paul ricoeur s hermeneutics of the self and pastoral

Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of the Self andPastoral Theological Anthropology1)

Jeong, Youn Deuk[Seoul Women’s University, Professor of Christian Counseling]

I. Introduction

Paul Ricoeur (1913－2005), a French philosopher who

moved to the Chicago University Divinity School upon his

retiring from the University of Paris－Nanterre, left a wide range

of writings. After his moving to the U.S., narrative and selfhood

have been the main themes of his writings. This essay pursues

an understanding of Ricoeur’s concept of the self and its

implications for pastoral theological anthropology. As Dan R.

Stiver says, it can be said that the self or anthropology is the

focus of Ricoeur’s entire philosophy.2) As a philosopher whose

main concern is the phenomenological hermeneutics, Ricoeur’s

whole project of hermeneutics is directed toward the

hermeneutics of the self. I believe that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics

of the self has rich implications for pastoral theologians who are

238

1) This work was supported by a research grant from Seoul Women’sUniversity(2010).

2) Dan R. Stiver, Theology after Ricoeur: New Directions in HermeneuticalTheology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 250.

confronted with the challenges of the postmodern era in which

the self is losing its un－shaking foundation.

In order for this goal, the main portion of this paper will be

devoted to depicting a contour of Riceour’s hermeneutics of the

self. After appreciating Ricoeur’s theory in a great detail, I will

pursue some implications of Ricoeur’s theory for pastoral

theological anthropology today. My pursuit of Ricoeur’s

hermeneutics of the self will be divided into three parts. First, I

will present Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation of the text. As he

says in his book From Text to Action, for Ricoeur the text and

the self are not separable. He says that to understand is to

understand oneself in front of the text. Thus, for him,

interpretation is not a question of imposing upon the text our

finite capacity for understanding, but of exposing ourselves to

the text and receiving from it an enlarged self.3) In this sense, the

self is constituted by the matter of the text. Second, Ricoeur’s

understanding of narrative identity will be dealt with based on

his theory of text interpretation. Then, I will present Ricoeur’s

hermeneutics of the self. My aim is to suggest the self as the

focal theme of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory. For Ricoeur, it is

the self that will be changed and enlarged through the process

of text interpretation. This is the meaning of my use of the term

“the hermeneutics of the self.” Given the understanding of the

hermeneutics of the self, in conclusion, I will conceive some

implications for pastoral theological anthropology today.

Jeong, Youn Deuk•Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of the Self and Pastoral Theological Anthropology●239

3) Paul Ricoeur, From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II, tr.Kathleen Blamey & John B. Thompson (Evanston, Illinois: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1991), 88.

II. The paradigm of Text Interpretation:

Hermeneutical Arc4)

1. Language as Discourse

In Interpretation Theory, Ricoeur begins to develop his

theory of text interpretation by articulating his understanding of

language as discourse. It is because he believes that discourse

has much to do with our work of interpretation. Ricoeur

presents four traits of discourse:

(1) Discourse is always realized temporally and in the

present: “instance of discourse.” (2) Discourse refers

back to its speaker by means of a complex set of

indicators such as the personal pronouns: “instance of

discourse is self－referential.” (3) Discourse refers to a

world. It is in discourse that the symbolic function of

language is actualized. (4) In discourse all messages

are exchanged. Language is only the condition for

communication.5)

In spoken language, these traits of discourse remain as

temporal and immediate ones. However, in written language

these traits of discourse are fixed and disclose the non－

240●목회와 상담•제18호

4) In dealing with Ricoeur’s paradigm of text interpretation, I excerptedand modified a portion of my dissertation. See Youn Deuk Jeong, “TheIdiomatic Self: A Pastoral Theological Response to the Crisis of the Self-in-Community in the Korean Context,” (Ph.D. diss., PrincetonTheological Seminary, 2006), 56-61.

5) Ricoeur, From Text to Action, 145-146.

ostensive world.

Ricoeur defines discourse as the counterpart of what

linguists call language systems or linguistic codes. Discourse is

language－event or linguistic usage.6) In this sense, discourse

refers to what language system expresses. Ricoeur says that only

discourse is fixed and left in our life of language.7) In other

words, the event of speaking immediately disappears, but the

meaning of the event is fixed and left behind. Discourse is

important for Ricoeur because it has double references both to

the original speaker and to the world/the non－ostensive

world.8) This understanding makes him go beyond his

precedents by dealing with non－ostensive world to which text

as written discourse refers. The old－fashioned goal of

interpretation, “to understand an author better than he or she

understood himself or herself” is no longer Ricoeur’s concern

because the text as written discourse does not belong to the

world of the author any more. The text becomes an entity of

universal discourse which is open to all readers who can read

the text. Ricoeur thinks that the basic meaning of the word

“hermeneutics” concerns the rules required for the interpretation

of the written documents of our culture.9)

Ricoeur suggests four main features of the status of the text:

“(1) the fixation of the meaning, (2) its dissociation from the

mental intention of the author, (3) the display of nonostensive


6) Ibid., 145.7) Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of

Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 26.8) Ibid., 22.9) Ricoeur, From Text to Action, 144.

references, and (4) the universal range of its addressees.”10)

Ricoeur proposes that these four traits constitute the

“objectivity” of the text. For Ricoeur, a meaningful text refers to

the text’s ability to disclose the non－ostensive world, in

Heidegger’s language “being－in－the－world.”

In dealing with the process of interpretation, Ricoeur uses

two stages of dialectic relations: “from comprehension to

explanation” and “from explanation to comprehension.”

According to Ricoeur, the exchange and reciprocity between

these two procedures will provide us with a good

approximation of the dialectical character of the relation.11)

2. From comprehension to explanation / dialectic

between guess and validation

For Ricoeur, interpretation begins with a “guess.” He says

that to understand is not only to repeat the speech event in a

similar event, but it is to generate a new event beginning from

the text in which the initial event has been objectified.12) We

have to guess the meaning of the text because the text does not

disclose the author’s original intention any more. In other

words, the concern of interpretation is not the utterer’s

meaning, but the utterance meaning. Thus, the problem of

correct understanding can no longer be solved by returning to

the situation of the author.

Ricoeur presents three dimensions of guessing:


10) Ibid., 157.11) Ibid.12) Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 75.

First, to construe the verbal meaning of a text is to

construe it as a whole. It is a cumulative, holistic process.

Second, to construe a text is to construe it as an

individual. The localization and individualization of the

unique text is also a guess. So, the relation between

whole and parts requires a specific kind of judgment

which is also a guess. Third the literary texts involve

potential horizons of meaning, which may be actualized

in different ways.13)

Ricoeur thinks that this plurivocity is typical of the text

considered as a whole, open to several readings and to several

constructions.14) In another place, Ricoeur uses the word “a

primitive naivet?” instead of to “guess.”15)

Now Ricoeur makes a move from guess to validation:

“Validation is argumentative discipline comparable to the

juridical procedures of legal interpretation. It is a logic of

uncertainty and of qualitative probability.”16) Ricoeur believes

that these understandings provide the balance between the

genius of guessing and the scientific character of validation

which constitutes the modern complement of the dialectic

between Verstehen and Erklären.17) Ricoeur provides a clear


13) Ibid., 76-78.14) Ricoeur, From Text to Action, 159.15) In The Symbolism of Evil, Ricoeur makes use of “a primitive naivet?”

and “a second naivet?.” In this paper, I will use “primitive/first naivet?”and “second naivet?” as equivalent to “guess” and “appropriation.” SeePaul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, tr. Emerson Buchanan (Boston:Beacon Press, 1967), 351.

16) Ricoeur, From Text to Action, 159.17) Ibid.

description of this dialectic between guess and validation:

If it is true that there is always more than one way of

construing a text, it is not true that all interpretations are

equal. The text presents a limited field of possible

constructions. The logic of validation allows us to move

between the two limits of dogmatism and skepticism. It

is always possible to argue for or against an

interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate

between them and to seek agreement, even if this

agreement remains beyond our immediate reach.18)

3. From explanation to comprehension

In face of the disclosure of the non－ostensive world,

readers can have two opposite attitudes toward texts: first, they

may remain in a kind of state of suspense as regards any kind

of referred to reality; second, they may imaginatively actualize

the potential non－ostensive references of the text in a new

situation, that of the reader. In the first case, the reader treats

the text as worldless entity. By contrast, in the second, the

reader creates a new ostensive reference owing to the kind of

“execution” that the act of reading implies. Ricoeur regards

these possibilities as equally entailed by the act of reading.19)

Based on this understanding, Ricoeur denotes a couple of

ways of reading. First, he presents examples of the different

structural schools of literary criticism. He notes, “To read in this


18) Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 79.19) Ibid., 81.

way means to prolong this suspension of the ostensive

reference to the world and to transfer oneself into the “place”where the text stands, within the “enclosure”of this worldless

place.”20) In this way of reading, the main concern is not the

outside world, but the inner system of the text, an analogue of

la langue. Thus one’s explanatory tools are not from other

sphere of science, but from language itself, the semiological

field.21) In the light of structural analysis, the text is understood

as sequences of signs longer than the sentence, which is the last

kind of unit that linguistics takes into account. By means of

structural analysis, we can bring out the logic of the text, and

“the bundles of relations” among the text. Thus, to figure out

structural laws is the goal of reading. In this way, we do not

interpret the text but just explain it.22) By means of structural

analysis, the meaning of the text is suspended, and the text is

laid out for explanation.

Now, Ricoeur aims to show how pure explanation requires

understanding, a moment, or inner dialectic that constitutes

“interpretation” as a whole. Ricoeur says that even in the most

formalized presentation of myths by Levi－Strauss, the units that

he calls “mythemes” are still expressed as sentences that bear

meaning and reference.23) In other words, there is no purely

neutral structural analysis of literature or texts. Ricoeur says,

“Structural analysis does not exclude but presupposes the

opposite hypothesis concerning myth, that is, that it has a


20) Ricoeur From Text to Action, 162.21) Ibid., 163.22) Ibid.23) Ibid., 164.

meaning as a narrative of origins. Structural analysis, far from

getting rid of this radical questioning, restores it at a level of

higher radicality.”24) Thus, according to Ricoeur, structural

analysis has a function to lead from a surface semantics, that of

narrated myth, to a depth semantics, that of boundary situations

that constitute the ultimate “reference” of the myth.25) If this is

true, we can understand structural analysis as a stage between a

na?ve interpretation and a critical interpretation, between a

surface interpretation and a depth interpretation, between the

first naiveté and the second naiveté. At this point, we can place

these two stages of explanation and understanding in a unique

hermeneutical arc. Ricoeur believes that this is the genuine

object of understanding that requires a specific affinity between

the reader and the kind of things the text is about. He continues

to depict this stage of interpretation:

Taking the notion of depth semantics as our guideline, we

can now return to our initial problem of the reference of

the text. We can now give a name to this non－ostensive

reference. It is a kind of world opened up by the depth

semantics of the text, a discovery, which has immense

consequences regarding what is usually called the sense of

the text. … The sense of a text is not behind the text, but

in front of it. It is not something hidden, but something

disclosed. What has to be understood is not the initial

situation of discourse, but what points towards a possible

world, thanks to the non－ostensive reference of the text.


24) Ibid.25) Ibid.

To understand a text is to follow its movement from sense

to reference: from what it says, to what it talks about.26)

Ricoeur explains this process as the mediating function of

depth semantics which yields “appropriation” from structural

analysis. Thanks to this function, appropriation loses its

psychological and subjective character. Receiving a genuine

epistemological function depends on it.27) He points out that

appropriation is achieved when reading yields something like

an event, an event of discourse, which is an event in the

present moment. Thus what has to be appropriated is the

power of disclosing a world that constitutes the reference of the

text.28) Appropriation is not person to person appeal. Rather, it

is akin to “a fusion of horizons” as in the hermeneutical theory

of Hans－Georg Gadamer. However, for Ricoeur, we should not

understand the fusion of horizons as that of the writer and the

reader. Since the horizon of a text goes beyond that of the

writer, we have to say that the reader is enlarged in his or her

capacity of self－projection by receiving a new mode of being

from the text itself.29)

Finally, Ricoeur links the dialectic between explanation and

understanding with the personal commitment of the reader who

grasps the depth semantics of the text and makes it his or her

own.30) Thus, I think, for Ricoeur, interpretation is the process


26) Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 87-88.27) Ricoeur, From Text to Action, 166.28) Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 92.29) Ibid., 94.30) Ricoeur, From Text to Action, 167.

of self－commitment toward a new mode of being, which the

disclosing power of the text is bringing to us. Ricoeur notes, “In

this self－understanding, I would oppose the self, which

proceeds from the understanding of the text, to the ego, which

claims to precede it. It is the text, with its universal power of

world disclosure, which gives a self to the ego.”31) Thus, the

text and the self are closely related to each other in Ricoeur’s

theory. Let me further elaborate this issue by dealing with

narrative identity.

II. Narrative Identity

Inquiring into “narrative” is very important because Ricoeur

regards it as the mediator which leads us to the hermeneutical

understanding of life, self, or identity. In approaching

“narrative,” Ricoeur does not deviate from his own structure of

interpretation. However, his hermeneutical arc becomes a more

practical one when he considers the various dimensions

implicated in the world of narrative, such as pre－figuration,

con－figuration, and re－figuration. In dealing with Ricoeur’s

theory of narrative, we have to notice the close relationship

between time and narrative. As he always does, he understands

time and narrative as dialectic relations. Also, he continuously

relates his understanding of narrative to the concept of identity,

self, ego, or life. When we look at Ricoeur’s recent writings, we

can notify the stream of his main concerns. In the three


31) Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 94-95.

volumes of Time and Narrative which are in the same vein with

The Rule of Metaphor, Ricoeur scrutinizes the phenomenon of

semantic innovation which is produced entirely on the level of

discourse, that is, the level of acts of language equal to or

greater than the sentence. In the subsequent book Oneself as

Another, Ricoeur enlarges his concern with narrative into the

search of “personal identity” which makes practical and ethical

concerns possible.

1. Hermeneutics of time and narrative

Ricoeur understands narrative in relation to time. According

to Ricoeur, the world disclosed by every narrative is always a

temporal world. Thus, narrative becomes meaningful to the

extent that it portrays the features of temporal experience. In

the same way, time becomes human time to the extent that it is

organized after the manner of a narrative.32) In articulating his

notion of time, Ricoeur draws on St. Augustine’s concept of

time depicted in Confessions. Augustine defines time as a

distention of the soul. It expresses the unstable nature of the

human present in the face of the stability of the divine present

which includes past, present, and future in the unity of gaze

and a creative action.33) Through reading Augustine, Ricoeur

intends to point out the human temporality, in other words,


32) Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 1, tr. Kathleen McLaughlin andDavid Pellauer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 3.

33) Paul Ricoeur, “Life in Quest of Narrative,” in On Paul Ricoeur:Narrative and Interpretation, ed. David Wood (New York: Routledge,1991), 31.

discordance of human experience or the misery of the human

condition.

On the other hand, Ricoeur draws on Aristotle’s Poetics in

order to present the opposite pole of dialectic, “narrative.”

Ricoeur says that he chose this book for two reasons: first, he

found in Aristotle’s concept of emplotment (muthos) the

counterpart of Augustine’s distentio animi (distension of soul),

second, the concept of mimetic activity (mimµene-sis) provided

him the way of creative imitation, by means of the plot of lived

temporal experience. In fact, according to Ricoeur, Poetics does

not provide any account of the temporal dimension of poetic

creativity. However, Ricoeur believes that Aristotle’s total silence

on the temporality, by relating him to Augustine, can provide a

possibility to set up between time and narrative the most

favorable distance, which can be used for “an investigation into

the mediating operations between lived experience and

discourse,”34) in other words, life and narrative. Ricoeur thinks

that “life and narrative” constitute opposite poles: “life” is

experienced and not recounted; and “narratives” are recounted

and not experienced.

2. Emplotment

Ricoeur defines the operations of emplotment as a synthesis

of heterogeneous elements.35) He presents three feature of the

mediation performed by the plot: “between the multiple


34) Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 1, 31.35) Ricoeur, “Life in Quest of Narrative,”21.

incidents and unified story; the primacy of concordance over

discordance; and finally, the competition between succession

and configuration.”36) In this respect, emplotment provides one

of basic structures for the shaping of a narrative. Thanks to the

plot, one constructs a story, and through the plot, one can read

and interpret a story. Finally, Ricoeur integrates these two

distinct dimensions of the temporality of human experience and

emplotment into the term “mimesis” which can be translated as

imitation.

3. Threefold mimesis

Ricoeur presents threefold mimesis: mimesis1 (pre－figuration), mimesis2 (con－figuration), and mimesis3 (re－figuration). This threefold mimesis does not refer to an order of

interpretation, but represents functional distinctions.

Mimesis1 (Pre－figuration, Pre－understanding)

Ricoeur thinks that no matter what the innovative force of

poetic composition within the field of temporal experience may

be, the composition of the plot is founded on a preunderstanding

of the world of action, its meaningful structures, its symbolic

resources, and its temporal character.37) Thus, to imitate or

represent action begins with a preunderstanding what human

action is, in terms of structures, symbols, and temporality. Based

on pre－ figuration, both for poets and their readers,

emplotment can be constructed.


36) Ibid., 22.37) Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 1, 54.

Mimesis2 (Con－figuration)

Mimesis2 represented by configuration refers to an author’s

imaginative construction of a text, so called emplotment, and at

the same time to the reader’s construal of the narrative world of

the text. Ricoeur says that with mimesis2 opens the kingdom of

the “as if,” or the kingdom of fiction.38) Besides emplotment,

Ricoeur also accentuates mimesis2’s mediating faculty between

what precedes fiction and what follows it. Ricoeur says that

mimesis2 utilizes its intelligibility as a mediating power, which can

conduct us from the one side of the text to the other, transfiguring

the one side into the other through its faculty of configuration.39)

Ricoeur understands this process as hermeneutics:

It is the task of hermeneutics to reconstruct the set of

operations by which a work lifts itself above the opaque

depths of living, acting, and suffering, to be given by an

author to readers who receive it and thereby change

their acting… . Hermeneutics is concerned with

reconstructing the entire arc of operations by which

practical experience provides itself with works, authors,

and readers. It does not confine itself to setting mimesis2

between mimesis1 and mimesis3. It wants to characterize

mimesis2 by its mediating function. What is at stake,

therefore, is the concrete process by which the textual

configuration mediates between the prefiguration of the

practical field and its refiguration through the reception

of the work.40)


38) Ibid., 64.39) Ibid., 53.40) Ibid.

Mimesis3 (Re－figuration)

A narrative achieves its full meaning when it is restored to

the time of action and of suffering in mimesis3. Ricoeur says

that this stage can be linked with what Gadamer calls

“application.”41) In Ricoeur’s term, it may correspond to

“appropriation.” I would say that re－figuration represents the

creative or proactive dimension of the fusion of horizons. The

reader should realize the world disclosed by a text or narrative

within her or his temporality or limitation of experience. Thus,

this process requires the reader’s creative or proactive

participation in action and suffering within temporality. Ricoeur

summarizes mimesis3 as “the intersection of the world of the

text and the world of the hearer or reader; the intersection,

therefore, of the world configured by the poem and the world

wherein real action occurs and unfolds its specific

temporality.”42)

4. Narrative identity

Ricoeur integrates his arguments on time and narrative into

“narrative identity.” Ricoeur focuses on the narrative’s capacity

to transfigure the experience of the reader through the

intersection of the world of the text and the reader. In this

sense, we can say that the composition is not completed in the

text, but in the reading of thetext or in the life of the reader. In

this way, narrative and life have close relations. Ricoeur


41) Ibid., 70.42) Ibid., 71.

explains the fusion of the universal narrative and the temporal

reader:

To appropriate a work through reading is to unfold the

world horizon implicit in it which includes the actions,

the characters and the events of the story told. As a

result, the reader belongs at once to the work’s horizon

of experience in imagination and to that of his or her

own real action. The horizon of expectation and the

horizon of experience continually confront one another

and fuse together.43)

In this sense, the hermeneutics of narrative can be located at

the point of intersection of the internal configuration of the work

and the external refiguration of life. For Ricoeur,the narrative

identity of an individual or a people stems from the endless

rectification of a previous narrative by a subsequent one, and

from the chain of refigurations. In this respect, Ricoeur

understands narrative identity as the poetic resolution of the

hermeneutic circle.44) Thus, for Ricoeur, narrative identity is not

a stable identity. Just as we can freely compose plots in

narrating, it is always possible to weave different, even opposed,

plots about our lives.45) Ricoeur gives us a fuller account of this

dynamism of narrative identity:

Our life, when then embraced in a single glance, appears


43) Ricoeur, “Life in Quest of Narrative,”26.44) Paul Ricoeur, Time and narrative, vol. 3, tr. Kathleen McLaughlin and

David Pellauer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 248.45) Ibid.

to us as the field of a constructive activity, borrowed

from narrative understanding, by which we attempt to

discover and not simply to impose from outside the

narrative identity which constitutes us. I am stressing the

expression the ‘narrative identity’ for what we call

subjectivity is neither an incoherent series of events nor

an immutable substantiality, impervious to evolution.

This is precisely the sort of identity which narrative

composition alone can create through its dynamism.46)

According to Ricoeur, we attempt to obtain a narrative

understanding of ourselves through the imaginative variation of

our own ego. This negates any kind of apparent choice

between sheer change and absolute identity. He understands

this process as the play between innovation and sedimentation;

between narrative constraints and the possibilities of deviation;

and between the novel and the anti－novel. Ricoeur believes

that between the two lies narrative identity.47)

In the light of this understanding, narrative identity can

mean hermeneutical identity which goes beyond the limitation

of subjectivity and objectivity. Dan R. Stiver succinctly depicts

this dimension of the hermeneutical self:

We are more like a rich poetic text, full of allusions and

depth. It is not just that others must interpret us, but we

must interpret ourselves. We are as much riddles to

ourselves as to others. The interactive nature of the self,


46) Ricoeur, “Life in Quest of Narrative,”32.47) Ibid., 33.

with all its subterranean passages, means that the

hermeneutical task will never be finished. And we have

yet to speak of how our selfhood is intricately involved

with other people.48)

Narrative identity does not designate the author of writing,

but the narrator who is completing the composition of the plots

by refiguring the life of narrative within the temporality of one’s

experience. In this sense, narrative identity can be construed as

the hermeneutics of the self, which will be more dealt with in

the next section.

III. The Hermeneutics of the Self

In his book Oneself as Another, Ricoeur presents us with a

clearly organized description of the hermeneutics of the self. By

the title Oneself as Another, Ricoeur adds two more dialectics

into the dialectic of time and narrative, so－called the dialectic of

ipse－identity (selfhood) and idem－identity (sameness) and of

the self and the other. He regards sameness as synonymous with

idem－identity and selfhood as ipse－identity.49) In the dialectic

of self and the other, otherness refers not merely to the result of

comparison, but to that of a kind that can be constitutive of

selfhood as such.50) Therefore, the title Oneself as Another


48) Stiver, Theology after Ricoeur, 164-165.49) Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as another, tr. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press, 1992), 3.50) Ibid.

suggests that the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such

an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the

other.51) For Ricoeur, the dialectic of idem－identity (sameness)

and ipse－identity (selfhood) and that of the self and its other

constitute the hermeneutics of the self.52) Based on this

dialectical understanding of the self, Ricoeur says that the self

will be revealed as the answer in the course of the questions:

Who is speaking (language)? Who is acting (behavior)? Who is

recounting about himself or herself (personal identity)? Who is

the moral subject of imputation (ethical relationship with

others)?53)

Here one may raise a question that to what extent we can

claim the certainty of the self if the self can be understood in

the dialectic relationship between selfhood and otherness. In

other words, how oneself as another can be truly the self.

Ricoeur presents “attestation” as the type of certainty

appropriate to the hermeneutics of the self. He says that

attestation defines the sort of certainty that hermeneutics may

claim, not only with respect to the epistemic exaltation of the

cogito in Descartes, but also with respect to its humiliation in

Nietzsche and his successors.54) He thinks that attestation is a

kind of belief different from a doxic belief. Grammatically

speaking doxic belief refers to “I believe－that,” whereas

attestation belongs to “I believe－in.” In this respect, attestation

is vulnerable credence aware of its own lack of foundation.


51) Ibid.52) Ibid., 4.53) Ibid., 16.54) Ibid., 21.

However, it still provides a kind of foundation in the face of the

permanent threat of suspicion. Thus, in the face of the

humiliated cogito, attestation provides a certain kind of reliable

trust. In this sense, attestation is fundamentally attestation of the

self, recognized “in the power to say, in the power to do, in the

power to recognize oneself as a character in narrative, in the

power to respond to accusation in the form of the accusative.”55)

Thus, for Ricoeur, attestation can be defined as the assurance of

being oneself acting and suffering. Even if it is always in some

sense received from another, it still remains self－attestation,

while being remaining the ultimate resource against all

suspicion. In this sense, with the credence of attestation, the

hermeneutics of the self can claim to hold itself at an equal

distance from the cogito and the anti－cogito.56) Therefore, as

Dan R. Stiver rightly says, Ricoeur’s hermeneutical self is neither

the inflated self of the Enlightenment nor the dissolved self of

poststructuralism. Rather it is fragile enough to be haunted by

sin and substantial enough to be redeemed by grace.57) In this

sense, I believe, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self can bridge

between modernity and postmodernity.

IV. Concluding Remarks: Some implications

for Pastoral Theological Anthropology

In the course of reviewing Ricoeur’s understanding of


55) Ibid., 22.56) Ibid., 457) Stiver, Theology after Ricoeur, 175.

hermeneutical arc, narrative identity, and the hermeneutics of

the self, we have reached the fact that the self is being shaped

and reshaped through its relationship with the text, narrative,

and others. This understanding can be epitomized as the

hermeneutics of the self. Like many theologians, I consider

Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self to have rich implications for

pastoral theological anthropology today.

First, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self can contribute to

the sound understanding of the relationships between the self

and the community. Ricoeur’s concept of the self as dialectic

between the self and the other can be understood as human

relatedness. For Ricoeur, there is no conception of selfhood

possible without facing others. In the same vein, there is no

conception of otherness possible without the perception of the

self. Ricoeur’s concept of “oneself as another” does not refer to

the mergence of the self and the other. Rather, it refers to

inter－subjectivity in dialectic between uniqueness and

sameness. Theologically speaking, each human being is created

as a unique person. However, the elaboration of the uniqueness

is only possible through the relationship with others. As

psychoanalytic object relations theorists have demonstrated to

us, without the good enough mother (environment), the baby

cannot elaborate his or her true self that is the goal of God’s

creation. Therefore, the life of the human being lies in the

dialectic of the unique creation and relationships with other.

Likewise, Ricoeur’s view of human relatedness understood as

inter－subjectivity denotes the unavoidable fact that each

individual is interrelated without merging together. In spite of its

relatedness to others, the self express its uniqueness through


attestation. I think this understanding sheds light on the

relationship between the self and the community. The

community is very important for the shaping of the self.

However, the self should not be merged into the community.

Each individual should attest to his or her uniqueness. At the

same time, the community should not be divided because it is

the foundation of the self. They are interdependent each other.

Second, Ricoeur’s understanding of the narrative identity

can be a meaningful tool for understanding the shaping of

Christian self through encountering Christian stories. In terms of

Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, Christians live out the Christian story in

present time and space. The dialectic of time and narrative

nicely depicts the process of the shaping of the Christian self in

the dialectic between Christian stories and contemporary life

stories. Ricoeur denotes that the Christian story is meaningless

unless it is lived out by the person living in the contemporary

world. In other words, the universal truth is meaningless unless

it is lived by in a particular time. In this sense, in order to

provide meanings to contemporary people, theology should not

remain in the tradition, but have close relationships with the

contemporary world. Ricoeur insists that narrative identity is the

poetic resolution of the hermeneutic circle. For Ricoeur,

narrative identity is not a stable identity. Just as we can freely

compose plots in narrating, it is always possible to weave

different, even opposed, plots about our lives.58) Thus, Christian

understanding of the self should not be fixed in one

methodological perspective. Rather, it should be understood as


58) Ricoeur, Time and narrative, vol. 3, 248.

a process of shaping through the poetic resolution of the

hermeneutic circle. In this sense, I want to say that the Christian

self is poetic enough to be inspired by contemporary stories

and faithful enough to be connected to Christian stories.

Third, Ricoeur’s understanding of the self has rich

implications for theological anthropology in the postmodern

context. In postmodern context, Christian theology is

confronted with the uncertainty of the universal truth claim that

has provided the foundation of theological anthropology. In the

changed context, the shaking of the foundation is imposed on

the Christian self. Many theologians used to be able to envision

rich potentials of human beings based on their belief in human

beings’ capacity to realize the truth. However, in the changed

situation, truth claim is prone to be exposed to significant

challenges. In this context, I believe that Ricoeur’s concept of

attestation is a nice tool for understanding the self in the face of

the challenges from the changed situation. This concept denotes

the difficulty of finding foundations for claiming the Christian

self. However, it also represents the importance of the belief in

truth. In this sense, attestation is a paradoxical word similar to

the concept of the eschatological self standing in between

“already” and “not yet.” I think attestation can be a way for the

eschatological self to express its self in era of the unstable

foundation. As the concept of attestation denotes, the Christian

self should be modest and humble to the change of the world

while attesting its temporal certainty.



｜Key Words｜

Paul Ricoeur, the Self, Hermeneutics, Narrative identity, pastoraltheological anthropology(폴 리꾀르, 자기, 해석학, 내러티브 아이덴티티, 목회신학적 인간학)

【 References 】

Ihde, Don. Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul

Ricoeur. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971.

Jeong, Youn Deuk. “The Idiomatic Self: A Pastoral Theological

Response to the Crisis of the Self－in－Community in the

Korean Context.” Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological

Seminary, 2006.

Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil. translated by Emerson

Buchanan. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.

. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. translated

by Denis Savage, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.

. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of

Meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press,

1976.

. Essays on Biblical Interpretation. edited by Lewis S. Mudge.

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980.

. Time and Narrative vol. 1. translated by Kathleen

McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press, 1984.

. Time and Narrative vol. 3. translated by Kathleen

McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press, 1988.

. “Life in Quest of Narrative.” In On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative

and Interpretation. edited by David Wood. New York:

Routledge, 1991.

. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II. translated by

Kathleen Blamey & John B. Thompson. Evanston, Illinois:

Northwestern University Press, 1991.


. Oneself as Another. translated by Kathleen Blamey. Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

. Memory, History, Forgetting. translated by Katheeen Blamey

& David Pellauer. Chicago: The University of Chicago

Press, 2004.

. The Course of Recognition. translated by David Pellauer.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Simms, Karl. Paul Ricoeur. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Stiver, Dan R. Theology after Ricoeur: New Directions in

Hermeneutical Theology. Louisville: Westminster John

Knox Press, 2001.

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Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of the Self and Pastoral Theological Anthropology

Jeong, Youn DeukProfessor

Seoul Women’s University

Seoul, Korea

This paper pursues an understanding of Paul Ricoeur’s concept of the

self and its implications for pastoral theological anthropology. As a

philosopher whose main concern is the phenomenological hermeneutics,

Ricoeur took a profound interest in narrative and selfhood. The main

portion of this paper is devoted to depicting a contour of Ricoeur’s

hermeneutics of the self. In order for this goal, first, I present Ricoeur’s

theory of text interpretation. For Ricoeur, interpretation is not an inquiry

of the text through imposing our finite capacity for understanding upon

the text, but exposing ourselves to the text and receiving from it an

enlarged self. Second, I deal with Ricoeur’s understanding of the

narrative identity. Inquiring into narrative is pivotal for Riceour, since he

thinks that narrative is the mediator which leads us to the hermeneutical

understanding of life, self, or identity. In this section, I point out

Ricoeur’s appropriation of time, plot, mimesis, and identity. Third, I

present Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self. In this part, I aim to suggest

the self as the focal theme of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory. Ricoeur

denotes that it is the self that will be changed and enlarged through the

process of text interpretation. Based on my understanding of Ricouer’s

concept of the self, in conclusion, I conceive some implications for

pastoral theological anthropology confronted with the challenges of

postmodernity in which the self has been forced to give up its solid and

permanent foundation.


paul ricoeur s hermeneutics of the self and pastoral

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