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 paper undertakes to reconstruct the idea of Europe in the writings of Jan Patočka and Paul Ricœur alongside those of their common inspiration, Husserl. In doing so, it shows that one of the main originalities of this standpoint is to characterize Europe’s crisis as being a spiritual crisis, and its potential overcoming as being rooted in a specific attitude. With this ideal description in mind, the paper proceeds to descriptively assess the present day political situation in the European Union (...) and the several challenges it faces, from the deep divisions between debtors and creditors following the 2008–2009 sovereign debt crisis, to the possibility of unraveling initiated by the Brexit process and the so-called populist threat lingering in different countries. Finally, it contends, following some insights by Patočka, Ricœur and Richard Kearney, that in order to avoid the decay or even death of the E.U. a rekindling of Europe’s ideal is needed, one that is not based in a de facto dominance of some countries over others, or even in a totally homogenous and all-imposing narrative, but rather on mutual understanding through the sharing of stories that can perhaps refocus Europe’s different peoples towards the reconstruction of common goals. (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)