In Gaudium et Spes, the Catholic Church describes marital discernment as the married couple’s “common reflection and effort… [that] involves a consideration of their own good and the good of their children” and also as “an estimation of the good of the family… [that necessitates] prudent reflection and common decision.” With this description, we can say that the Catholic Church expects and desires married couples to resolve marital and family conflicts by coming together in discernment. And yet, how should married (...) couples discern? How should they exercise marital discernment? Since one cannot just go on discerning blindly without minding some rules, without following some basic steps, Ricoeur would emphasize that “discernment calls for a hermeneutics.” But how should hermeneutics be integrated into the process of marital discernment? This paper makes an attempt to integrate hermeneutics into the process of marital discernment by drawing some key principles from Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology and Karol Wojtyła’s phenomenology of spousal love. In so doing, this paper considers how the dynamics of marital discernment can be rendered more balanced, and hence more effective, in attaining conflict resolution within the family. (shrink)

The paper is focused on Genesis 1 – 3 where the primordial man [adàm] is created ‎and he was given the proper name Adam [adàm]. ‎ In Hebrew man and Adam are the same word, spelled the same way – [adàm]. ‎Different translations of Genesis 1-3 use for the first time the proper name Adam in ‎different places versions Gen 2:25; The German Luther ‎Bible Gen 3:8; Some English Protestant versions Gen 3:17; Bulgarian Protestant and many ‎English Protestant versions Gen (...) 3:20-21). The paper decodes the phenomenon by ‎studying the Hebrew original and several semiotic views on common and proper names ‎‎. Through these opinions the ‎important question “Who wrote the Bible?” is discussed. The analysis interfaces the new ‎linguistic relativity theory.‎ Four layers of symbolism are decoded: 1. The man became Adam; 2. The two men in ‎Gen 1:27 and in Gen 2:7 man [adàm] ‎is made by earth, ground [adamà]; 3. The two men in the New Testament ; 4. Edom, Adam and cultural discourses in both Testaments.‎. (shrink)

The present article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent, critical thinking should make attunement to current social and political landscapes central to its practice. I begin by outlining what I consider to be the basic positions in the debate about the political contextualisation of critical thinking, which are referred to as the crypto-Enlightenment and the critical pedagogical models. I argue, on the basis of various strands of research, that there is a prima facie case to be made (...) in favour of the critical pedagogical position that favours forefronting the social and political context of critical thinking and thinking in general. I then draw attention, however, to problems of coherence and justification in the critical pedagogical position, before turning, finally, to an alternative grounding of critical thinking that takes seriously the historical and social contextualisation of thinking without the coherence problems of critical pedagogy. My conclusion is that while the critical pedagogical model is right to point to the fatal incompleteness of Enlightenment-style critical thinking due to its failure to properly acknowledge the norm-saturated nature of historical consciousness, critical pedagogy itself fails to offer a coherent alternative to the problem of integrating value and rationality in a more full-blown grounding of critical thinking. I suggest that a hermeneutical model that integrates the rational, axiological and historical moments in consciousness provides a more satisfying foundation for understanding the trajectory and purpose of critical thinking. (shrink)

At the heart of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion one discovers a commitment to the diversity of religious expression. This commitment is grounded in his understanding of the linguistic and temporal conditions of religious phenomena. By exploring his contribution to the debate concerning the so-called ‘theological turn’ in French phenomenology in relation to his studies of translation, this essay explores Ricoeur’s understanding of religious phenomenality where meaning is experienced as the simultaneous advance and withdrawal of an originary event in (...) the traces of its interpretations. With such an understanding of religious phenomenality, the way is opened for philosophy of religion to advance a more robust consideration of religious diversity and, therefore, to reconsider notions of universality better suited to the things themselves. (shrink)

For my invited contribution to this special issue of Religions on “Feminisms and the Study of ‘Religions,’” I focus on philosophy of religion and contestations over its relevance to the academic field of Religious Studies. I amplify some feminist philosophers’ voices—especially Pamela Sue Anderson—in corroboration with recent calls from Religious Studies scholars to diversify philosophy of religions in the direction of locating it properly within the current state of Religious Studies. I want to do this by thinking through two proposals (...) in productive tension: first, any philosophy of religions worthy of the name is intrinsically feminist; second, any philosophy of religions worthy of the name is intrinsically traditional. I want to use the productive tension between these two to illuminate ways calls for broadening the field can be enhanced when such calls are seen as both feminist and traditional. I proceed as follows. First, I note three instances of explicitly feminist work in philosophy of religions that do not suffer from the same narrowness as so-called “traditional” philosophy of religion. Religious Studies critics of philosophy of religion overstate the case in claiming feminist philosophy of religion is too narrow. Second, I develop a useful distinction between the concepts of “tradition” and “institution” to locate forces of oppression more precisely in dynamics of institutionalization so that we might rehabilitate tradition as a resource for combating institutionalized oppressiveness. I do this in response to the hegemony of current philosophers of religion who claim to speak about “the traditional god.” And third, I briefly coordinate four topics in religions from diverse feminist perspectives to help refine paths of inquiry for future philosophy of religions that is both feminist and traditional. My hope is that these clarify a philosophy of religions renewed through feminisms—moving from fringe to normative topics in institutionalized philosophy of religion, maintaining focus on actually existing human beings rather than hypothetically existing transcendent entities. I turn our attention to technical issues surrounding the status of mae chis, Buddhist laity who seek monastic recognition in Theravada. I turn our attention to struggles over fitting criteria for leadership between Mary Magdalene and Peter in early Christian contexts. I have us listen to Muslim women who seek to speak for themselves, many of whom describe Muhammad as a feminist. I have us listen to Anderson’s criticism of arguments about the (non)existence of a god and her promotion of human yearning as guided by regulative ideals as a pointed challenge to institutionalized philosophy of religion. In all these ways and more, feminist challenges to institutionalized philosophy of religion further contribute to diversifying field. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger and Alasdair MacIntyre both claim that universities perform important philosophical functions. This essay reconstructs Heidegger’s and MacIntyre’s views of the university and argues that they have a common source, which I call hermeneutics without historicism. Heidegger and MacIntyre are hermeneutical philosophers: philosophers who are sensitive to the ways in which thought is mediated by interpretation and conditioned by history and culture. But both of them reject the relativistic historicism sometimes associated with a hermeneutical approach to philosophy. This desire (...) to have it both ways leads Heidegger and MacIntyre to attach tremendous importance to activities that take place in universities but nowhere else. The essay also asks whether MacIntyre’s defenders should be troubled by the similarities between his account of the function of the university and Heidegger’s. I argue that they should not, because, while Heidegger’s account of the university has obvious moral and polit.. (shrink)

This paper investigates how Schleiermacher’s universal hermeneutics can be considered as a better alternative to both, German rationalist aesthetics as pioneered by Christian Wolff, and Kant’s transcendental idealism, to the extent of overcoming the problematics of rule-following. A general account of the necessity of a universal hermeneutics and its meaning from historical practices of exegeses is given. This is then followed by the account of rule-following in the tradition of both German rationalist aesthetics and Kant’s transcendental idealism with latter as (...) expounded in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The investigation is comparative and descriptive. The purpose of this study is to discuss the hermeneutic possibilities in research methodologies for human sciences. (shrink)

The philosophy of economics has been largely guided by analytic philosophy. Even Marx has been appropriated without much scandal by economists who separate his scientific contributions from his politics. In this article, I place philosophical hermeneutics (i.e., Heidegger and Ricoeur) in dialogue with the conventional understanding of land as a factor of production. The history of political economy misunderstands land as an entity classifiable as property and capital. I argue instead that land's ontological role, deriving from Heidegger's concept of earth, (...) suggests that economics needs to account for it in a new way according to David Ricardo's notion of land rent. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that the narrative presented in Husserl’s recently translated Text 7 is a strikingly clear affirmation and vindication of the psychological adaptation of phenomenology developed by Amedeo Giorgi. I argue that Giorgi’s methodological advocacy of the epoché makes good sense when considered in the context of the history of humanistic psychology. A review of Carl Rogers’s and Abraham Maslow’s attempts to revision psychology shows that they each, in their own way, argued for a turn away from (...) all-out objectivism in research, toward what phenomenologists would refer to as the being-in-the-world-with-others that permeates the relationship between researcher and research participants. But neither could envision or develop a methodological procedure for the researcher to simultaneously suspend their habitual way of making judgements and forming conclusions in that relationship. Instead, they advocated for the extension of a humanized therapeutic clinical presence of openness, acceptance, and affirmation in psychological research. Thus, a Husserlian approach to phenomenological psychology was not only a desirable addition to humanistic thought, it was sorely needed for humanistic psychology to fulfill its research promise. Giorgi, more than any other thinker of his time, provided this addition. It is further argued that Giorgi’s contribution remains highly relevant, though underappreciated. (shrink)

The topic of eschatology is generally confined to the field of theology. However, the subject has influenced many other fields, such as politics and history. This dissertation examines the question why eschatology remained a topic of discussion within twentieth century philosophy. Concepts associated with eschatology, such as the end of time and the hope of a utopian age to come, remained largely background assumptions among intellectuals in the modern age. Martin Heidegger, Nicolai Berdyaev, and Hans Blumenberg, however, explicitly addressed the (...) subject in their philosophies. The impetus of this study is Heidegger's statement, "Being itself is inherently eschatological," which indicates the centrality of the subject in his understanding of Being. This statement led to the question whether eschatology played a larger role in Western thought. It also raised the question concerning the relationship between eschatology and other philosophical subjects such as teleology. Because of the multitude of assumptions concerning the meaning of eschatology, Chapter One provides essential working definitions. In order to obtain a sufficient understanding of the topic and address the use of the term among the three philosophers, it was necessary to see how eschatology was understood and acted upon in Western thought. Chapter Two addresses the history of eschatology in the West and concludes that there are two general streams of eschatological thought that explains why it continued to remain a subject for contemporary philosophers. Chapters Three through Five address how eschatology was used by Heidegger, Berdyaev, and Blumenberg respectively. Each utilized the subject in different ways: for Heidegger eschatology constitutes Dasein's existence. Futurity ("forward-directedness") is a condition Dasein as a totality. Dasein is "being-toward-the-end" or "toward-death." Berdyaev combines the eschatological tradition with philosophical achievements and offers an "eschatological metaphysics." He distinguishes eschatology from teleology arguing against teleology, noting that only a "personalist" eschatology can solve the problems of dualism and objectification. Blumenberg differs from Heidegger and Berdyaev by offering a negative evaluation of eschatological belief in the West contending that the modern secular age is the result of a failed eschatology. The conclusion of this work follows Charles Taylor's contention in A Secular Age that "our sense of where we are is crucially defined in part by a story of how we got there." The conclusion is that eschatology, throughout most of Western thought, functioned largely as a background assumption for understanding time and history. The transition from the linear concept of time to a cyclical concept defines in part the modern secular age. The notion of future time is an important and often neglected dimension of hermeneutic understanding. The continued influence of eschatological thought in Western history explains why the philosophers under consideration in this work address eschatology and signals that its influence upon philosophical thought is not likely to diminish in the future. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I explore the significance of remembering, especially in its communal form, and its relationship to narrative identity by examining the practices that make possible the formation and transmission of a heritage. To explore this issue I use Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur, who have dedicated several of their major works to remembrance and forgetting. In comparing Heidegger and Ricoeur, I suggest that Ricoeur's formulation of the identity of a subject and a community offers an alternative to Heidegger's (...) account. For, if Heidegger's critique of subjectivity offers the possibility of a new relationship to history and community, it nevertheless overlooks the possibility of a humanism that is not tied to a metaphysical account of subjectivity. By contrast, the positive work of remembrance can recover heretofore concealed possibilities through our being faithful to the past, and saving it from the destructive forces of time. To show how the fragility of memory preserves the past against the destructive work of time and brings with it the hope of a better future, I emphasize one specific theme--namely, the debt we owe to the dead, which dissertations the possibility for ethical consideration of an historical community. In this regard, this dissertation pursues two goals. The first task is to elucidate how Heidegger's and Ricoeur's phenomenological projects understand the intimate connection between remembrance and the creation of a community. The second goal of this dissertation is to show how Ricoeur is able to respond to the problems that Heidegger's ontological account of memory raises. The completion of these two tasks will contribute to a phenomenological hermeneutics of memory and forgetting. (shrink)

This article is intended to contribute to the discussion on the meaning of volunteering by investigating voluntary work from the viewpoint of volunteers active in Swedish civil society organizations.Meaning refers both to the cognitive meaning of concepts and to the perceived meaning in life. The aim to uncover the predicates that people attribute to the concept is an attempt to anatomize volunteering as a social construct. Five predicates emerged and they make up the phenomenological structure of volunteering. By contextualizing this (...) structure in contemporary Swedish society, it is demonstrated that the conceptual meaning of volunteering has significance for its existential meaning. The volunteers say that their authenticity is confirmed through the voluntary work since they are making themselves manifest in public. Following Hannah Arendt, the reasons for this is that authenticity demands that the volunteers conduct their actions in a public realm where their actions acquire an intrinsic value as neither coerced nor instrumental. (shrink)

In a world where, as Martin Heidegger puts it, ‘homelessness’ has become its destiny, the colonized/Oriental Other that once exclusively constituted and was neglected from the matrix of the Western imaginary has no longer maintained its distance as ‘out there’. Instead it is embodied as a ‘refugee’ appearing on the borders of the ‘home’ with its complex cultural, colonial history. The majority of refugee studies feature the refugee as the outcome of the interplay of the two concepts of the ‘rights (...) of man’ and the ‘rights of the citizen’, who resides on the threshold of nativity and nationality as the limit phenomenon of the nation-state stands before the law in its totality but cannot be classified under any of its provisions. However, this thesis investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the emergence of the phenomenon of the refugee that appears at the threshold of one’s own experience of home as an alien who does not belong to the privileged normative structure of the home. Drawing on Anthony Steinbock’s approach to the Husserlian phenomenology of generativity, this study phenomenologically examines the possibility of an ethical relation in the Homeworld and Alienworld encounter. Focusing on the mode of givenness of the alien to the home in interpersonal relations, the main question of the thesis is:If phenomenologically the Other is accessible to home in a mode of inaccessibility, then how can the ‘I’ initiate an ethical relation to the Other?As the result of addressing this question, building on Edmund Husserl’s late project of ethical renewal and Bernhard Waldenfels’ phenomenological ethics of Responsivity alongside Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, I develop a new understanding of the experience of violence versus morally experiencing the Other. Although James Dodd contributed greatly to the development of the phenomenology of violence, this thesis gives a new perspective to the concept of ‘violence’ versus the ‘ethical’ from the perspective of types of phenomena and various modes of givenness. From a phenomenological perspective, by analyzing the mode of givenness peculiar to the experience of the Other in the intersubjective realm, I propose that violence is a disposition toward receiving the Other in experience as a denigrated phenomenon. However, an ethical relation to the Other means to receiving the Other as saturated phenomenon that is non-objectifiable. Chapter One discusses how phenomenology as critique can be a critical reflection on experience in order to justify and turn back to the question that concerns the refugee subject as ‘an alien other’. Applying Besinnung enables me to unravel the meaning structure that is operative in colonial subjectification and de-subjectification and the concept of violence that is embedded in the colonial situation. Dodd’s phenomenological account of violence and Giorgio Agamben’s discussion of ‘the camp’ gives me the opportunity to analyze the current manifestation of colonial violence in Australian offshore refugee detention camps. Considering various sorts of violence that are operative in the colonial structure, Chapter Two focuses on a specific type of violence that is hidden in the cognitive structure of our consciousness: epistemic violence. Building on Miranda Fricker’s notion of ‘epistemic injustice’ and Husserl’s phenomenological notion of ‘horizon-structure of experience’ that he proposed in Experience and judgment I develop a phenomenological analysis of the horizon structure of experiencing two types of epistemic injustice, which are testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. Phenomenologically thematizing the intersubjective structure of the home, Chapter Three investigates the way the institutional violence of the colonial system can affect meaning constitution. A regressive inquiry into the pregiven lifeworld of the colonial situation as a violent situation that emerges out of the disrupted world of sense, the chapter enquires into the relation of the ‘I’ with the ‘alien’, and asks how does the ‘I’ experience the Other and constitute it as alien? Doing so, I argue that I experience the other as always present in its absence in a way that its presence is withdrawn from the accessibility of home as inaccessible. Chapter Four examines the mode of experiencing the alien Other by the home as a liminal experience in which the alienworld is inaccessible and incomprehensible to home. Furthermore, building on the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Steinbock, I intend to liberate the phenomenon of the alien from the constitutive conditions of the home by discussing how the Other person is absolved from a disposal relation with me. This is to discover the most profound relation to the other that is given in moral experience. Chapter Five analyzes the moral experience of the Other in terms of the modality of the givenness of the Other, and in terms of the type of phenomena given in vertical givenness in the intersubjective realm. Reading Steinbock together with Marion, I explore the type of phenomenality of the alien Other who is given in the mode of revelation as a saturated phenomenon. I argue that by abandoning the givenness of the Other as a saturated phenomenon, I open the possibility of violence toward the Other. This way, I propose that the two concepts of violence and ethics are phenomenological orientations toward the reception of the call of the Other as a saturated phenomenon. (shrink)

Within the Husserlian phenomenological philosophical tradition, description and interpretation co-exist. However, teaching the practice of phenomenological psychological research requires careful articulation of the differences between a descriptive and an interpretive relationship to what is provided by qualitative data. If as researchers we neglect the epistemological foundations of our work or avoid working through difficult methodological issues, then our work invites dismissal as inadequate science, undermining the effort to strongly establish psychology along qualitative lines. The first article in this two-part discussion (...) provides a Husserlian investigation of the meaning of ‘method’ for psychology as a human science. This investigation is undertaken in the light of some researchers’ appropriations of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in the service of non-methodical praxes. The second article will address some implications of the attempt to structure qualitative psychological research along ‘Gadamerian’ lines, taking seriously the references to Gadamer’s work made by researchers such as Van Manen and Smith. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 11, Edition 1 May 2011, 69-85. (shrink)

In the present paper, I intend to systematically revisit Thomas Luckmann’s account of the relation between phenomenology and sociology and to assess its strengths and weaknesses in terms of constructive criticism. In order to achieve this aim, I will proceed in three steps. First, I will reconstruct the Luckmannian approach by means of an exhaustive analysis of his programmatic texts. Second, I will identify its strengths and merits. And finally, I will discuss its shortcomings and try to correct them in (...) two ways, namely, by bringing Luckmann into a dialogue with other sociological-theoretical and phenomenological accounts, and by counteracting some of his problematic claims with alternative insights contained in his own work. (shrink)

At the heart of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion one discovers a commitment to the diversity of religious expression. This commitment is grounded in his understanding of the linguistic and temporal conditions of religious phenomena. By exploring his contribution to the debate concerning the so-called ‘theological turn’ in French phenomenology in relation to his studies of translation, this essay explores Ricoeur’s understanding of religious phenomenality where meaning is experienced as the simultaneous advance and withdrawal of an originary event in (...) the traces of its interpretations. With such an understanding of religious phenomenality, the way is opened for philosophy of religion to advance a more robust consideration of religious diversity and, therefore, to reconsider notions of universality better suited to the things themselves. (shrink)

This study seeks to account for and contest Ricoeur's relative absence from the literary-theoretical canon in Britain. Whilst Ricoeur secured a highly influential position within American language philosophy in his lifetime, the literary consequences of his philosophy have been largely overlooked by literary-theoretical discourse itself. This is in spite of Ricoeur's role within the revolution of French thought from whence the New Critical dominion was finally overturned in this country. I contend that the heightened socio-political exigencies of the theoretical revolution, (...) whilst they facilitated a desirable renewal of thought, also fostered unhelpful polarities between the subject and the text, between an idealist metaphysics and a sceptical Theory and a submerged prejudice against philosophies which, like hermeneutics, maintained a positive dialogue with the Kantian tradition. Forged in the interchange of German romanticism and German historicism, modem hermeneutics developed as a response to the excesses of both, seeking to place limits on the claims of a self-authored genius and linguistic determinism alike. As a contemporary of phenomenology and structuralism, Ricoeur provides a similar negotiation of his immediate context, putting paid to the heightened polemic of the literary textualists and the literary relativists alike. Central to this achievement is Ricoeur's concept of "semantic innovation" it stands at the heart of his theory of metaphor and forms the basis for his semantic re-appropriation of the productive imagination. Through a combination of historical and philosophical analysis, this thesis seeks to demonstrate Ricoeur's highly rigorous achievements as an astute theoretician and as one wholeheartedly committed to the liberating powers of the literary imagination. (shrink)

This chapter explores Marcel’s relationship with German idealism, the impact idealism had on his existentialism, his philosophical evolution beyond idealist conceptions of objectivity and consciousness, and his own move towards the authentic “ethical self,” whose goal is a reciprocal, intersubjective relationship with others who are freely seeking the inner meaning of experience. It will argue that the authentic self is fundamentally personal because it is embodied, non-objective, and creates opportunities for others to existentially flourish. The continuing progress of the ethical, (...) authentic self in a world that threatens it establishes Marcel’s existentialism as way to flourish in the midst of absurdity, and so establishes it as more than a mere reaction to German idealism. (shrink)

This thesis situates recent tensions in debates about history over epistemology within their historical and social contexts. It explores the possibilities for developing historical understanding across epistemologies by considering the role ideas of justice can play in contemporary historical praxis. By considering historical praxis in relation to ideas of justice I have identified a nexus in which to explore different ways of knowing the past that is at once responsive to difference whilst also situating the ethical as an essential regulator (...) in determining meaningful, responsible and valid representations of the past. (shrink)

The respective philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor Adorno share a concern with articulating a critique of Husserlian phenomenology which would do justice to the materiality of the subject. With this commonality in mind, it is argued that Levinas reifies this materiality by endowing it with a metaphysical priority expressive of ethical universality. In contrast, Adorno eschews the philosophical obsession with the assertion of metaphysical priority, insisting on the complexly historical nature of material life. In place of the Levinasian concern (...) with the subject’s forgetting of her or his ethical responsibilities to ‘the Other’, Adorno’s notion of the primacy of the object helps to articulate the ways in which the subject is always already materially bound by singular social histories which are essentially exclusionary. Amelioration of our suffering would thus depend on a concrete break in material social life, rather than on an abstractly conceived revelation of transcendence. (shrink)

Volume 50, Issue 4, October 2019, Page 378-380.

This essay explores Gadamer’s ambivalent relationship with modernity. Gadamer is a prominent critic of the Enlightenment project. His criticisms are both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, representationalism is at the center of modern epistemology for Gadamer. Practically, Gadamer sees the demotion of prudence (phronesis) as fundamental to the “bad” Enlightenment. Gadamer’s attempt to revive an appreciation of rhetoric is a way to the join the theoretical and practical dimensions of speech and life. The central representative philosopher of the Enlightenment for Gadamer (...) is Kant. The antithetical thinker is Aristotle. Gadamer would have his Kant and his Aristotle too. The tension between these is at the heart of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

This article attempts to show the continuing practical relevance of hermeneutics through the example of legal interpretation. The article begins with the very concrete nature of legal hermeneutics that forms everyday legal practice – the interrelation of meaning and application – and expands at a more theoretical to show how legal hermeneutics, and hermeneutics more generally, offers what Ricoeur calls an interpretive “choice in favor of meaning.” The choice in favour of meaning underscores the restorative character of hermeneutics that legal (...) hermeneutics can epitomize. The article concludes with some of the challenges facing contemporary legal hermeneutics. (shrink)

The implications of commonalities in the contributions of five key thinkers in twentieth century phenomenology are discussed in relation to both original aims and contemporary projects. It is argued that, contrary to the claims of Husserl, phenomenology can only operate as hermeneutic phenomenology. Hermeneutics arose within German idealism. It began with Friedrich Ast and Heinrich Schleiermacher and was further developed by, among others, Wilhelm Dilthey and Martin Heidegger. Hermeneutics claims that current understanding is created on the basis of the prior (...) understanding taken to any new situation, in that what is initially understood or believed determines the direction and scope for inquiry or action. Subsequent action and conclustions are similarly based on what has been previously understood and believed. As a consequence, however, what may, in some cases, result is the confirmation of prior inaccurate understanding. For these reasons, it is important to be clear about how initial understandings are formed and how they inform a discipline, be it the Husserlian phenomenology of intentionality or any empirical phenomenological approach. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 8, Edition 1 May 2008. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology has proved to be very helpful in guiding nursing researchers’ qualitative analysis of interview transcripts. Modifying Ricoeur's philosophy, a number of nursing researchers have developed their own interpretive methods and shared them, along with their experience, with research community. Major contributors who published papers directly presenting their modifications of Ricoeur's theory include Rene Geanellos (2000), Lena Wiklund, Lisbet Lindholm and Unni Å. Lindström (2002), Anders Lindseth and Astrid Norberg (2004) and Pia Sander Dreyer and Birthe D (...) Pedersen (2009). The aim of this article was to delineate differences among these methods. Descriptive presentation of each method side by side makes clear the differences among them. In addition, Ricoeur's hermeneutic theory is portrayed and compared with the modifications. It is believed that differences that are found can stimulate further thoughts on how to apply Ricoeur's theory in qualitative research in nursing. (shrink)

This paper concerns the problem of how to give historical explanations of scientist's decisions to prefer one theory over another. It is argued that such explanations ought to contain only statements about the beliefs and preferences of the agents involved, and, in particular, ought not to include evaluative premises about the theories themselves. It is argued that Lakatos's attempt to build into such historical explanations premises of an evaluative kind is deficient. The arguments of Laudan to the effect that such (...) explanations depend crucially upon evaluative assumptions about the rationality or irrationality of decisions are examined. It is argued that they do not establish the need for such assumptions. Similar criticisms are then shown to be applicable to a version of the 'hermeneutical' model of explanation for human actions. (shrink)

The phenomenology of Edmund Husserl had a permanent and profound impact on the philosophical formation of Paul Ricoeur. One could truly say, paraphrasing Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s brilliant 1959 essay ‘The Philosopher and his Shadow’,that Husserl is the philosopher in whose shadow Ricoeur, like Merleau-Ponty, also stands, the thinker to whom he constantly returns. Husserl is Ricoeur’s philosopher of reflection, par excellence. Indeed, Ricoeur always invokes Husserl when he is discussing a paradigmatic instance of contemporary philosophy of ‘reflection’ and also of descriptive, (...) ‘eidetic’ phenomenology. Indeed, I shall argue in this chapter that Husserl’s influence on Ricoeur was decisive and provided an eidetic, descriptive methodology which is permanently in play, even when it has to be concretized and mediated by hermeneutics, as Ricoeur proposes after 1960. (shrink)

In this article, I would like to highlight Ricoeur’s manner of rethinking the humanities, by focusing on a particular case, namely his hermeneutical reading of the question of trace. Taking into consideration two different contexts: historiography and the cognitive sciences, I will show that the very notion of trace is the limit-notion that induces a hermeneutical crisis at the core of the historiography as well as at the centre of the cognitive science.

In his essay “Peter’s Denial,” René Girard draws a parallel between mimesis and Martin Heidegger’s concept of being-with. In this essay I explore this parallel through a third, intermediate term—addiction—on the assumption that living in a world governed by mimesis, according to Girard, and living in the modus of Mitsein, according to Heidegger, can both be characterized as a kind of addiction. The clarification of the parallel between mimesis and Mitsein through this intermediate term may contribute to a better understanding (...) of a central concept of Heidegger’s philosophy and, at the same time, bring into view the philosophical dimension of Girard’s mimetic theory. In my conclusion I propose Levinas’s ethical approach as a possible cure to the addiction to mimesis and being-with. (shrink)