Too Many Hegels? Ricoeur’s Relation to German Idealism Reconsidered

Abstract

Ricoeur’s readers usually assume they understand his view of Hegel, since he talks about Hegel often and likes to characterize various aspects of his work as “Hegelian.” What often goes unnoticed is that Ricoeur does not always use this term in the same way. This chapter argues that Ricoeur uses the term “Hegelian” in three distinct senses: a methodological, an ontological, and a metaphilosophical sense. These senses overlap, but they are also in tension, and this fact greatly complicates the task of identifying Ricoeur’s attitude toward German Idealism—especially his claim in Time and Narrative that contemporary philosophers should “renounce Hegel.”