The Act of Reading in Paul Ricoeur’s Philosophy

Authors

  • Vinicio Busacchi University of Cagliari

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/errs.2025.715

Keywords:

Reading, non-philosophical, critical hermeneutics, narrative identity

Abstract

In this paper the author considers the problem of the act of reading in Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy. Distinguishing between the methodological level and the speculative level of this problem, it first discusses the method and style of Ricoeur’s philosophising. This can be summarised through the frame of a critical hermeneutics and, subsequently, of the philosophical fulcrum, centred on the hermeneutic–anthropological dimension and on the concept of narrative identity. The main thesis is that the ultimate justification of Ricoeur’s literary choices and his way of approaching texts and the act of reading are justified by his specific vision of the human being. Philosophical hermeneutics can lead to profile and deepen this vision.

References

Francesca Brezzi, Filosofia e interpretazione (Bologna: Il mulino 1969).

Vinicio Busacchi, Pour une herméneutique critique (Paris: Harmattan, 2013).

François Dosse, in Luc Boltanski, François Dosse, Michaël Fœssel et al., “L’effet Ricœur dans les sciences humaines,” Esprit, 323 (mars-avril 2006).

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen, Mohr, 1986).

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall (London: Continuum, 2004).

Jeffry W. van den Hengel, The Home of Meaning. The Hermeneutics of the Subject of Paul Ricoeur (Washington: University Press of America, 1982).

L’homme capable. Autour de Paul Ricœur (Paris: PUF, 2006)

Domenico Jervolino, Il cogito e l’ermeneutica (Genova: Marietti, 1993).

Paul Ricœur, Finitude et culpabilité, vol. I: L’Homme faillible (Paris: Aubier, 1960).

Paul Ricœur, Finitude et culpabilité, vol. II: La symbolique du mal (Paris: Aubier, 1960).

Paul Ricœur, Histoire et vérité (Paris: Seuil, 1967)

Paul Ricœur, The Conflict of Interpretations, trans. D. Ihde (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974).

Paul Ricœur, “La tâche de l’herméneutique : en venant de Schleiermacher et de Dilthey,” in Exegesis. Problèmes de méthode et exercices de lecture, eds. François Bovon, Grégoire Rouiller (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1975).

Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, vol. I, trans. K. McLaughlin, D. Pellauer (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

Paul Ricœur, Du texte à l’action (Paris: Seuil, 1986).

Paul Ricœur, Du texte à l’action. Essais d’herméneutique II (Paris: Seuil, 1986).

Paul Ricœur, “Identité narrative,” in Esprit, 7-8 (1988).

Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, vol. III, trans. K. Blamey, D. Pellauer (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1988).

Paul Ricœur, “Autocomprehensióne e historia,” in Paul Ricoeur: Los caminos de la interpretación, eds. Tomás Calvo Martinez, Remedios Avila Crespo (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1991), 23–30.

Paul Ricœur, From Text to Action: Essays on Hermeneutics II, trans. K. Blamey, J. B. Thompson (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991).

Paul Ricœur, Réflexion faite. Autobiographie intellectuelle (Paris: Éditions Esprit, 1995).

Paul Ricœur, L’unique et le singulier (Paris: Alice Éditions, 1999).

Paul Ricœur, “Lectio Magistralis (Barcelone, 24 avril 2001),” Une herméneutique de la condition humaine, ed. Domenico Jervolino (Paris: Ellipses, 2002).

Paul Ricœur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. by K. Blamey and D. Pellauer (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004).

Paul Ricœur, Écrits et conférences, vol. II : Herméneutique (Paris: Seuil, 2010).

Paul Ricœur, “Hermeneutical Function of Distantiation,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. and trans. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Downloads

Published

2025-10-01

Issue

Section

Articles