The hermeneutical grafts of Paul Ricœur

Abstract

This work identifies a recurring element in Paul Ricœur1s thought, namely that of carrying out a hermeneutic graft in specialized areas of knowledge that deal with certain philosophical problems, which will be demonstrated in the following topics, where they will be presented: i) the phenomenological investigation into the privileged access to the cogito, in The Conflict of Interpretations — Essays in Hermeneutics; ii) the epistemological and ontological problems of access to the historical past, as well as the relationship between historiography and fictional literature, in Time and Narrative; iii) the question of personal identity in the analytical tradition of the philosophy of language, in Oneself as Another; iv) finally, the limits of the naturalistic approaches of neurosciences and cognitive sciences on memory in Memory, History, Forgetting and What makes us think?. The philosopher, in The Conflict of Interpretations, openly claims to promote a grafting of the hermeneutic problem into the phenomenological method in his investigation into the understanding of oneself based on the conflict between rival interpretations concerning the cogito. Jean Greisch, in turn, suggests the existence of a graft not assumed by Ricœur of hermeneutics in the philosophy of language in Oneself as Another. Along the same path, this work offers as a novelty the encounter of two other tacit hermeneutic grafts in Ricœur’s work, namely the hermeneutic graft in the phenomenology of time in Time and Narrative and in the naturalized treatment of memory by neurosciences in Memory, History, Forgetting and What makes us think?.