Ricoeur, Consciousness is not a given but a task

"Everything that can be said about consciousness after Freud seems to me to be contained in the following formula: Consciousness is not a given but a task." - by posing such a question we acquire a knowledge about the unconscious which is no longer realist but dialectical. Paul Ricoeur, "Consciousness and the Unconscious," in The Conflict of Interpretations, pp. 99-120. (See notes in my file, Coelho/Ricoeur, CI 05, Consciousness and the Unconscious.)

Philosophers of gift

Massimiliano De Luca, a Salesian who works in Caserta, spoke to me of several 'philosophers of gift'. I had known about Marcel Mauss, from one of the essays in the Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, and perhaps also Derrida, but had not heard about Ferdinand Ebner. Massimo also included Ricoeur. Something to look into.

Marcel Mauss and others on 'gift'

Stefano Curci, associate professor at the UPS, mentioned Benedict XVI's "economy of the gift" (economia del dono) during his talk at the Demaria Convegno. He mentioned several contemporary philosophers who have been discussing 'gift': Marcel Mauss, Levinas, Derrida and Ricoeur. He did not mention John Milbank. Matter for a good MPh paper here.

Lechte, John. “Exchange.” Key Contemporary Concepts: From Abjection to Zeno’s Paradox. London: Sage, 2003. 76-80.

Understanding and explanation

Gadamer places a premium on understanding, Habermas on explanation, while Ricoeur wants both. Ricoeur: "understanding without explanation is blind... explanation without understanding is empty." (Ricoeur, "The Conflict of Interpretations: Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur," Phenomenology: Dialogues and Bridges, ed. Ronald Bruzina and Bruce Wilshire [Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1982] 307. D'Souza, DJPE 19 [2008] 177.)

Under explanation Ricoeur / Keith D'Souza include devices such as structuralism and historico-critical methods - what I have been calling 'lower blade' methods such as those taught by Henrici. (D'Souza 177)

There is a hermeneutical arc between explanation and understanding: "to explain is to bring out the structure, that is, the internal relations of dependence that constitute the statics of the text; 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." (Ricoeur, "Discussion: Ricoeur on Narrative" 122. D'Souza 177.)

Self and tradition

"[T]he interpretation of a text culminates in the self-interpretation of the subject who henceforth understands himself better, understands himself differently, or simply begins to understand himself." (P. Ricoeur, "Discussion: Ricoeur on Narrative," On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation, ed. David Wood [London: Routledge, 1991] 118.)

Self-understanding is a function of text-interpretation: "in hermeneutical reflection - or in reflective hermeneutics - the constitution of the self is contemporaneous with the constitution of meaning." (Ibid. 119)

Interpretation thus makes "one's own what was initially alien." (Ibid. 119)

(From Keith D'Souza, “Habermas and Hermeneutics: The Need for Critical-Hermeneutical Dialectics.” Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education 19/1-2 [2008] 176-7.)

Compare Fred Lawrence's formulation: the coming to light of the tradition is at once the coming to light of the self.

Remembering, Forgetting, Forgiving

The last chapter of one of Ricoeur's last books seems to have the suggestive title, Remembering, Forgetting, Forgiving.

We human beings - alone of all animals - live in time. Augustine, according to Keith, saw this as part of our fallen nature. I wonder if that is right. I thought being temporal was part of our human nature! It is more like Heidegger to conflate finitude and fallenness. But I like the expression Keith used in reporting Augustine, that our souls are plastic, they stretch backwards into the past and forward into the future.... And it is true: I am not just a creature of the present; I am, in many ways, my past; my past lives on in me, both my personal and 'my' collective past. And I stretch constantly into the future, anticipating, planning, dreading, looking forward to, expecting....

Ricoeur makes the lovely point, however, that it is not enough to remember. Memory can be cruel. We need to learn to forget, and to forgive. And here, said Keith, Christianity seems to be different from other religions who find it difficult to accept the possibility or the goodness or the rightness of learning to forget and to forgive....

"Do not ask me for forgiveness," says the Jewish survivor to the German lawyer, the protagonist of The Reader. And one understands that. One feels the outrage behind the words. And yet... is there a point at which one must let go of the past? Not necessarily for the sake of the other, but for oneself? Why did Jesus feel the need to repeatedly ask us to forgive? Because, as he himself said, we ourselves need to be forgiven and have indeed been forgiven?

And why do I tend to forget how much I have been forgiven? Why do I find it so hard to forgive, understand, make place for, human foibles, folly, cruelty, ingratitude, coarseness, la-parvah???

Good vs Right

Is there such a radical contrast between 'teleological' and 'deontological' as Keith proposed in his lecture?

The former seems to have suffered in his / Ricoeur's presentation: concern with the 'good' is static, conservative, rule-bound, and even at times violent. Concern with 'duty', instead, is concern with the right thing to do, and not merely the established 'good' thing.

I guess all these terms are so fluid that each philosopher can give his/her own meaning to them... So we would have to find out what really Ricoeur meant, before agreeing/disagreeing with him.

I would like to find out Ashley's comments on the matter. Virtue ethics seems to be a concentration on the 'good.'

Hermeneutics of suspicion

Keith D'Souza's lecture was clear and stimulating. He spoke naturally about the critical component in understanding, Ricoeur's double hermeneutic of suspicion and recovery.

I found myself asking myself: in what way is this double hermeneutic at work in the functional specialty, dialectic? Lonergan used to speak indifferently of the 'double hermeneutic' and 'double dialectic.' Perhaps the moment of recovery is in research, interpretation, history, and the moment of suspicion in dialectic?

Certainly dialectic is the place for the moment of suspicion. But, what manner of suspicion? We dismiss other differences and concentrate on the dialectical ones. Differences rooted in the basic positions and counterpositions, intellectual, moral, religious. Different ways of conceiving knowing, being, objectivity. Deciding and acting on the basis of value or of satisfaction. Shutting oneself up in a rationalism, or being willing to allow for what transcends reason. Being moved by a total and unrestricted loving, and on the other hand something less than that...

Clearly, dialectical differences do not cover all types of differences. Differences rooted in data are out. Differences that are perspectival or even genetic are out. But does dialectic cover all other major differences?

What about different manners of interpreting the Preventive System? I guess most would be rooted in attitudes? and so?