mute. An asymmetric relation obtains between text and reader, in which only one of the partners speaks for the two. The text is like a musical score and the reader like the orchestra conductor who obeys the instructions of the notation. Consequently, to understand is not merely to repeat the speech event in a similar event, it is to generate a new event beginning from the text in which the initial event has been objectified."

In other words, we have to guess the meaning of the text because the author's intention is beyond our reach. A musical metaphor: Listen to Wilhelm Furtwangler's World War II recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Compare it with Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra version a decade later. The tempos are slow to the breaking point in Furtwangler's reading--except for the latter portions of the fourth movement. Toscanini's interpretation maintains a tension in pace throughout (simply put, his is a "fast" version and Furtwangler's a "slow" one--until the latter's manic reading of the last segments of the fourth movement). The same notes on paper, but two very different guesses about Beethoven's meaning. Who is right in their reading of the text? How do we establish that? Since we cannot converse with Beethoven, can we ever know the "real" text, can we apprehend "reality," in a word?

Ricoeur does not believe that it is a hopeless situation. He believes that there are ways of validating our guesses. He claims that:

"An interpretation must not only be probable, but more probable than another interpretation. There are criteria of relative superiority for resolving this conflict, which can easily be derived from the logic of subjective probability."

In a sense, different interpretations that are advanced to describe the meaning of a text (and a text can be a work of art or the written word, for instance) must be compared and examined separately and against each other to see which seems to make the most sense. A kind of discourse takes place, perhaps analogous to two persons speaking, where they can concretely ground their speech. Some interpretations of Beethoven, like the Furtwangler performance, do violence to the structure of the symphony as a whole and are less compelling than others, such as Toscanini's version.

What about the relationship of the author to his or her reader(s)? Ricoeur points out that it becomes irrelevant what the author's original audience was and what the historical circumstances of the author were in creating a text. The meaning of a text is open to anyone who can read. The context in which the original words were composed has no special weight in our interpretation of that text. He notes that ". . .since the text has escaped its author and his situation, it has also escaped its original addresses." In a sense, the text belongs to anyone who can read it and interpret it in convincing ways.

To conclude, Ricoeur presents one argument about how we might read and interpret texts. Those who believe in "original intent," in trying to understand exactly what the authors of texts meant will be critical of this work. The value of works like this (and also note Gadamer's work, e.g., "Truth and Method") is that they challenge our efforts to understand the meaning of texts. By doing that, such works make us more self-reflective and critical in our own efforts to understand texts.

[Elena Paleckytė]

Nieko nesupratau, nes labai nesusikaupus skaičiau. Arba gal tiesiog nieko nesupratau :DD :((

[William Zeng · Rating 5 out of 5]

The power of impulses which haunt our phantasies, of imaginary modes of being which ignite the poetic word, and of the all-embracing, that most powerful something which menaces us so long as we feel unloved, in all these registers and perhaps in others as well, the dialectic of power and form takes place, which insures that language only captures the foam on the surface of life.......

[Michelle Marvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the first book where I've ever disagreed with the philosophical theory, but thought that the writing itself was outstanding. A fascinating introduction to interpretation theory, discourse, semantics, semiotics, symbol, and metaphor. The conclusion truly brought everything together, and it was here that I fundamentally disagreed with Ricoeur in that I don't think you can get to an appropriation of the meaning of a text without some understanding of what is "hidden behind the text." Disagreements aside (and I have much more reading of Ricoeur to do, so I will perhaps be persuaded that my disagreement is in error!) I would highly recommend this book - although know that you are getting yourself into heavy academic prose.

[Yasemin Çürük · Rating 4 out of 5]

Çevirisi daha iyi olabilirdi. Puanımı çevirisinden dolayı kırıyorum.

[Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#استفاد ريكور ونقد كل الاتجاهات الحديثة في مشروعه التأويلي

#محطات الفلسفة الابرز تاريخيا: سؤال الوجود عند ارسطو - سؤال المعرفة عند كانط - سؤال الزمان لدى هايدغر وأخيرا سؤال السرد لدى ريكور

#فرق دي سوسير بشكل عميق بين اللغة بوصفها لسانا واللغة بوصفها كلاما (ليس خطابا)

#اللغة بوصفها لسانا عبارة عن مجموعة شفرات

#الرسالة--->الشفرة
الحادثة ---> النسق

#عندما صارت اللغة عالما مكتفيا بذاته وليس مجرد وسيط بين العقل والعالم الخارجي ،اختفت وظيفتها بوصفها خطابا

#ايميل بنفينست:" تعتمد اللغة على امكان نوعين من العمليات،هما الاندماج في كليات اكبر وتكوين المعنى(علم الدلالة)،. والانقسام الى اجزاء مكونة وتوليد"الشكل" (علم السيمياء)

وتشكل هذه المقولة حل مشكلة اللغة بأسرها لدى بول ريكور

#ريكور:الايقونية هي انكشاف الواقعي بشكل اكثر واقعية من الواقع اليومي المعتاد

#جدلية الخطاب المعنى (من المتكلم) يقابلها جدلية (الفهم والتفسير) لدى المتلقي

#افضل تطبيق للفهم في ميدان الانسانيات وللتفسير في العلوم..

#)التأويل حالة خاصة من حالات الفهم...(


#كانط وليس دريدا هو اول من قال بفهم المؤلف بأفضل مما فهم به نفسه

#هناك فرق بين معنى النص وقصد المؤلف/الكاتب

#مهم جدا: سوء فهم النص لايحل بالرجوع الى موقف المؤلف "المزعوم"!

#هيرش:" ان فعل الفهم في البداية تخمين لطيف(او مغلوط)، ولاتوجد منهجية لتكوين التخمينات...وتبدأ الفعالية المنهجية للتأويل حين تباشر باختبار ونقد تخميناتنا" *رائع

#اجراءات تصديق تخميناتنا اقرب الى الاحتمال منها الى التحقق التجريبي

#بول ريكور لا يوافق ايريك هيرش في ان هدف التأويل هو التعرف على معنى المؤلف...فيرى ريكور ان نفسية الكاتب لاتشكل الا جزء مما يجب ان يأخذ به منطق التحقق من صحة التأويل

#البنيوية تغلق النص على نفسه ولا تحيله الى الخارج الموضوعي..فهو عندها عالم من العلامات!

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A killer reflection on the nature of language and interpretation. It was so good I had to write an m.a. thesis on it.

[Inês · Rating 1 out of 5]

Parece que ainda não é desta que me vejo livre de ti. Vemo-nos outra vez em janeiro.


Complicado. Não gostei.

[Francisco Pais De Sousa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Num dicionário não há metáforas vivas”.

[alex]

lyg ir supratau keletą sakinių ar minčių, bet mano smegenys sausos po šito teksto

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pretty difficult material. It's philosophical, and it presents the ideas of interpretation and understanding. I am not completely sure that I understood this book. I get some concepts, like the idea that a given text is separated from it's author and even from the situation which occasioned its composition, so that - on some level - the only possible interpretations possible originate in modern contexts and in the social location of the reader. Still, it's hard to synthesize the subject matter. I am sure I will need to read this again several times before I really start to understand it. Not for the faint of heart.

[penkeri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skaityti vienam būtų buvusi tikra kančia, nes: a) reikia išmanyti visą vokiškąją bei angliškąją filosofijos tradiciją, kadangi autorius, plėtodamas savo teoriją, apie tai užsimena lyg apie savaime suprantamus dalykus; b) specifinė pasakojimo maniera su pavardėmis daro tą patį; c) tekstas perkonstruotas iš paskaitų medžiagos, tad vietomis - per daug pažadų ir nuorodų į tai, kas bus, ir neadekvačiai išplėtotas tekstas, kai tuo tapu kitose vietose to labai trūksta (žr. a ir b punktus). Džiaugiuosi galimybe skaityti knygą su dėstytojo provizija - jo dėka kiekvienas skyrelis buvo mėsinėjamas valandomis, tad kažkiek šviesos tekste atsirado.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice, short book that ranges from Structuralism to Speech Act Theory to Metaphor and manages to bring it all together into a fairly easy to understand thesis on how we read. A bit out of date now, I suppose, but I think I see some foreshadowing of Cognitive Poetics, though of course with Ricoeurs own phenomenological twist to it all.
It's been a while since I read this, so I'll try to go back over it and give a more detailed review at some point.

[Filipa · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 stars
Este conjunto de ensaios não é nada fácil de ler e já sei que o vou ter que reler ainda para poder realmente compreender o sentido. São ensaios muito eruditos e acho que a compreensão do texto é difícil e a linguagem não ajuda muito a essa compreensão. De qualquer das maneiras algumas ideias que o autor aqui defende são interessantes e dignas de serem aprofundadas.

[Roger Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a great talk, even if dated. It makes one reflect on the state of semiology in 2016. Is Ricoeur right about post writing (literature) culture. Does the printed word, the painted picture, enhance the nuances of sense-making by creating a distantiated form from which we can then understand nuance? What does this mean in YouTube culture?

[Agustina Cardozo · Rating 3 out of 5]

No conocía al autor y pensé que sería complejo el primer acercamiento, pero no es un libro extremadamente difícil. Está compuesto por cuatro ensayos, cada uno con objetivos claros y temas independientes -en su justa medida-. Recomendable, especialmente, si uno quiere introducirse en cuestiones de hermenéutica.

[Garrett Mikulka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think one of Ricoeur’s greatest strengths as a thinker is his way of conceptualizing ideas as dialectical. Nearly every stage of this theory was built on a dialectic: event/meaning, sense/reference, utterer’s meaning/utterance meaning, understanding/explanation. The strength of such an approach is that Ricoeur is able to systematically leverage the strengths of different ideas, in this case purely historical readings (focused on the context and intention of the author) and critical methods that disregard the author entirely (New Criticism, Reader Response, etc.). Putting these two poles in a discursive relationship, Ricoeur posits his own Interpretation Theory which starts with a “guess,” an initial, more intuitive understanding of a text. This phase values the text’s semantic autonomy from the author’s meaning or intention. The next phase is “explanation”, where one’s initial understanding is fleshed out, organized, and validated in.terms of plausibility of meaning (this phase leaning on the author’s intention and context). Finally, from explanation, one can return to understanding, but this time as “comprehension,” a validated account of a text that holds the author’s meaning and the text’s semantic autonomy in tension. Of course, this is pretty much what one would learn in a non-theory-specific literary criticism seminar, but Ricoeur’s analysis was no less cool for that (and this book is from the 70’s, so it had some stuff to react against). I suppose when an idea is taken to its limits philosophically, it comes back looking different even though it was familiar before.

What I appreciate most about Ricoeur is his general optimism in a post-structuralist world. He’s cognizant of the same phenomena as someone like Derrida, but he’s less likely to see language as a thing that hopelessly collapses as a thing that miraculously and inevitably blooms, responsible for at least as much positive possibility and hope as it is miscommunication and misunderstanding: “Language has a world now and not just a situation” (80).

[María Tamargo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Necesito releerlo. Pero me parece interesante la aproximación a la hermenéutica desde los apartados de la lingüística estructural y la pragmática. Agradezco que sea más didáctico y resolutivo que otros teóricos franceses.

[Justas Mazūra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gadameris maiše.

[Lena]

num vou dar nota pra isso não

[Kitsch.Princess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid foundational theory. One wonders…. Is something gained or lost in the communication of meaning 😛🍩🏄‍♂️🗯🪱

[Laura Walin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tässä kirjassa häiritsi eniten suomennos. Liian monet sanat olivat jääneet anglismeiksi tekstin sekaan, kun niille ei ollut löytynyt suomenkielistä vastinetta. Oma kokemukseni teksitstä oli, että näin ollen olisi ehkä parempi ollut jättää teksti kokonaan kääntämättä, kun 2/3 nytkin käytännössä jäi.

Itse sisältöä oli ensilukemalta yllämainitusta kieliongemasta hieman vaikea tavoittaa, mutta luulen, että sain sieltä täältä ajatuksesta kiinni. Luen kirjan toiseenkin kertaan, ja olen melko varma, että se paranee toisella lukukerralla.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was not what I expected. I need to learn even the terms of semantics, semiotics, etc. etc.

One of the phrases used struck me hard. There is a difference between explanation and understanding.

And quite properly interpretation has to be of the logos (maybe one of the reasons that I thought the book was on theology). But of old, it was seen that there has to be a noun and a verb to get meaning, and so logos...

[Ana Enriques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los cuatro ensayos reunidos en este volumen me parecieron muy interesantes. Comparto la visión de Ricoeur sobre la importancia de no limitar la interpretación de un texto a la explicación de su estructura, pero sí entender la necesidad de esa instancia explicativa para validar las conjeturas iniciales. Valoro muy positivamente la claridad y el orden con que el autor desarrolla su exposición.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lo terminé de leer solo porque era tarea. Pero la verdad me dejó la impresión de que este señor es un cocainómano: es el bla-bla-bla de un drogadicto hablando solo.

Eso sí: un bla-bla-blá muy culto y elaborado, casi al punto en que parece erudito. Pero lo cierto es que como lector tienes que hacer un mega esfuerzo por seguirle el hilo.

La neta no lo recomiendo.

[Elisa Santiesteban · Rating 3 out of 5]

No es una lectura fácil. Al estar integrado por ensayos, uno supone que estará más al alcance de los legos y será una buena lectura introductora para el tema de la Hermenéutica. De cualquier forma, la exposición es clara y suficientemente didáctica.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que no entendí nada. O Sólo entendí lo que tenía que entender. Pero me siento listo para leer mas cosas de Paul (Guacala que) Ricœur. O al menos para volver a ver "While we are young" y entender mejor lo que Ben Stiller trataba de decirme.

[Larrin Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will need time to read, re-read and read again...just to make sure you understand what is being communicated. Good read, though.

[Hakam N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jelas

[Ricky Laksana]

i like it yours book