Abstract
Contemporary concern for the ambiguous side of the human language and its connection with (or separation from) Philosophy could be a priori surprising, given that we belong to a philosophical time often dominated by the episte-mological demand for rigour, for a strict approach1 in Philosophy as well as in Science. In fact, the technological period in which we are living is leading to the accomplishment of an important dream of the Enlightenment Century: the astonishing development of “Reason”, of a reason involved in all serious gnoseological domains with its practical-technical repercussions in our mode of living.
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Notes
Cf. Husserl’s Philosophie als Strenge Wissenchaft, which is a good example of that concern.
See, for instance, Martin Heidegger, Identität und Differenz. “Die Onto-Theo-Logische Verfassung der Metaphysik”: “Das Schwierige liegt in der Sprache. Unsere abendländischen Sprachen sind in je verschiedener Weise Sprachen des metaphysischen Denken. Ob das Wesen der abendländischen Sprachen in sich nur metaphysisch und darum endgültig durch die Onto-Theo-Logik geprägt ist, oder ob diese Sprachen andere Möglichkeiten des Sagens und d. h. zugleigh des sagenden Nichtsagens gewähren, muss offen bleiben” (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1988), bilingual edition (German and Spanish) by Arturo Leyte, p. 154.
Cf. Cassirer’s large conception of symbol as a necessary mediation and his consideration of human being as “the symbolic animal”, in his works concerning Philosophical Anthropology; Clifford Geertz’s idea of culture as an unavoidable framework for human existence insists on the same notion of mediation in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1973).
A deep analysis of Ricoeur’s philosophical approach to symbolism and metaphor would be a huge task, more pertinent for a dense book than for this succinct and limited presentation of the problem. Cf., for instance, the analysis of Marcelino Agís Villaverde, Del símbolo a la metáfora (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1995). The aim of my article is not a deep analysis of Ricoeur’s extensive works.
Finitude et culpabilité: La Symbolique du mal, (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1960).
Cf. Ibid., mostly the first chapters for the notion of symbol and myth, and the conclusion, “Le Symbole donne à penser” for a primary access to Ricoeur’s approach of interpretation and hermeneutics. “Le Symbole donne à penser” can also be found in Esprit, 27, Paris (1959), numbers 7–8.
La Métaphore vive (Paris: Eds. Du Seuil, 1975) constitutes one of the most complete contemporary analyses of the metaphor, in dialogue with classic philosophy (mainly Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and Kant’s Third Critique) as well as with other contemporary approaches with different and even opposite guidelines. Le Conflit des interprétations (Paris: Seuil, 1969) and Du texte à l’action (Paris: Seuil, 1986) are also crucial to apprehend Ricoeur’s hermeneutical theory. Jacques Derrida also situates metaphor as a basic clue of his philosophical analysis. Cf., for instance: “La Mythologie blanche”, in Rhétorique et Philosophie, Poétique, 5 (Paris: Eds. Du Seuil, 1971), pp. 1–52. Compiled in Marges de la philosophie (Paris: Eds. De Minuit, 1972), pp. 247–324. Also “Le Retrait de la métaphore”; English translation. “The Retreat of Metaphor” by Frieda Gardner, Biodum Iginla, Richard Madden and William West, in Enclitic (1978), pp. 1–44.
Cf. The three volumes of Temps et récit (Paris: Seuil, 1983–1984–1985).
Paul Ricoeur, Introduction to the aforementioned book of Agis Villaverde, op. cit., pp. 13–14.
Ibid., p. 14.
Temps et récit, Vol. I, p. 13.
James M. Edie, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 6, No. 1, January, 1975, p. 32.
In Images and symbols (Spanish Edition, Madrid: Taurus, 1974), p. 12.
The Discovery of the Mind (New York: Harper, 1960).
James M. Edie, op. cit., p. 33.
Paul Ricoeur, in Du texte à l’action (Paris: Seuil, 1986), pp. 161–183. See also other articles, in the same book: “Qu’est-ce qu’un texte? ”, “Le Modèle du texte: l’action sensée considérée comme un texte”, etc. Moreover, some articles concerning the dialogue with structuralism are essential to clarifying this question; they are included in Le Conflit des interprétations (Paris: Seuil, 1969), pp. 31-101. Chapter I contains the following three articles: “Structure et herméneutique”, “Le Problème du double sens comme problème herméneutique et comme problème sémantique”, and “La Structure, le mot, l’événement”.
See, for example, “L’Imagination dans le discours et dans l’action”, in Du texte à l’action.
“Le Problème du double sens comme problème herméneutique et comme problème sémantique”, in Le Conflit des interprétations, p. 65.
Many other articles, among them the ones compiled in Le Conflit des interprétations and Du texte àl’action. See, also, for the question of symbols, Ricoeur’s analysis-dialogue De l’ interprétation. Essai sur Freud (Paris: Seuil, 1965).
R. Kearney, “Ricoeur and Hermeneutic Imagination”, in The Narrative Path, edited by T. Peter Kemp and David Rasmussen (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1989), p. 6.
For a study of the relationship between metaphor and narrative, see the article by Serge Meitinger, “Between ‘Plot’ and ‘Metaphor’: Ricoeur’s Poetic Applied on the Specificity of the Poem”, in The Narrative Path, op. cit., pp. 47-64.
Cf. Le Volontaire et l’ involontaire (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1967).
R. Kearney in The Narrative Path, David Rasmussen (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1989) op. cit., p. 5. Later we shall allude to the important role of the reader for Ricoeur’s hermeneutics.
“L’Imagination dans le discours et dans l’action”, in Du texte à l’action, pp. 218-19.
Paul Ricoeur, Le Monde, Interview, Paris, February 7, 1986. Quoted by Richard Kearney, op. cit., p. 24.
Paul Ricoeur, Introduction to Agis Villaverde, op. cit., pp. 14-15.
Kearney, R., in The Narrative Path, David Rasmussen (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1989) op. cit., p. 5.
In this brief article it is not my intention to undertake a serious comparison between Derrida and Ricoeur. There are several studies concerning that subject. Here my analysis will focus on some points underlined by Leonard Lawlor, in Imagination and Chance. The Difference Between the Thought of Ricoeur and Derrida (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). He also presents a practical bibliography on the topic.
Ibid., Introduction, p. 1.
Ibid., p. 12.
M. Heidegger, Der Satz vom Grund (Pfullingen: Neske, 1957, pp. 77–90).
La Métaphore vive, p. 357.
M. Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Neske, 1959).
Lawlor, op. cit., “Conclusion. The Difference Illuminated”, pp. 123ff.
Ibid., p. 125.
Ibid., p. 127.
Ibid., p. 128.
Idem.
Cf. Temps et récit I, p. 11.
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Cecilia, M.A. (2002). Symbol and Metaphor: The Search for the “Hidden Side” of Reality in Contemporary Philosophy. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Visible and the Invisible in the Interplay between Philosophy, Literature and Reality. Analecta Husserliana, vol 75. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0485-5_2
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