Distantiation, Post-Critique, and Realism. Reconsidering the Relation of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics in Ricœur
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/errs.2023.633Keywords:
Distantiation, Post-critique, Realism, Truth and Distruth, RicœurAbstract
Recent developments in literary theory and philosophy, specifically regarding the role of critique, that inspire the turn to post-critique and realism, respectively, indicate a renewed sensitivity for concerns characteristic of hermeneutic phenomenology. This essay argues that crucial aspects of Ricœur’s articulation of phenomenology and hermeneutics may help to understand and support post-critique and realism and that, in turn, the latter two invite hermeneutics to return to its phenomenological condition. To this end, Ricœur’s understanding of the hermeneutical condition of phenomenology, both in the form of Husserl’s idealist phenomenology and the phenomenology of religion, is revisited; Ricœur’s account of distantiation is critically assessed; and, finally, the interplay of trust and distrust at stake in hermeneutic phenomenology is contrasted with the modern insistence on hyperbolic doubt.
References
Giorgio Agamben, The Time That Remains. A Commentary to the Letter to the Romans [2000], trans. Patricia Daley (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).
Rita Felski, Uses of Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).
—, The Limits of Critique (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015).
—, Hooked. Art and Attachment (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020).
Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die Natur der Sache und die Sprache der Dinge,” in Hermeneutik II (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990), 66-76.
—, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990).
Graham Harman, Prince of Networks. Bruno Latour and Metaphysics (Melbourne: Re.press, 2009).
Martin Heidegger, “Das Ding,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze [1954] (Frankfurt am Main: Vittoria Klostermann, 2000), 165-87.
—, “Der Satz der Identität,” in Identität und Differenz [1957], GA 11 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2006), 31-50.
—, Wegmarken [1967] (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976).
Gert-Jan van der Heiden, The Truth (and Untruth) of Language. Heidegger, Ricœur, and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2010).
—, Ontology after Ontotheology. Plurality, Event, and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2014).
—, “Poverty and Promise. Towards a Primordial Hermeneutic Experience,” in Phenomenology and Experience. New Perspectives, eds Antonio Cimino and Cees Leijenhorst (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 63-80.
—, The Voice of Misery. A Continental Philosophy of Testimony (Albany: SUNY Press, 2020).
—, “The Christian Experience of Life and the Task of Phenomenology. Heidegger on Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and Descartes,” Forum Philosophicum, vol. 26/2 (2021), 207-26.
—, Metafysica. Van orde naar ontvankelijkheid (Amsterdam: Boom, 2021).
—, “Witnessing, Truth, and Realism. A Hermeneutic-Phenomenological Approach,” Critical Hermeneutics, vol. 6/2 (2022), 161-89.
—, “Engaging with and Detaching from Religious Experience. Towards a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Religion,” The Heythrop Journal, vol. 64/2 (2023), 162-72.
—, Saint Paul and Contemporary European Philosophy. The Outcast and the Spirit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023).
Johann N. Hofmann, Wahrheit, Perspektive, Interpretation. Nietzsche und die philosophische Hermeneutik (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994).
Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Notebooks. Vol. 9, Journals NB26–NB30, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hanay, Bruce H. Kirmmse, David D. Possen, Joel D. S. Rasmussen and Vanessa Rumble (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).
Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern [1991], trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
—, “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern,” Critical Inquiry, vol. 30 (2004), 225-48.
Quentin Meillassoux, Après la finitude. Essai sur la nécessité de la contingence (Paris: Seuil, 2006).
Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral [1887], III.12 (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1921).
Paul Ricœur, Philosophie de la volonté, vol. I Le volontaire et l’involontaire (Paris: Aubier, 1949)
—, De l’interprétation. Essai sur Freud (Paris: Seuil, 1965), 40; Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 30.
—, Le conflit des interprétations. Essais d’herméneutique (Paris: Seuil, 1969); The Conflict of Interpretation. Essays in Hermeneutics, ed. Don Ihde, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin et al. (London: Northwestern University Press, 1974).
—, “Phénoménologie et herméneutique,” Phänomenologische Forschungen, vol. 1 (1975), 31-75; “Phenomenology and Hermeneutics,” trans. Bradley DeFord, Noûs, vol. 9/1 (1975), 85-102.
—, Du texte à l’action. Essais d’herméneutique II (Paris: Seuil, 1986); From Text to Action. Essays in Hermeneutics, II, trans. Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991).
—, Soi-même comme un autre (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 11-38; Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1995), 1-25.
—, “Manifestation and Proclamation,” in Figuring the Sacred. Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, ed. Mark I. Wallace, trans. David Pellauer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 48-67.
Claude Romano, L’événement et le monde (Paris: Puf, 1998).
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You,” in Touching Feeling. Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 123-52.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Gert-Jan van der Heiden
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons 4.0 License (Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works), or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- Noncommercial—other users (including Publisher) may not use this Work for commercial purposes;
- No Derivative Works—other users (including Publisher) may not alter, transform, or build upon this Work,with the understanding that any of the above conditions can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.