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From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II
Incredible originality of thought in areas as vast as phenomenology, religion, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity, language, Marxism, and structuralism has made Paul Ricoeur one of the philosophical giants of the twentieth century. The way in which Ricoeur approaches these themes makes his works relevant to the reader he writes with honesty and depth of insight into the core of a problem, and his ability to mark for future thought the very path of philosophical inquiry is nearly unmatched.
From Text to Action is an essential companion to the classic The Conflict of Interpretations . Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its philosophical Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K. O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own theorization of ideology to their critique of ideology.
This new edition includes a foreword by Richard Kearney. It and other new editions of Ricoeur's texts published by Northwestern University Press have joined the canon of contemporary continental philosophy and continue to contribute to emergent discussions in the twenty-first century.
From Text to Action is an essential companion to the classic The Conflict of Interpretations . Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its philosophical Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K. O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own theorization of ideology to their critique of ideology.
This new edition includes a foreword by Richard Kearney. It and other new editions of Ricoeur's texts published by Northwestern University Press have joined the canon of contemporary continental philosophy and continue to contribute to emergent discussions in the twenty-first century.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Paul Ricœur
307 books450 followersPaul 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 28, 2015
For me 2015 has been the year of Paul Ricoeur. I've learned more from him than any other author. While he probably doesn't have a masterpiece to compare with Truth and Method or Phenomenology of Perception, his range of interests is much broader than Gadamer or even Merleau-Ponty. A truly encyclopedic mind, yet he never falls into the trap of being a mere connoisseur or collector of eclectic ideas. His engagement is deep and unflinching.
"Before being a fading perception, the image is an emerging meaning." - Imagination in Discourse and in Action, pp. 173.
"In other words, if fiction is a fundamental dimension of the reference of the text, it is equally a fundamental dimension of the subjectivity of the ego: in reading I 'unrealize myself.' Reading introduces me to imaginative variations of the ego." - Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology, pp. 301
"Before being a fading perception, the image is an emerging meaning." - Imagination in Discourse and in Action, pp. 173.
"In other words, if fiction is a fundamental dimension of the reference of the text, it is equally a fundamental dimension of the subjectivity of the ego: in reading I 'unrealize myself.' Reading introduces me to imaginative variations of the ego." - Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology, pp. 301
May 31, 2024
La trasparenza dell'ego a se stesso, che da Cartesio in poi è stata fatta passare per verità assoluta, è in realtà una mera illusione. La dimensione dell'appartenenza a una storia, a una cultura e a una tradizione precede qualsiasi ideale - e illusione - «di una trasparenza del soggetto a se stesso». L'io è in verità opaco, come uno specchio sporco che ormai non riflette più niente, ed è solo di fronte ai simboli, alle metafore e ai testi che l'ego cogito si scopre, si pulisce e si legge.
February 26, 2015
Eseje napísané relatívne ústretovým štýlom - hlavne vzhľadom k povahe predmetu.
Prvá esej je prehľadnou sumarizáciou myšlienok Schleiermachera, Diltheya, Gadamera a Heideggera, ktorá sa zvlášť sústreďuje na pnutie medzi epistemologickou a ontologickou úrovňou hermeneutiky. (To znie hrozne takto, ale v skutočnosti je to problém odprezentovaný výnimočne jasne.)
Druhá časť je vlastná Ricoeurova štúdia, zamýšľanie sa nad tým, či je nevyhnutné jeden v predtm analyzovaných pohľadov uprednostňovať. Svoju analýzu vedie cez predstavenie rôznych kritérií textovosti, ktorých východiskom je to, že "odstup je kritériom porozumenia."
Čo je zaujímavé, tak sa zaoberá vzťahom písaného textu a mluvy a na druhej strane tomu, čo text robí s čitateľom (a súvisí to s egom).
Prvá esej je prehľadnou sumarizáciou myšlienok Schleiermachera, Diltheya, Gadamera a Heideggera, ktorá sa zvlášť sústreďuje na pnutie medzi epistemologickou a ontologickou úrovňou hermeneutiky. (To znie hrozne takto, ale v skutočnosti je to problém odprezentovaný výnimočne jasne.)
Druhá časť je vlastná Ricoeurova štúdia, zamýšľanie sa nad tým, či je nevyhnutné jeden v predtm analyzovaných pohľadov uprednostňovať. Svoju analýzu vedie cez predstavenie rôznych kritérií textovosti, ktorých východiskom je to, že "odstup je kritériom porozumenia."
Čo je zaujímavé, tak sa zaoberá vzťahom písaného textu a mluvy a na druhej strane tomu, čo text robí s čitateľom (a súvisí to s egom).
July 9, 2015
Fare un commento o anche solo una recensione a testi del genere richiederebbe ben altri spazi, dove ci sia la possibilità di dilungarsi, approfondire, criticare. Credo, invece, che il compito di Goodreads sia di consigliare, più che di fare della 'critica testuale'.
Mi limiterò, quindi, a dire a chi potrebbe interessare questo testo. Prima di tutto, interessa a chi si occupa di critica testuale. Il discorso è, però, complesso, esclusivamente teorico e filosofico, che richiede la conoscenza di autori come Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Dilthey. Devo dire che Ricoeur sa schematizzare e riassumere molto bene per permettere a chiunque di seguirlo, ciononostante il suo pensiero si fa complesso agli occhi di chi è completamente a digiuno delle teorie di questi autori. Per tale motivo, è destinato a persone che oltre che interessarsi di letteratura, si interessano anche di filosofia.
Questo testo, però, si rivolge prevalentemente a tutti coloro che dalla lettura dei testi sono approdati a riflessioni politiche e sociali. R., infatti, mostra come l'azione umana sia interpretabile al pari di un 'testo', essendo anch'essa formata da segni (le gesta) che rivelano determinati significati (i desideri o le motivazioni degli agenti). In più, mostra come l'agire sociale sia profondamente influenzato dall'immaginario: di fatto, alla base delle società umane c'è sempre un discorso legato alle 'ideologie' (narrativizzazione o simbolizzazione della tradizione storica) e alle 'utopie' (narrativizzazione o simbolizzazione di critiche allo stato attuale della società e dei corrispettivi desideri di cambiamento).
E' un testo che apre la mente, che da riflessioni squisitamente teoriche può raggiungere utilità pratiche profonde per la vita quotidiana di ognuno di noi.
Mi limiterò, quindi, a dire a chi potrebbe interessare questo testo. Prima di tutto, interessa a chi si occupa di critica testuale. Il discorso è, però, complesso, esclusivamente teorico e filosofico, che richiede la conoscenza di autori come Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Dilthey. Devo dire che Ricoeur sa schematizzare e riassumere molto bene per permettere a chiunque di seguirlo, ciononostante il suo pensiero si fa complesso agli occhi di chi è completamente a digiuno delle teorie di questi autori. Per tale motivo, è destinato a persone che oltre che interessarsi di letteratura, si interessano anche di filosofia.
Questo testo, però, si rivolge prevalentemente a tutti coloro che dalla lettura dei testi sono approdati a riflessioni politiche e sociali. R., infatti, mostra come l'azione umana sia interpretabile al pari di un 'testo', essendo anch'essa formata da segni (le gesta) che rivelano determinati significati (i desideri o le motivazioni degli agenti). In più, mostra come l'agire sociale sia profondamente influenzato dall'immaginario: di fatto, alla base delle società umane c'è sempre un discorso legato alle 'ideologie' (narrativizzazione o simbolizzazione della tradizione storica) e alle 'utopie' (narrativizzazione o simbolizzazione di critiche allo stato attuale della società e dei corrispettivi desideri di cambiamento).
E' un testo che apre la mente, che da riflessioni squisitamente teoriche può raggiungere utilità pratiche profonde per la vita quotidiana di ognuno di noi.
October 23, 2013
In short, this book how Ricoeur thinks on interpretation, and of course on hermeneutics. He gave his thought about the "weakness" of husserlian phenomenology and the hermeneutics tradition before him. At last paragraph, he contends how the good interpretation should be. The interpretation of the text should open the possibility of new discourse. Overall, Ricoeur really clear reveals himself as a structuralist in the thought of interpretation and hermeneutics.
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November 21, 2009None
December 10, 2016
this is by far the most boring thing i ever had to read in my life
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews