Abstract
Hermeneutics begins in response to the threat of misunderstanding, which it seeks to rectify through the work of interpretation. Yet, inasmuch as the products of interpretation can never secure themselves from this very same threat, they require constant phenomenological vigilance, in turn. This chapter applies this critical vigilance to Ricoeur’s own articulation of hermeneutics, showing that its commitment to structuralism imposes an unwarranted restriction on the things themselves. This poses a serious challenge for Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. For, if structuralism does not enhance understanding, then Ricoeur’s hermeneutic circle becomes a vicious circle that begins and ends with misunderstanding. As a way to surmount this problem, this chapter develops the alternative of an intersectional hermeneutics in which intersectional theory takes over the role previously played by structuralism.
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Notes
- 1.
It is important to recall that, even though Ricoeur’s discussion of textual hermeneutics tends to emphasize the role of literature in promoting a deeper self-understanding, hermeneutics need not be reduced to the study of literary texts. Instead, the interpretation of texts provides a model of interpretative activity that “may be extended beyond textual entities to all social phenomena because it is not limited in its application to linguistic signs but applies to all kinds of signs that are analogous to linguistic signs” (Ricoeur 1991: 165.) In this way, hermeneutics can also be applied to the interpretation of actions, history, society, and many other phenomena.
- 2.
For a more detailed account of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic critique of phenomenology, see (Davidson 2013).
- 3.
Note that Ricoeur does cite Kermode in a number of his texts on narrative, however he does not cite Kermode’s work on this play. Instead, Ricoeur engages his book The Sense of An Ending (Kermode 1968).
- 4.
See the relevant excerpt from (Kermode 2009).
- 5.
Ricoeur grants structuralism a privileged role in the work of interpretation, noting “… I do not at present see any more rigorous or more fruitful approach than the structuralist method at the level of comprehension which is its own” (Ricoeur 1974: 30).
- 6.
That said, there remains an essential distinction between phenomenology and structuralism. The structuralist bracketing is much more radical insofar as it does not only bracket the referent but also brackets the subject as a giver of meaning. In other words, it brackets the world as well as the subject in order to pay attention to the system of signs.
- 7.
This expression refers to Roland Barthes’ Writing Degree Zero (Barthes 1977).
- 8.
For more detail about the history of the structuralist movement, see (Dosse 1997).
- 9.
Here Ricoeur identifies a contrast between structuralism as a science and as a philosophy: “Structural anthropology seems to me to be convincing as long as it understands itself as the extension, by degrees, of an explanation which was first successful in linguistics, then in systems of kinship, and finally extending, little by little, by the play of affinities with the linguistic model, to all forms of social life. By the same token, it seems to me suspect when it sets itself up as a philosophy” (Ricoeur 1974: 51).
- 10.
For some pertinent connections to the post-structuralists, see (Michel 2014).
- 11.
This is only one of the many criticisms developed in post-structuralist literary thought.
- 12.
The notion of the overdeterminacy of meaning is drawn from (Ricoeur 1970: 516). By attaching the term “saturated” here, I am suggesting a connection to Jean-Luc Marion’s notion of a “saturated phenomenon” (Marion 2004). Initial steps toward this connection have been made in comparisons of Ricoeur and Marion have been made, for instance, in (Gschwandtner 2012). Still more work remains to be done, however, in comparing their respective approaches to the saturated phenomenon through the phenomenon of the text.
- 13.
Initial steps in this direction were taken in (Davidson and Davidson 2015).
- 14.
The lineage of this notion can be traced back to (Crenshaw 1989).
- 15.
Another example of a multi-axis approach can be drawn from discussions of the political spectrum. Rather than simply describing it in terms of the opposition between left and right, multi-axis approaches to the political spectrum seek to identify the important differences and linkages that are found across this spectrum.
- 16.
While Ricoeur’s hermeneutics can benefit from intersectionality, it is also the case that intersectional scholars stand to gain something important from Ricoeur. In response to the growing use of the term, intersectionality has come under fire lately precisely for its lack of a clear and rigorous methodology. Leslie McCall, among others has raised the objection that intersectionality lacks conceptual clarity and a rigorous method (McCall 2005). (Davidson and Davidson 2015) suggest that intersectional theory can surmount these objections by drawing from Ricoeur’s hermeneutics.
- 17.
- 18.
Questions such as these prompted Aimé Césaire to write his 1969 play, “A Tempest,” which re-envisions the play from the perspective of the colonized.
- 19.
I am bracketing another tale of competing stories, that is, the Miranda-Caliban discussion.
- 20.
The competition between these two narratives is described well in (Memmi1965). To extend this analogy, it would be interesting to connect Memmi’s contrast between “the colonized who accepts” and “the colonized who refuses” with Shakespeare’s characters Ariel and Caliban.
- 21.
I mention this, of course, in reference to Ricoeur’s later work on recognition. While this is not the context to do so, it would be fascinating to situate Ricoeur’s notion of the gift of recognition within the context of “The Tempest” but also of Shakespeare’s other plays that touch on the theme of recognition.
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Davidson, S. (2016). Intersectional Hermeneutics. In: Davidson, S., Vallée, MA. (eds) Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Paul Ricoeur. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33426-4_12
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