Abstract
In this contribution I apply Ricoeur’s hermeneutics to the topic of place, arguing that place is always interpreted and that there is a hermeneutic tension between “metaphorical” and “physical” space. I draw on some of Ricoeur’s writings on architecture, but also push his thought on narrative and other hermeneutic considerations further to think about place and space more broadly. I conclude by working out some of the implications of Ricoeur’s thought for environmental thinking.
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Notes
- 1.
Time is one of the central themes of Time and Narrative but many essays focus on this topic also. The section on “historical time” following immediately on the one on space in Memory, History, Forgetting is longer and the book as a whole frequently deals with the question of time in a variety of ways. Similarly, time is an important topic in Course of Recognition and to some extent also in Oneself as Another, when Ricoeur focuses on continuity and preservation of the self and its identity. Occasionally Ricoeur even seems quite suspicious of the meanings assigned to space, especially when these are mythical or religious—he is fairly critical of Mircea Eliade’s explorations of cosmic space in a couple of essays (cf. “Manifestation and Proclamation” where he calls it “anti-hermeneutical” [1995: 49–50]) and thinks this “nature spirituality” as dated and overcome by modern science. Finally, the essay on creation in Thinking Biblically, which one would surely expect to consider questions of place or space—it is considering the biblical account of the creation of space and place, after all—focuses entirely on time and interprets the Genesis story solely as an account of origin. Similarly, he repeatedly considers the issue of “biblical time” (e.g. in an essay with that title reproduced in Figuring the Sacred), but there is no equivalent consideration of “biblical space,” which is somewhat curious in light of the deep significance paradise or especially the notion of the “holy land” have in the Hebrew Scriptures. He seems to think consistently that “biblical places are eminently metaphorizable” (1995: 163). See also his analysis of the myth, ritual, and the symbolism of the sacred in Interpretation Theory (1976: 60–69).
There is, understandably so, very little written about Ricoeur and space. For a brief exploration in a comparison with Enrique Dussel, see Sebastian Purcell (2011: 52–69 and 2010: 289–298). Richard Kearney also briefly discusses Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and its usefulness to questions of the body in one section of his contribution “The Wager of Carnal Hermeneutics,” (Kearney and Treanor 2015: 15–56).
- 2.
David Wood draws useful distinctions between place and space in his “My Place in the Sun” (Clingerman et al. 2014: 281–96).
- 3.
E.g., “There is no philosophy without presuppositions.” (1967: 348). Hermeneutics is what makes discourse coherent (350). This is also the context in which Ricoeur develops the move from first to second naïveté through the movement of critique.
- 4.
Ricoeur acknowledges this at least metaphorically when he contrasts Gadamer and Habermas and he says repeatedly that “each speaks from a different place” (2007: 294).
- 5.
This has significant implications also for how we think of or present “wilderness.” It is a recognition both of the ways in which wilderness was always already interpreted in the establishment of national parks, for example, but also of how we talk about experiencing it or preserving it. I return to this issue briefly in the final part of this essay.
- 6.
“In conclusion, from the phenomenology of ‘places’ that beings of flesh and blood occupy, leave, lose, rediscover—in passing through the intelligibility belonging to architecture—up to the geography that describes an inhabited space, the discourse of space too has traced out an itinerary thanks to which lived space is turn by turn abolished by geometrical space and reconstructed at the hyper-geometrical level of the oikoumene” (2004: 153).
- 7.
The French language does not distinguish in the same way between “place” and “space” as Edward Casey does in his work on these topics. While lieu, place, and endroit primarily mean “place” or “location,” espace means both “place” and “space,” but can also have a metaphorical and a temporal connotation. The Grand Robert employs espace to define the other three terms.
- 8.
Ricoeur also admits that something like “traces” are left in our minds as “inscriptions” of memory, although he speaks of it as ambivalent, as much a “sign of its absent cause” as of its “present effect” (2013: 150–51).
- 9.
- 10.
This is also true of the way in which he speaks of hermeneutics more generally: “Hermeneutics, I shall say, remains the art of discerning the discourse in the work; but this discourse is only given in and through the structures of the work” (2007: 83). Furthermore, this “enables us to say that the author is instituted by the text, that he stands in the space of meaning traced and inscribed by writing. The text is the very place where the author appears.” (2007: 109). In fact, it is ironic how often Ricoeur will use quite spatial language for the process of interpretation without explicitly addressing the topic of place, for example: “To interpret is to follow the path of thought opened up by the text, to place oneself en route toward the orient of the text” (2007: 122; emphasis his). (I think part of this hesitation to talk about the original context of a text may be due to Ricoeur’s desire to distance himself from the Romantic mode of interpretation that attempted to return back to the author and the original locus of the text. He often stresses the symbolic or metaphorical nature of the text and its ability to mean anew in quite different situations and contexts.)
- 11.
To some extent that is true even in the passage from Interpretation Theory above. He concludes his discussion of ostensive reference by insisting that the concrete “here” and “there”of the text refers to an absolute one that functions as an “as if” (1976: 35). The “world” of the text frees it from the situational reference (1976: 36). In fact, it is non-ostensive reference that is able to get at the sense of the text and open a “possible world” (1976: 87).
- 12.
See Brian Treanor’s discussion of this in “Narrative and Nature: Appreciating and Understanding the Nonhuman World” (Clingerman et al. 2014: 181–200).
- 13.
One might suggest in light of this that Ricoeur recognizes the difference between place and space outlined by Casey, but would probably argue for greater balance between them, while Casey seems to argue more strongly for a recovery of place over the predominance of space in the modern period.
- 14.
- 15.
The interplay of concordance and discordance is worked out most fully in chapter 3 of the first volume of Time and Narrative.
- 16.
He ends the other version in the same fashion (1998: 51).
- 17.
See Ponting (1991). (See also the more popular version by Jared Diamond, Collapse.) This is obviously not only true of humans, but most living species alter their environments at least to some extent in order to survive and flourish there. Whether such alterations are interpreted as productive or destructive is often very much dependent on whose species’ point of view one selects.
- 18.
Similarly, in his conversation with Changeux, he speaks of intentionality as linked to the world, in which actions and capabilities are learnt and manifested (2000: 164).
- 19.
Somewhat later, he also censures the fact that “in the analytic theory of action” “action sentences are taken out of their social environment” (1992: 155).
- 20.
Unfortunately, even this analysis of human corporeality does not really raise the question of place, although he refers to Husserl’s idea of the “spatiality of the flesh” articulated in unpublished manuscripts (1992: 325). He also notes that for Heidegger “the spatial dimension of being-in-the-world appears to involve mainly the inauthentic forms of care” and suggests that “if it is not the unfolding of the problematic of temporality... that prevented an authentic phenomenology of spatiality” (1992: 328) without seemingly realizing that the same thing could be said about his own philosophy. It is most curious that Ricoeur leaves it at this and makes no attempt whatsoever to go on and provide some sort of account of spatiality himself. For a moving example of the relation between physical space (or the lack thereof) and embodiment, see Ed Casey’s discussion of solitary confinement: “Skin Deep: Bodies Edging into Place” (Kearney and Treanor 2015: 159–72).
- 21.
It also suggests that it increases the condoning of violence to which one becomes anesthetized, although a direct causal link between viewing violence and exercising it (as opposed to becoming immune to it and minimizing reactions of pity or compassion) has not been proven conclusively.
- 22.
“Lastly, it can be said that throughout the world an equally universal way of living unfolds. This way of living is manifested by the unavoidable standardization of housing and clothing. These phenomena derive from the fact that ways of living are themselves rationalized by techniques which concern not only production but also transportation, human relationships, comfort, leisure, and news programming as well. Let us also mention the various techniques of elementary culture or, more exactly, the culture of consumption; there is a culture of consumption of world-wide dimensions, displaying a way of living which has a universal character” (1965: 274).
- 23.
For several discussions of the relevance of aspects of Ricoeur’s philosophy for environmental thought, see the aforementioned collection (Clingerman et al. 2014).
- 24.
So someone living in a wealthy area of southern California, faced with the consequences of the year-long drought, reportedly said to the NYT: “Let the fish die; I’m watering my lawn.” (NYT, Feb. 2015)
- 25.
They also all help us see—a point I do not have the space to develop further here—that place is shared, with other people and other species. When it is no longer shared, when we come to occupy it alone either because we have actively destroyed the other species that used to dwell there or indirectly by making the place uninhabitable for them, place is impoverished or even dead. Place requires sharing.
References
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Clingerman, Forrest, Brian Treanor, Martin Drenthen, and David Utsler, ed. 2014. Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics. New York: Fordham University Press.
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Ponting, Clive. 1991. A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations. New York: Penguin.
Purcell, Sebastian. 2010. Space and Narrative: Enrique Dussel and Paul Ricoeur: The Missed Encounter. Philosophy Today 54: 289–298.
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———. 1967. The Symbolism of Evil. Trans. Emerson Buchanan. Boston: Beacon Press.
———. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press.
———. 1992. Oneself as Another. Trans. Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Gschwandtner, C.M. (2017). Space and Narrative: Ricoeur and a Hermeneutic Reading of Place. In: Janz, B. (eds) Place, Space and Hermeneutics. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52214-2_13
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