Ricoeur o Razumijevanju- Radnja

7/29/2019 Ricoeur o Razumijevanju- Radnja

1/94

Explanation andUnderstanding:

The Hermeneutic ArcPaul Ricurs Theory of Interpretation

Geir Amdal

Cand. Philol. Thesis

May 2001

UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Department of Philosophy


2/94


3/94

Acknowledgements

This thesis is submitted to the Department of Philosophy at the Universityof Oslo in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Cantidatusphilologiae (cand. philol.).

I would first and foremost like to thank professor Bjrn Ramberg, mysupervisor, who through his friendly guidance and support, expert knowledgeand willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty to help me improvemy thesis, has been a major contributing factor to its completion.

Thanks are also due to Annette Nordheim, for her encouragement, proof-reading and support. I have chosen to write this thesis in English, primarily asa challenge to myself, and much of the credit for that having been a successful

decision is due to Annette.I would also like to thank the Student Association at the Department of

Informatics for being allowed to use their office to write the thesis at all hours,and to my family and friends for putting up with me through rough days andstress-ridden nights.

Finally, I wish to express my indebtedness and gratitude to my parents,Astrid and Guttorm, for having always supported me and for encouragingme to choose for myself which path to follow. They have thus given me thepossibility to get where I am today through providing me with a foundationupon which it was possible to build my academic work.

Geir AmdalMay, 2001


4/94


5/94

Contents

Acknowledgements iii

Contents v

1 Introduction 1

The Hermeneutic Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Openness of Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Expanding the Hermeneutic Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

A Philosophy of Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3The Methodology of Reciprocal Reinforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Interpreting Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Strategic Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 The Model of the Text 7Language-system and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Semiology and Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11DistanciationWhen Discourse Becomes Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Semantic Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Loss of Reference Through Emancipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Method of Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Structuralist Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Phenomenological Understanding Appropriation . . . . . . . 23From Circle To Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Epi-reading and Graphi-reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24A Room For Objectivity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3 The Tensional Conception of Metaphor 27

Ricurs Theories of Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Metaphor and Semantic Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Metaphor and Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Polysemy and Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Detouring through Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

The Traditional Conception of Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Productive Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Making Sense: Linguistic Impertinence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Metaphor and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40


6/94

vi Contents

Metaphor and Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Split Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42The Ontology of Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

4 The Validity of Interpretations 47The Hermeneutic Dialectic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Against the Intentional Fallacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Interpretative Construal as Guessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Validation of Guesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Making SenseThe Function of Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Monotative and Multitative Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Construal as Constriction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57From Sense to Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

The Role of Literary Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5 Reference and Meaning 63

Reversing the Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Metaphoric Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Split Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66The World of the Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Appropriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69The Disciplines of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Redefining Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Configuration and Refiguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73The Twofold Function of the Sign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

6 Conclusion 77Restructuring the Hermeneutic Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Ramifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79The Challenge of Ricurs Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

A Formal Thesis Curriculum 83

Texts by Ricur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Secondary Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Bibliography 88


7/94

Chapter1

Introduction

The Hermeneutic Arc

Ricurs theory of interpretation seeks a dialectical integration of Diltheys

dichotomy of erklren and verstehen, while at the same time clearing groundfor an objective methodology of interpretation without displacing the texts

authenticitya consolidation of sorts, of the Gadamerian split between dis-

tanciation and belonging. He envisions a model of the text freed with respects

to its author, yet still able to reach beyond pure textuality and retain its relation

to a world.

Ricur sets off by distinguishing the fundamentally different interpretive

paradigms for text and spoken discourse. The former differs from the latter in

being, through the act of inscription, detached from the original circumstances

which produced it. The intentions of the author are distant, the addressee is

general rather than specific and ostensive references are rendered void.

Openness of Interpretation

A key idea in Ricurs view is that once the discourse has become an artefact,

and is released from the subjective intentions of the author, multiple acceptable


8/94

2 Introduction

interpretations become possible. Thus meaning is no longer construed just

according to the author or agents world-view, but according to its significance

in the readers world-view. The text is transformed from a mere meaning-

carrying vessel to an autonomous party actively contributing to the result of

the interpretative effort.

Expanding the Hermeneutic Circle

Ricurs hermeneutic arc combines two distinct hermeneutics: one that

moves from existential understanding to explanation and another that moves

from explanation to existential understanding. In the first hermeneutic, sub-

jective guessing is objectively validated. Here, understanding corresponds to a

process of hypothesis formation, based on analogy, metaphor and other mech-

anisms for divination. Hypothesis formation must not only propose senses for

terms and readings for texts, but also assign importance to parts and invoke

hierarchical classificatory procedures.

The wide range of hypothesis formation means that possible interpreta-tions may be reached along many paths. Following Hirsch (cf. Hirsch, 1967),

explanation becomes a process of validating informed guesses. Validation pro-

ceeds through rational argument and debate, based on a model of judicial

procedures in legal reasoning. It is therefore distinguished from verification,

which relies on logical proof. As Hirsch notes, this model may lead into a di-

lemma of self-confirmability when non-validatable hypotheses are proposed.

Ricur escapes this dilemma by incorporating Poppers (Popper, 1992) notion

of falsifiability into his methods for validation, which he applies to the internal

coherence of an interpretation and the relative plausibility of competing inter-

pretations.

In the second hermeneutic, which moves from explanation to understand-

ing, Ricur distinguishes two stances regarding the referential function of the

text: a subjective approach and a structuralist alternative. The subjective ap-

proach incrementally constructs the world that lies behind the text but must

rely on the world-view of the interpreter for its pre-understanding. Although


9/94

A Philosophy of Integration 3

the constructed world-view may gradually approximate the authors as more

text is interpreted, the interpreters subjectivity cannot be fully overcome. In

contrast, Ricur sees the structuralist approach as suspending reference to the

world behind the text and focusing on a behavioral inventory of the intercon-

nections of parts within the text.

The structural interpretation brings out both a surface and a depth inter-

pretation. The depth semantics is not determined by what what the author

intended to communicate, but by what the text is aboutthe non-ostensive

reference of the text. Understanding requires an affinity between the reader

and this aboutness of the text, that is, the kind of world opened up by the depth

semantics of the text. Instead of imposing any fixed interpretation, the depth

semantics channels thought in a certain direction. By suspending meaning

and focusing on the formal algebra of the genres reflected in the text at vari-

ous levels, the structural method gives rise to objectivity while capturing the

subjectivity of both the author and the reader.

Ricurs transmutation of the hermeneutic circle to a hermeneutic arc can

be seen as a bootstrapping1

process, grounded in a hermeneutic phenomen-

ology. The greatest contribution being the incorporation of an internal ref-

erential model of the text constructed by the interpreter through a structural

analysisa model exhibiting a sufficient set of objective or intersubjectively

comparable criteria and elements to ground a methodology of interpretation.

A Philosophy of Integration

The philosophy of Paul Ricur is known as one of reconciliation. As a thinker,

he is always open to new insights. When his ideas are challenged, he does

not attempt to defend them from the assault, so as to keep them intact. On the

contrary, he usually does his utmost to assimilate the objection in his continued

1Bootstrapping is a concept more commonly used in Computer Science, where it refers toa self-initiating process. In this context, however, what is intended is the process of initiatinghermeneutic movement between interpreter and text. For there to be grounds for an interplay

between a literary work and its readers, it must already be constituted as work. Yet thisconstitution is something the text cannot bring about on its own, but is itself necessarily aproduct of an act of interpretation. The hermeneutic movement must in other words bringitself into being, lifting itself by its own bootstraps.


10/94

4 Introduction

deliberations. This applies not only to contemporary philosophers, but indeed

also to the thinkers of the past, whose philosophies continue to represent

valuable corrections and contributions to the development of Ricurs own

philosophy.

Ricur has been called a philosophical arbitrator, as he tends to try to in-

corporate arguments from both sides in an ongoing philosophical debate. As

a result, he often ends up in a mediary position, like he did in the Gadamer-

Habermas debate. This mediating position has earned him the title of bridge-

builder between traditions, yet I shall attempt to demonstrate that such a label

can give the false impression that Ricur tries to close a gap across a method-

ological distance by presenting a common vocabulary or model. Rather, he

is an integrating philosopher, focusing on assimilating the competing models

to the degree they deserve it. In other words, the distance is not bridged, but

abolished, as the models are integrated and assimilated, often through a meth-

odological grafting of the one onto the other, or through the subordination of

the one under the other in a dynamic tension, where both models contribute

effectively to the other while operating on different levels.

His philosophy takes on a synthetic quality, not by being a collage of

other philosophies, but rather through unifying them as far as possible, and

contributing arguments which are non-exclusive.

At the bottom of this endeavour lies, naturally, Ricurs fundamentally

hermeneutical point of origin, his search for meaning. A fundamental belief in

the possibility of always locating meaning in the expressions of man leads him

to never reject an opponents arguments until after having considered them

thoroughly and having adopted and integrated into his own analysis those

that merited it.

The Methodology of Reciprocal Reinforcement

As Hallvard H. Ystad points out in the afterword of Eksistens og hermeneutikk

(Ricur, 1999), topics treated with the thoroughness employed in Ricurs

works make great demands to stringency. And despite the terminological


11/94

Interpreting Interpretation 5

and conceptual precision and exactness necessary to maintain a logical con-

sequence and methodical rigour, Ystad remarks on the noticeable compactness

of his articles. A quality derived, he claims, from a tendency to seek reciprocal

aspects in the terms he employs in his different fields of study.

Whether or not Ricur actively seeks terms especially to obtain the effects

of methodological reinforcement through reciprocal concepts is not as vital as

the fact that his philosophy has a remarkable tendency of constantly grow-

ing or constructing itself through such structures. This reciprocal methodo-

logy has the somewhat problematic consequence that the different parts of his

philosophy collaborate in constructing his methodological and philosophical

foundation. It is thus no straightforward undertaking to analyze or systematic-

ally structure his individual argumentsthey are always a necessary element

in a greater whole, dependent on other arguments or models for completion

and argumentative strength.

In what follows, an effort has therefore been made to prioritize thorough-

ness of study rather than immediate structure where necessary, so as to make

the final resulting image more complete and accurate.

Interpreting Interpretation

The main goal of this document is to deliver a problem-oriented presentation

of the interpretation theory of Paul Ricur, performed as a contextual explor-

ation of the elements and aspects it involves. Furthermore, it is hoped that

enough light is shed on the constituent elements and models that the patterns

or structures I perceive as both methodologically vital to and reciprocally rein-

forcing in Ricurs conception of textual interpretation, are able to emerge as

reiterations of a single common theme in three different spheres: the semiotic

sphere of langue, the semantic sphere of discourse, and the hermeneutic sphere

of the literary work.

Using the thematic exposition as a backdrop, this will enable a structuring

overview, (hopefully) shedding some new light on the interconnected dynam-

ics of Ricurs hermeneutic theory.


12/94

6 Introduction

I also wish to determine whether Ricur is successful in making room for

an objective methodology or science of literary criticism; not by displacing the

Gadamerian notion of the hermeneutic circle, but by further developing the

model and integrating elements of structuralist methodology into phenomen-

ological hermeneutics.

Strategic Deliberations

The investigation starts where it must; with the object of interpretation. In

chapter 2, while examining Ricurs model of the text, I will necessarily

recourse to the structuralist concept of language, in order to develop a model

of discourse. In the exploration of the symptoms of textual inscription in the

transformation of discourse to text, Ricurs central model of distanciation is

presented and subjected to discussion.

On the basis of a model of the text, a brief overview of the dialectic of the

Hermeneutic Arc is attempted, before we are forced again to backtrack and

study the tensional conception of metaphor in chapter 3.

Armed with the terminology of Ricurs theory of metaphor, we are

prepared to embark on the study of interpretation proper, and chapter 4

is dedicated to the function of explanationthe structural analysis Ricur

wishes to graft on phenomenological hermeneutics. The hermeneutical issue

of existential understanding is the theme of chapter 5, before I attempt to grasp

the structure of the theory rather than its thematic content in chapter 6, as

promised.


13/94

Chapter2

The Model of the Text

To the extent that hermeneutics is text-oriented interpretation, and

inasmuch as texts are, among other things, instances of written

language, no interpretation theory is possible that does not come

to grips with the problem of writing.

(Ricur, 1976, p. 25)

Language-system and Discourse

A modern grasp of the phenomenon of language derives from the distinction,

introduced in the works of de Saussure, between langue and parole. The former

is the system of signs, rules and virtual meanings that constitutes language, the

latter is language as it is actually spoken. A structural approach to language

implies the choice for the langue. All questions concerning the meaning of

speech as it is bound to a specific subject and situation are bracketed. The focus

of attention is the common vocabulary that is used in all concrete performances

of language.

In order to describe this vocabulary, the structural model of language prefers

a synchronic approach of language to a diachronic one. It focuses on the state

of the system at a given moment. Systems are more intelligible than changes

(Ricur, 1976, p. 6). Within the system the relationships between the distinct


14/94

8 The Model of the Text

terms or signs are brought to light. Every sign only has a meaning in so far

as it is opposed to other signs. Finallyand this is for Ricur the postulate

that summarizes and commands all the others (Ricur, 1974a, pp. 250-1)

the structural model isolates the langue as a closed universe of signs. Language

constitutes a world of its own without any outside reference, a self-sufficient

system of inner relations (Ricur, 1976, p. 6).

This last postulatethat of the closure (clture) of the object of analysis

constitutes for Ricur both the strength of the structural approach and its

weakness. The undeniable strength is that the restriction to a finished, com-

plete object brings out the aspect of organization without which there would

be no meaningful language at all. This methodological reduction makes a sci-

entific exploration of objective structures possible. However, such a structural

description remains abstract. With the parole all those aspects which accord-

ing to ordinary experience primarily characterize language are left outi.e.

that it is spoken by someone about something to someone. The more linguist-

ics are purified and reduced to a science of language, explains Ricur the

more it expels from its field everything concerning the relationship of languageto anything else but itself.

In fact the reduction of language to its structural aspects implies a twofold

forgetting of structures which are prior to language itself. In the first place

it leaves aside the question of man who expresses himself through language.

What can be understood by means of a structural model is an anonymous

system of signs and codes. Furthermore, limitation to the clture des signes

implies that being is forgotten. The fact that language refers to any non-

linguistic reality is lost from sight.

It is these forgotten elements, so intimately connected with the presuppos-

itions of structuralism, that cause Ricurs vigorous opposition to all efforts

to found some structuralist philosophy on the postulates of the structural method

(cf. Ricur, 1974a, pp. 27-61, especially p. 51). Such philosophiesas they

have been advocated by such different thinkers as Lvi-Strauss, Foucault and

Lacan, among otherstend to hypostatize the codes, the networks of signs.

Language is not seen as a medium by means of which man expresses himself,


15/94

Language-system and Discourse 9

gives meaning to his world, and transfers a message. It is, rather, suggested

that the anonymous structures of his language govern mans consciousness

of the world and of himself. Thus the individual capacity for thinking and

being creative tends to be denied in favour of the power of codes. To under-

stand man is to understand the structures that constitute his language, the

networks of myths and texts that constitute his culture, the social structures

that constitute his society. Structuralist philosophy tends to be an absolute

formalism (Ricur, 1974a, p. 52). Therefore, Ricur is eager to disconnect

structural method from structuralist ideology. Boundaries should be drawn up

within which the structural model retains its value as a scientific instrument

with claims to objectivity, but beyond which it falls into error.

In regard to language the structural model is valid, since a structure of

merely interdependent signs or terms can be isolated. But, ultimately, are

not the relations between man and language, language and the world, of more

importance that relationships within the language-structure? Is not language

primarily the way through which man communicates, expresses emotions,

gives meaning to his world? That is why Ricur opposes a second approach tothe structural one. The model of the immanence of the langue is complemented

by a model of the transcendence of speech: the transcendence of what is

designated (or more precisely, what is referred to), and the transcendence

of the speaking subjects. In this way, he enters the field of what may be called

aphenomenolgy of language. The presuppositions are those of phenomenology:

language expresses the meaning of the world and of being; the subject is the

bearer of this meaning. Man is the one who, by means of language, brings

meaning to his world.

It is essential that the phenomenology of language is complementarynot

alternative. The phenomenological-hermeneutic approach in which meaning

is the central category, has to be based on a pre-hermeneutical, linguistic one,

or be cut off from an essential relation with modern science. Phenomenology

must, claims Ricur, be structuralat least in its primary stages. It is

through and by means of a linguistics of language that a phenomenology of

speech is possible today (Ricur, 1974a, p. 251).


16/94


De Saussures idea was that only the langue is a proper object for science:

parole must be bracketed so as to demarcate a field for objective inquiry.

Ricur exchanges this distinction for another, that of semiology and semantics

(cf. Ricur, 1974a, p. 93), (Ricur, 1994, pp. 66-76) and (Ricur, 1976, pp. 6-8).

Semiology and Semantics

Semiology is the structural-linguistic science which looks at closed sets of

signs. The presupposition of semantics is that there is also a scientific approachto discourse, language as it is spoken. Semiology tries to make sense of the

differences between the signs in the system, whereas semantics investigates

what happens when the words come together in a sentence and thus generate

a meaning. The first articulates the sign at the level of potential systems

available for the performance of discourse, the second is cotemporaneous

with the accomplishment of the discourse (Ricur, 1974a, p. 252). These

semiologic and semantic levels of language cannot be understood properly

if not in function of each other. Understanding the anonymous patterns

of signs and rules only makes sense in view of their actual functioning in

spoken language. Outside the semantic function in which they are actualized,

semiological systems lose all intelligibility (Ricur, 1974a, p. 253). Reversely,

the meaning of discourse cannot be analysed apart from an understanding of

the potential of meaning that is contained by the signs in the system.

Attention is now focused on the moment of transition between the two

levels of structure and speech. This moment is that of speaking, orwith

an expression that Ricur borrows from Emile Benvnistethe instance of

discourse, linstance de discours (cf. Ricur, 1976, 1994) or occurence of

discourse (Ricur, 1974a, p. 254). In a series of illuminating oppositions

Ricur shows how the potentiality of the system is actualized so that language

emerges on a new level, that of a genuine and unique meaning (Ricur, 1974a,

pp. 86-88), (Ricur, 1994, pp. 70-75) and (Ricur, 1976, pp. 9-12).


17/94

Discourse 11

Discourse

Discourse is the event in which language takes on a temporal aspect. From

the point of view of semiotics this is a weakness: the sentences of discourse

arise and vanish, but the system remains. However, Ricur advocates the

ontological priority of discourse (Ricur, 1976, p. 9). The langue is merely

potential and a-temporal; its elements only become actual through discourse.

This opposition of system and event has important consequences. Whereas

the system is a finite and fixed set of phonetic and lexical signs, discourse is

in the order of creation and innovation. It offers the possibility of conbining

words so that new constellations of meaning emerge. It is an infinite use of

finite means (von Humboldt, cited in Ricur, 1974b, p. 97), (Ricur, 1994, p.

63). Whereas the system is a matter of constraint and rules, discourse is choice,

freedom.

The acts, events and choices of discourse imply another, decisive, trait: dis-

course has a subject (cf. Ricur, 1974a, p. 88). In the anonymous system the

question who is speaking? is senseless. Language (langue) has no subject,

objects Ricur, while discourse refers back from itself to its own speaker

thanks to a complex interplay of indicators such as personal pronouns. Dis-

course is auto-referential. What is within the system an empty signI

becomes a living word within discourse. By saying it the subject appropri-

ates language. I make it my language and I anchor discourse in the here and

now of my situation. (cf. Ricur, 1974a, pp. 254-6), (Ricur, 1976, p. 13) and

(Ricur, 1994, p. 75).

Discourse refers away from itself. It is always about something. It refers to a

world which it pretends to describe, to express, to represent (Ricur, quoted

in van Leeuwen, 1981). Words turn from the pseudoworld of the system to the

actual world. This is what Ricur calls reference in its strict sense: the claim

of expressing a view on the world, of affirming something about reality.

The triad of transcending movements of discourse is completed by the

element of allocution. The I of discourse (self-reference) speaks about the


18/94


world (reference) to a hearer. The subjectivity of the act of speech is from

the beginning the intersubjectivity of allocution (Ricur, 1974a, p. 88).

The terminology of J. L. Austin is useful in grasping this structure. Each

illocutionary act (act of discourse by which some wish, command, question

etc. is expressed) is an interlocutionary act, to which a reaction (obedience,

answer, etc.) is expected. Thus dialogue is the basic form of discourse. Even

soliloquysolitary discourseis dialogue with oneself (Ricur, 1976, p. 15).

On all these traits the openness of language as discourse is evident. As

event, choice, innovation discourse is an open and, in principle, unlimited

process of creation of meaning. Its triple reference makes it open towards the

speaker, a hearer and the world (I, you, it).

On the level of discourse language leaps, as Ricur says, across two

thresholds (Ricur, 1974a, p. 84). In the first place, the words arise from their

phantomatic state of being dead signs and attain a living meaning: discourse

says something, it has a sense (the threshold of sense). Secondly, it says

something about something, it has a reference (the threshold of reference).

Herein lies precisely the mystery of language; discourse does not only havean ideal sense, a meaningful content, it also has a real reference. It is capable

of representing reality with the help of words. This concept of discourse as the

event of meaning, of sense and reference, is the nucleus of Ricurs further

investigations. These go in the direction of both a theory of the written text

and its interpretation, and a theory of the word: its polysemic, metaphorical

and symbolic qualities. Finally, also the core issue to this inquirythe specific

problems of interpreting poetic and symbolic texts.

The sentence is, as has been said, the characteristic unit of discourse. It

is the sentence which has a speaking subject; it is the sentence which has a

reference; it is the sentence which is addressed to the other. Inquiry thus goes

toward the level of unities larger than the sentence, texts, and to that of unities

smaller than the sentence, words. When reading the following paragraphs,

dealing with the theories of text and word, it should be kept in mind that

interpretation always has to do with the interplay of these distinct levels. The

meaning of a word cannot be understood apart from the sentence in which it


19/94

DistanciationWhen Discourse Becomes Text 13

is used, as this sentence has to be understood in the context of the text. The

text cannot be explained except by envisaging the interplay of its parts and the

specific strategies by which words are used in it.

DistanciationWhen Discourse Becomes Text

Writing is the full manifestation of discourse.

(Ricur, 1976, pp. 25-6)

Ricur conceives of written language as the first place or locality for

hermeneutics (Ricur, 1995d, p. 44). Hermeneutics finds a starting point in

the problems posed by the text. What is a text? What happens when discourse

becomes fixed by writing? What precisely is it we intend to understand when

reading a text? How does interpretation proceed and how are the moments

of analysis and appropriation of meaning, explanation and understanding

related?

Two elements of Ricurs theory of the text will be reviewed.

1. It aims at overcoming the romantic, psychologizing prejudice that dom-

inated hermeneutics since Schleiermacher and Dilthey, and which re-

duced true understanding to an understanding of the intentions of the

author, the life behind the text. For Ricur, to understand is to grasp

the world opened up in front of the text. In this respect his hermeneutic is

in line with Heidegger, who related understanding to projects (Entwrfe)

of In-der-Welt-sein, with Bultmann, who sees hermeneutics as governed

by what is at issue in the text itself (its message), and with Gadamer, who

relates understanding to the Sache on which the text pronounces.

2. Ricur develops a concept of the text as an autonomous work, which

makes it possible to include a critical moment of explanation in the pro-

cess of interpretation. He thus tries to overcome not only Diltheys ro-

mantic hermeneutics that sharply opposed Verstehen as the method of

the Geisteswissenschaften to Erklren as the method of natural sciences,

but he also aims at correcting the three philosophers just mentioned.


20/94


Heideggers ontologization of understanding leaves no room for a crit-

ical theory concerning interpretation. Bultmanns hermeneutics centers

interpretation too exclusively on existential decisions, assigning too little

importance to the texts objectivity. Gadamers hermeneutics disregards

the textuality of the text by regarding writing only as an alienation that

should be overcome in a new act of dialogue.

It should be noted that Ricur contends that to understand any discourse

(be it spoken or written) is to understand the event of discourse as such. In

hearing another person speak, what we try to understand is not the speech-

event but the meaningthe issue of his speech. We want to grasp what is

said and what it refers to (Gadamers die Sache). The axiom of Ricurs

interpretation theory is therefore that if all discourse is actualized as an event,

all discourse is understood as meaning (Ricur, 1976, p. 12) and (Ricur,

1994, p. 70). Understanding aims at the content of discourse. The event is

surpressed in and surpassed by the meaning.

This applies specifically to written discourse. It only accomplished a trait

which is virtual in all discourse: the distanciation of meaning and event

(Ricur, 1975, p. 67). Is it not the intention of writing that the meaning should

survive the vanishing event of discourse? What is inscribed is not the event as

event, but what is said. That the event is surpassed by a meaning thus applies

all the more to the text. From the moment of its inscription it starts, so to speak,

a career of its own. It becomes autonomous, leaving behind the moment of its

creation.

What happens in writing is the full manifestation of something

that is in a virtual state, something nascent and inchoate, in living

speech, namely the detachment of meaning from the event.

(Ricur, 1976, p. 25)

Semantic Autonomy

In his essay What is a Text? Ricur gives a more precise description of

this birth of a text as an autonomous work. The text is not a graphic


21/94


reproduction of what was first pronounced orally. Writing is not secondary

to the parole. Instead of describing it as the petrification or suppression of

living speech, Ricur presents the text as a direct inscription of what could

have been said orally. Writing is as original as the spoken word. In this way

Ricur breaks away from a long tradition in which the written word is seen

as only a derivative of living speech. A recent example of this view is

found in Ingardens study on the literary work of art (Ingarden, 1968, p.

13), which speaks of die reine Sprachlautigkeit that suffers eine gewisse

Verunreinigung when fixed by writing, although the tradition can be traced

back to Plato and Rousseau (cf. Ricur, 1976, pp. 38-40). (It is also one

of the main suppositions of the romanic view on literature that speech is

languages primary and defining form, whereas writing is secondary and

derived.) Writing here becomes a merely physical vehicle and even a deceiving

disguise of the living word. Its indispensable function is neglected. Against

this Ricur states that writing is not reproduction, and even less reduction, but

a direct inscription of [an] intention, even if, historically and psychologically,

writing began with the graphic transcription of the signs of speech (Ricur,1995e, pp. 147).

With the help of his concept of textual autonomy, Ricur wants to illu-

minate the specific claim of truth of the text. The autonomous character of the

text is explained by what happens to the referential characteristics of discourse

when, instead of being spoken, it is written down in the instance de discours.

Language refers to a speaker, a hearer, and the world. What happens to these

references in writing?

Loss of Reference Through Emancipation

In a dialogue understanding the intention of discourse coincides with under-

standing the intention of its speaker. Several non-linguistic aspects (gestures

and facial expressions), facilitate understanding. The speaker can be ques-

tioned about his intentions. In written language these direct indications of the

writers intentions are absent. There is no longer a direct relation between


22/94


the said of the text and the psychology of its author. The reader has to do with

what the text expresses and this may transcend the authors view to a consider-

able degree. Therefore, the author is not the best interpreter of his own works,

neither does the queary about original intentions offer the right cue for inter-

pretation. To read a book is to consider its author as already dead (Ricur,

1995e, p. 137). In fact, as Beerling remarks, most texts would not lose their

value if they were anonymous. Authorship is accidental, be it essentially ac-

cidental: it is essential that someone wrote this text; it is accidental who did so

(Beerling, 1972, p. 209). Ricurs view should be distinguished from a struc-

turalist one which denies authorship stating that texts are interwoven in and

produced by the network of meanings and texts of a culture. Ricur main-

tains that the text is a discourse produced by an author. But to envisage its

autonomy is to bracket authorship.1

As the text is emancipated from its author, so it is liberated from the re-

striction of a particular audience (cf. Schleiermachers ursprngliche Leser).

Speech is directed to a specific you. A text is addressed potentially to

whomever knows how to read (Ricur, 1976, p. 31). Texts offer their meaningto an indefinite number of readers and, therefore, of interpretations (ibid.).

They become a part of the collective memory of mankind. Their importance

is determined not so much by the response of the first readers, as by the de-

gree to which they are capable of evoking new interpretations. Important texts

produce a tradition. An essential part of their meaning lies in what Gadamer

calls a Wirkungsgeschichte (Gadamer, 1990, pp. 285ff). To interpret is not

to erase this history (in an effort to transport oneself into the position of its

first readers), but to promote it. (Gadamer states the first two elements of the

autonomy of the text in the same way (Gadamer, 1990, pp. 369-70).)

So hermeneutics begins where dialogue ends (Ricur, 1976, p. 32).

Interpretation is not the repetition of some original encounter of writer and

readers, but a new event: a confrontation with what the text says. About what,

then, is written discourse?

1The question may be raised if biographical data concerning the author are in all cases asirrelevant for the interpretation of texts as Ricur suggests. At least as regards clues for possibleconstructions in explanation.


23/94


The question of reference, in the strict sense, leads to the heart of Ricurs

theory. All discourse refers to something. But again written discourse differs

widely from oral discourse. The latter is performed within a situation common

to the members of the dialogue. Its references are toward a reality that is

present to speaker and hearer and they rely on the possibility of pointing to

this commonly perceived reality. The text does not refer to a situation that is

present here and now to both reader and writer (Ricur, 1995e, pp. 138-9).2

In this regard the text is worldless. But precisely this abolition of a direct

reference to the given world frees the text to project a world of its own. As

the meaning of the text is beyond the authors intention and beyond what the

reader of any specific time grasps, so its reference is beyond what the ordinary

world offers. The text brings about a distantiation of the real from itself

(Ricur, 1995a, p. 142). In reading it, man is invited to explore dimensions

of reality beyond the limitations of his situation. So interpretation should not

seeek for intentions behind the text but explain the sort of being-in-the-world

unfolded in front of it. The text opens up a horizon.

It should be stressed how crucial the role thus assigned by Ricur isto writing. It is thanks to writing that man and only man has a world

and not just a situation (Ricur, 1976, p. 36). In Ricurs concept speech

remains anchored in the narrow spatio-temporal network determined by what

in Fallible Man was called mans perspectivity. That discourse also has the

more existential function of exploring the truth of being and the possibilities

of existence, is pre-eminently revealed in that type of discourse which steps

aside from the perspectivities of this performer, this audience, and from the

narrowness of this situation. It is precisely this remoteness which constitutes

a text . By reading texts man escapes from his situatedness in the here and

now. The Umwelt of what is available and visible expands into a Welt formed

by values, expectations and imaginations. So Ricur comes to call world

2Ricur seems to use a rather narrow notion of situation here. Is it true that in a dialoguethe participants have one situation? Can situation be defined only referring to the externalworld? Are the members of a dialogue not often speaking from different situations, cultural

backgrounds, interests etc.?In relation to this the question arises whether or not certain texts are determined by a specificcultural situation to such an extent that the work of interpretation cannot abstain completelyfrom projecting this world behind the text.


24/94


the ensemble of references opened by all texts that I have read, understood

and loved (Ricur, 1976, p. 37). To have a world is to live within a horizon

constituted by the signs, works, texts of mankind.

Obviously, in this concept of world Ricurs hermeneutics remains true

to major themes of phenomenology. The idea of the world as the horizon of life

indissoluble from human significations, is a variation on the Husserlian theme

of the Lebenswelt. The definition of understanding as grasping possibilities of

being-in-the-world comes close to Heidegger. Did not Sein und Zeit reveal that

the most fundamental function of Verstehen, far from being the comprehension

of other persons, is the understanding of ones relation to the world? Dasein

is an In-der-Welt-sein, and man always lives out of a primordial understanding

of this In-der-Welt-sein, an understanding which he tries to elucidate through

interpretation (Heidegger, 1993, 31).3 When Ricur states that the world of

the text is the offer made by the text to the reader of new possibilities of being-

in-the-world, he joins up with this Heideggerian theme.

On the other hand, it is crucial for Ricur that he relates this idea of the

world to the concept of the text. This enables him to introduce a critical,

methodical moment into the work of interpretation, a moment that is missing

in Heidegger and his followers Bultmann and Gadamer. When Heidegger

conceives of das Dasein als Verstehen (Heidegger, 1993, 31-32), i.e. as

the mode of being that exists through understanding being, he introduces

a reversal of the hermeneutical problematic. From being epistemological,

understanding becomes an ontological category. Every act of explanation of the

world (Auslegung) is preceded by pre-understanding (Vorverstndnis) of our

being-in-the-world. But how can interpretation account for such an awareness

that always precedes? How can it criticize, modify or renew it? [H]ow can

a question of critique in general be accounted for within the framework of a

fundamental hermeneutics?4 (Ricur, 1995d, p. 59)

3Ricur points to the parallels with Husserl and Heidegger in The Hermeneutical Function ofDistanciation, p. 140 (see also Ricur, 1976, p. 37).

4

[W]ith Heidegger [...] any return from ontology to the eistemological question about thestatus of the human sciences is impossible. Existence and Hermeneutics (in Ricur, 1974a)contains Ricurs fundamental criticism of the short route along which Heidegger relatedunderstanding and being (Ricur, 1974a, pp. 6-8).


25/94

Method of Interpretation 19

Bultmann elaborated Heideggers idea of Vorverstndnis in a model for

reading biblical texts from existential presuppositions. The statement of the

text is interpreted in terms of self-understanding. Again a critical moment

seems to be missing. Is the world which the text opens only centered on

my subjectivity, my personal authenticity? Does not the text interrupt my

prejudiced reading and open up broader dimensions than these personal ones?

(Preface to Bultmann in Ricur, 1974a, esp. 394ff)

Vorverstndnis, prejudice, circularity of understanding are, again, themes

in Gadamer. The basis of understanding is a Zugehrigkeit to traditions

(Gadamer, 1990, pp. 279ff, 434ff): all understanding is determined by the

historicity of man which, in turn, is determined by traditions. The texts which

we try to comprehend are part of these same traditions. In fact, the tradition

is effectuated by the text through its Wirkungsgeschichte. So man already

belongs to the text which he wants to understand. There is, in Gadamers

view, nothing scandalous about this. On the contrary, this belonging makes it

possible to overcome the alienating gap between us and the text. Man can start

his search for what lies behind the text from a certain expectation concerningthe answer which the text may give to him. Again Ricur questions whether

a methodical moment can be introduced into the work of interpretation which

breaks through the circularity of understanding and Zugehrigkeit. Can we

reach a distance from the texts of our tradition so that it is more probable that

our prejudices may be corrected, our questions exceeded? (Ricur, 1995d, pp.

60ff)

Ricur seeks to overcome the aporias of these one-sided ontological or

existential conceptions by re-formulating interpretation as a dialectic of the

two attitudes which Dilthey so strictly opposed: explanation and understanding.

The interplay of both can be demonstrated most clearly on the autonomous text.

Method of Interpretation

The autonomy of the text and its world are key concepts in Ricurs

theory. Autonomy implies that a text should not be understood from anything


26/94


lying behind it, reconstructed psychologically (i.e. the authors intention) or

sociologically (e.g. the original context of reception), but from what itself

expresses. The idea that texts can not be understood from what their words

say but must be interpreted from something behind them is, as Japp says, based

on a mistrust of literature itself (Japp, 1977, p. 94).

Thus the conception of the text as an authorless and worldless entity

invites a first reading which approaches it as a system existing in itself,

that can be explained. On the other hand, its autonomy gives the text a

capacity of projecting a world of its own. In a second reading, the reader is

invited to follow the reference towards a project of being-in-the-world and to

understand this project as a possibility for him. One of Ricurs contributions

to hermeneutics is that it is the same function of autonomization which closes the

text as an object that can be explained and which opens it towards a specific

world that calls for hermeneutic understanding (cf. Ricur, 1975, p. 73).

These two characteristicsthe texts occlusion and ouvertureremind

one of the functions which Heidegger in Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes attrib-

utes to a work of art: das Verschliessen on the one hand and das Welt-Erffnen,

die Aufstellung einer Welt on the other (cf. Heidegger, 1994)(Holzwege). How-

ever, Heideggers analysis does not use the idea of das Dinghafte, das Insich-

stehen of the work as a starting point for introducing a method of explanation.

This is precisely what Ricur wants to do.

Structuralist Analysis

The suppression of the direct relation of the text to an author, a world, a time

of creation, makes it possible to analyse it as a closed universe of words and

functions, in the same way in which the langue is analysed as a closed universe

of signs. Indeed, the text is discourse and with regard to the langue it has

a position which is analogous to that of speech. That is to say, it cannot be

conceived as only a structural composition like the language system. On the

other hand, it is something essentially different from spoken discourse. The

text is the type of discourse which can be analysed in a similar way as the


27/94

Structuralist Analysis 21

langue. It can be taken as a self-sufficient system of oppositions, combinations,

codes. The unities of higher order than the sentence, are organized in a

way similar to that of the small unities of language, that is, the unities of an

order lower than the sentence, those precisely which belong to the domain of

linguistics (Ricur, 1995e, pp. 140,142) (Ricur, 1975, p. 52) (Ricur, 1976,

pp. 82-3).

It is beyond the scope of the current chapter to present in any detail the

models of structural analysis Ricur proposes to fill this function. In fact, he

does not attempt to develop any new model. What he is attempting is to prove

that texts can be explained with the help of models which are borrowed from

a science, linguistics belonging to the [...] field of human sciences (Ricur,

1995e, p. 144) and that, therefore, explanation is not, as Dilthey thought, an

effort which is alien to the specific object of these sciences. Explanation and

understanding can dispute with each other on the same ground (Ricur,

1995e, p. 44). Within one process of interpretation explanation of structures

may be connected to hermeneutical understanding. The former can correct or

adjust the historicizing, psychologizing, and existential prejudices which oftencharacterize the latter.

Considering the present state of linguistic science, Ricur seems to find

it superfluous to give further proof of the fact that structural analysis can be

extended to the level of texts. Evidence for this lies, he claims, especially in

Lvi-Strauss, Propp, Barths and Greimas. Lvi-Strauss applies the structural

model to myths. He describes the different paquets de relations between

the units which constitute the myth, ordering these paquets in categories

such as kinship, economics, etc. A matrix of contradictions, oppositions

and relations is thus produced which brings to light the underlying codes

of the myth and their inner logic. Propp analysed the structure of folk-tales

with the help of an index of 31 narrative functions (absence, prehibitions,

violation etc.) and 7 elementary roles (villain, helper, hero etc.). The plot of

the narrative is explained from the sequences of functions, the interaction of

roles. Barths developed this model further by classifying the units of the

narration at three levels, those of functions (meeting, promising, eceiving


28/94


etc), actions (connected to their actors), and of narration itself (considered

as an act of communication). From Greimas Ricur takes the important

notion of the depth-structure which analysis brings to light. There is not

only a level of actions and of thematic roles or functions (the narrations

surfacestructure); from beneath the dramatic, narrative surface, an a-chronic,

anonymous structure can be unearthed which is at work in the depth of the

text.

What is mainly of interest here is Ricurs proposal to incorporate this sort

of structural explanation in the hermeneutic endeavour. Through it, he hopes to

be able to produce an objectivity he finds missing in traditional hermeneutics.

This objectivity is vital if one seeks to make the message of the text reachable

from without the hermeneutic circle confining it to the existential needs of

the reader or his prejudiced questionsan objectivity necessary for literary

criticism to be justifiable at all.

When Ricur speaks of the text as a work (Ricur, 1995a, p. 136-40), this

implies, on the one hand, that it can be taken as a finite object; it is dinghaft

and can be explained with the help of objective procedures. On the other hand,

it is precisely in this way that a process of meaning that is at work in the text may

come to light. The text works, it produces certain meanings. Its codes are

the vehicles of a certain message.5 To say this is to suggest that the structural

reading which holds to the purely immanent character of the text should be

transcended by a second reading which tries to understand its message.

Fiercely opposed to the fallacy of the absolute text6, according to which

it has no outward relation at all, and to the structuralist ideology (Ricur,

1995e, pp. 148,150), which takes texts only as syntactic arrangements of

5Ricur emphasizes this point in discussions on Lvi-Strauss structuralism. When Lvi-Strauss holds that myths are logical models which suggest certain solutions for the contradic-tions of life, this implies that they have a meaningful intention. They give conjectures concerningelementary enigmas. Structural analysis postpones the question of meaning by focusing on theinner logic of myth, but it cannot eliminate it. Such an elimination would be the reduction of thetheory of myth to a necrology of the meaningless discourses of mankind (Ricur, 1995e, p.147).

6Barths writes: A narrative does not show anything, it does not imitate (. . . ) what happens

in narratives is from the referential standpoint actually NOTHING. What happens is languagealone, the adventure of language (cited in Ricur, 1975, p. 51). Cf. (Ricur, 1976, p. 30),where Ricur contrarily comments: Discourse cannot fail to be about something. (. . . ) I amdenying the ideology of absolute texts.


29/94

Structuralist Analysis 23

opposed terms, Ricur returns to his presupposition: the text is discourse. Its

autonomy cannot abolish the dimension of discourse (Ricur, 1975, p. 67).

That is to say, it is impossible to cancel out the fact that the text is made by

someone and intended to convey a message about something to someone. This

message calls for understanding by the one who, here and now, reads the text.

Phenomenological Understanding Appropriation

The ultimate aim of hermeneutics remains the understanding of what the text

means to me. One has to make ones own what was previsously foreign

(Ricur, 1976, p. 91). Thus Ricur eventually takes up a hermeneutical

concept which has been stamped by the romantic tradition: appropriation,

Aneignung (Ricur, 1976, pp. 91-4). However, this concept is understood in

a new way. What I make my own is not something that lies behind the

text, but the world toward which it opens up. In the act of understanding the

horizon of the text and the horizon of my self-understanding merge into each

otherGadamers Horizontverschmelzung. This appropriation is not just ataking hold of the text by the reader. The text and its project of a world

take hold of the reader as well. The apropriation is a dsappropriation

of the reader: he is distanciated from himself. Appropriation [. . . ] implies a

moment of dispossession from the egoistic and narcissistic ego (Ricur, 1976,

pp. 94). The text breaks through the categories of mans self-understanding

and his understanding of the world. In this way the world of the reader and

his self-understanding may be enlarged.

From Circle To Arc

Thus interpretation proceeds in the model of a hermeneutic arc, instead of being

contained within a hermeneutic circle. One pillar of this arc is the discourse

of the text, its act of projecting a world; this act of the text can be elucidated

by explanation. The other pillar is that of the act of understanding, the aim of

interpretation proper.


30/94


In short, through texts the reader understands himself within a world of

immanence and hope, of matters of fact and new possibilities, of good and

evil, and texts may offer him ever new perspectives of possible ways of being-

in-the-world.

Epi-reading and Graphi-reading

Attempting to account for the ethical function of literature and literary cri-

ticism, Robert Eaglestone revitalises Denis Donoghues distinction between

epi-reading and graphi-reading, reflecting the intrinsic or extrinsic study of

literature. Epi-reading is predicated on the desire to hear (. . . ) the absent

person (Eaglestone, 1997, p. 3). The epi-reader moves swiftly from print

and language to speech and voice and the present person (ibid.). Under this

paradigm, reading functions as a translation from words to acts. Epi-reading

transposes the written words on the page into a somehow corresponding situ-

ation of persons, voices, characters, conflicts, conciliations (ibid.). Language

is rendered transparent, a window through which the world of actors, actions

and events is seen, and the function of literature is reduced to that of a view-

port into a world behind it.

Graphi-reading has the opposite orientation, prioritizing language, text

and reading over a nostalgia for the human and seeks to engage with texts

in their virtuality (Eaglestone, 1997, p. 4). The graphi-reader reads the words

and refuses to pass beyond, or create a world behind, them. All deconstructive

criticism is graphi-reading, claim Eaglestone and Donoghue, and go on to

place Derrida, de Man, Barthes and Mallarm among those who experience

the eclipse of voice by text.

Their placing of Ricur as an epi-reader seems based on his insistence

upon the primacy of textual referenceits aboutness. Portraying him as

having a view of texts as a window through which a world is made accessible,

however, is clearly mistaken.

Even though Donoghue does not develop the distinction on the basis of

any strict definitions, but rather on the basis of heuristic analyses, is seems


31/94

A Room For Objectivity? 25

possible that the attribution both he and Eaglestone make is incorrect. It is

quite possible, in fact, that Ricurs theory intergrates both models of reading,

and provides a synthesis of both of them.

A Room For Objectivity?

A set of questions arise. In the first place: is this true of all kinds of texts or is

Ricur aiming at a specific type of texts? Certainly the latter is the case. His

thesis that the text is a disclosure of a world is not as equally valid for various

kinds of trivial texts7 as it is for what may be called the great texts of the past.

A natural science text does not open up new dimensions of the world in the

same way as poetic discourse does either. It is in this last type of discourse that

Ricurs interest lies, taking poetic in a broad sense, as applying to all those

types of literary discourse which in their referential function differ from the

descriptive function of ordinary, everyday language and in particular scientific

discourse.

Secondly: As becomes clear through the model of Ricurs theory of in-

terpretation as a hermeneutic arc, the object of interpretationthe text itself

has a parallel role to that of the langue in Ricurs theory of language. It

represents a potential for understanding, a repository of meaning, which can

be actualized, unlocked, through a structuring act of explanation.

Ricur sharpens this image further. The same processes are in effect in

overcoming the polysemic nature of language in communication as in the act

of making sense of a text (the function of the structural explanation). To what

extent does this guarantee a space for objective criteria and methods in textual

interpretation, and thus for the field of literary criticism as a whole?

A final question: it has been said above that the theory of the text only

represents a starting point for Ricurs hermeneutics. It is in connection

with the problem of the text that more general questions about the function

of language can be brought to light. What is it that gives discourse this capacity

7Though these can be argued as opening up visions of the world as well, albeit rathersuperficial, conventional ones.


32/94


of creation, of opening new dimensions of meaning? How can the creative

function of language be understood?

These questions lead to the need to envisage another level of discourse,

not of texts but of the words and their capacity of evoking different meanings

and creating new meaning. In going into Ricurs theory of the metaphorical

function of language we will have to go back to a point that was reached before

we entered into the theory of the text, namely where the signs of the language

system come to life in actual discourse.


33/94

Chapter3

The Tensional Conception of

Metaphor

Having removed any privileged venues of interpretation of texts through the

distancing effects of inscription, and shown that no text, language or discourseis reducable to any closed linguistic system, Ricur needs both a methodology

and a theoretical bridgehead to bootstrap his hermeneutic arc into existence.

In the essay Metaphor and the Central Problem of Hermeneutics, Ricur

(1995c) claims to link up the problems raised in hermeneutics by the inter-

pretation of texts and the problems raised in rhetoric, semantics, stylisticsor

whatever the discipline concerned may beby metaphor. Finding a common

ground for the theory of the text and the theory of metaphor in the dynamics

of discourse, he seeks to find the key to unlocking the problematic of interpret-

ation of autonomic texts in semantic innovation, a term deeply entwined in his

theory of metaphor.

Due to textual distanciation and autonomy, the referential potential of the

text is realized in a way parallel to the function of the metaphor. Thus to be able

to account for meaning in discourse from the perspective of epistemology and

not linguistics or philosophy of language, it is natural to choose the relation

between text and metaphor as a starting point. At this point, however, the


34/94

28 The Tensional Conception of Metaphor

problematic of metaphoric truth is supplanted in favour of a study of the

function of metaphor and everyday language.

Ricur presents metaphor as the touchstone of the cognitive value of liter-

ary works in Interpretation Theory (Ricur, 1976, p. 45): If we can incorporate

the surplus of meaning of metaphors into the domain of semantics, he muses,

then we will be able to give the theory of verbal signification its greatest pos-

sible extension. In The Symbolism of Evil (Ricur, 1967) and Freud and Philo-

sophy (Ricur, 1970), he directly defines hermeneutics through the symbol, an

object he found both as broad and as precise as possible. He defines the sym-

bol in turn through its semantic structure of having a double meaning. In later

works, Interpretation Theory in particular, he distances himself from his earlier

path, choosing instead a less direct route that takes linguistics into account. If

the theory of metaphor can serve as a preparatory analysis leading up to the

theory of the symbol, however, the theory of the symbol will in return allow

an expansion of the theory of signification by including non-verbal double-

meaning as well as metaphoric or poetic content.

Our working hypothesis thus invites us to proceed from metaphorto text at the level of sense and the explanation of sense, then

from text to metaphor at the level of the reference of a work to a

world and to a self, that is, at the level of interpretation proper.

(Ricur, 1995c, p. 171)

Ricurs Theories of Metaphor

Ricurs semantics of discourse reserves a privileged place for metaphors and

symbols, whose complex structures shed light on the richness and creativity

of language. According to the traditional view, metaphor is regarded as a

type of trope, that is, as a rhetorical device whereby a figurative word is

substituted for a literal one on the basis of an apparent resemblance. However,

Ricur maintains that this account is incapable of explaining the process by

which a novel metaphor is produced; and he claims that this difficulty can

be overcome only if one accepts the view that the primary metaphorical unit

is not the word but the sentence. Metaphor presupposes the establishment


35/94

Ricurs Theories of Metaphor 29

of a tension between two terms in the sentence through a violation of the

linguistic code. The metaphorical utterance then appears as a reduction of

this tension by means of a creative semantic innovation or reconfiguration,

within the sentence as a whole. In thereby resolving a paradigmatic tension

by means of a syntagmatic innovation, the metaphorical process situates itself

at the point of articulation between system and discourse. As Ricur explains,

metaphorical meaning is an effect of the entire statement, but it is

focused on one word, which can be called the metaphorical word.

This is why one must say that metaphor is a semantic innovation

that belongs at once to the predicative order (new pertinence) and

the lexical order (paradigmatic deviation). (Ricur, 1994, pp. 156-7)

Metaphor and Semantic Innovation

In situating itself at this point of articulation, the metaphorical process draws

upon the phenomenon of regulated polysemy. However, the former cannot be

reduced to the latter, for metaphor is the very process by which the polysemy

of words is expanded and transformed. This transformative capacity is attrib-

utable to the referential dimension of the metaphorical statement, that is, to

its power to redescribe reality. In the last analysis, the function of metaphor

is to shatter and increase our sense of reality by shattering and increasing our

language.

Ricur wishes to distance his own theory from the substitution theory

of metaphor, which claims that the metaphor is a condensation of meaning

which is paraphraseable without necessarily using more words and sentences.

In drafting his position on metaphor, Ricur savagely criticises the other

theoreticians of metaphor. In their treatment of metaphor, he claims, they do

not make room for any dynamic of metaphor. Through an indifferent use of

dead metaphors in their expositions, they fail at the outset of their attempts to

account for the unique characteristics of metaphor. Ricur writes:

These aspects are features of the explanatory process which could

not appear so long as trivial examples of metaphor were con-


36/94


sidered, such as man is a wolf, a fox, a lion (...) With these ex-

amples, we elude the major difficulty, that of identifying a meaning

which is new.

(Ricur, 1995c, pp. 171-2)

According to Ricurs theory of metaphor, it represents an abuse of lan-

guage. It is an anomalyan unatoned incompatibility in the expressionand

does not come into its right qua metaphor until the interpreter from this incon-

sistent proposition of a literal reading draws a meaningful utterance in a rein-

terpretation through a displacement of the linguistic norm, granting the meta-

phor new semantic explanation in the moment of interpretation. The central

point being that the attribute of the metaphor which makes it unique is that

it is new, emergent, and obtained from nowhere. At least not from language

itself.

To say that a metaphor is not drawn from anywhere is to recognise

it for what it is: namely, a momentary creation of language, a se-

mantic innovation which does not yet have a status in the language

as something already established, whether as a designation or as a

connotation.

(Ricur, 1995c, p. 174)

Metaphor and Explanation

The explanatory function for metaphors consists not in a substitution of the

metaphorical expression, but in a construction. The decisive moment of

explanation arises when the interpreter has constructed a web of connections

in and through the context constituting it as actual and unique. The semantic

event takes place in the crossing between the semantic fields the interpreter

has drawn upon in his structural efforts. Through this construction, being the

means through which the words together make sense, the metaphorical twist

becomes an event and at the same time a meaninga meaningful event and

emergent meaning in language.

This constructive element is the fundamental feature of explanation which

makes metaphor paradigmatic for the explanation of a literary work. We con-


37/94

Polysemy and Metaphor 31

struct the meaning of a text in a way similar to the one that grants meaning to

the terms of a metaphorical expression through creating a network of possib-

ilities based on guesswork and assumptions, until a revealing breakthrough

allows the different pieces, which in the meantime have seemed incompatible,

to fall into place.

The presupposition of construction in understanding textual meaning de-

rives mainly from the written form. In the asymmetrical relationship between

text and interpreter, one of the parties has to speak for them both. Thus con-

struction is necessary to bring the text to languagelend it a voice. The text

represents an autonomous space of meaning which is no longer kept alive

through the authorial intention, and, bereft of this necessary support, the text

in its autonomy delivers itself mute to the readers lonely interpretation.

Polysemy and Metaphor

This connection between metaphor and discourse requires a spe-

cial justification, precisely because the definition of metaphor as a

transposition affecting names or words seems to place it in a cat-

egory of entities smaller than the sentence. But the semantics of

the word demonstrates very clearly that words acquire an actual

meaning only in a sentence and that lexical entitiesthe words of

the dictionaryhave merely potential meanings in virtue of their

potential uses in typical contexts. In this respect, the theory of poly-

semy is a good preparation for the theory of metaphor.

(Ricur, 1995b, p. 169)

In studying the metaphor, we are led to the need to envisage another level

of discourse; not of texts, but of words, and their capacity of evoking different

meanings and especially creating new meaning. In further pursuing Ricurs

theory of the metaphorical function of language we will have to backtrack to

a point reached before the entry into the theory of the textwhere the signs of

the language system come to life in actual discourse.


38/94


Detouring through Language

The title of one of Ricurs essays gives a concise resum of its contents:

Structure, Word, Event (Ricur, 1974b). The essay points to the word as

the place in language where the exchange between structure and event is

constantly produced. The word is at the intersection of language and

speech, of synchrony and diachrony, of system and process. Ricur is clearly

inspired by Benvnistes linguistic that attributes to the word an intermediary

functional position that arises from a duplicity in its nature. Within the

language1 there are only empty signs,2 but within the sentence these become

real words. Words are signs in speech position (Ricur, 1974b, p. 92).

Ricur places the word as the point of articulation between semiology and

semantics, in every speech event. This means that the word is at the same

time much less and much more than the sentence. It is less because of the fact

that only in the sentence does the word comes to life. From another point of

view the word is more than the sentence. The latter is a transitory event, but

the word is a part of the lasting order of language. The word survives the

sentenceit returns to the system after it has been used (Ricur, 1974b,

pp. 92-3). This fact is of eminent importance. One of the characteristics of

the instance of discourse (Ricur, 1974b, p. 92) is clearly that it is an order

of innovation. Even the simplest sentence is new in sofar as it brings words

together in a new order and is spoken in a unique situation by this speaker to

this listener. As a consequence, every speech act adds to the word, so that it

returns from discourse to system heavy with a new use-valueas minute as

this may be (Ricur, 1974b, pp. 92-93). Thus signs have an accumulative

intention. Returning to the system, these instanciations of the words give

language a history.

Whenever they are used, words aquire new meanings or nuances of mean-

ing without losing their old ones. This tendency towards expansion is the ori-

1langue2

In the structural system of language Ricur adopts and modifies, symbols and tokens areonly defined internally through difference in value. The chain of definition recurs indefinatelywithin language, but need never in the original structuralist conception break outside oflanguage to find meaning.


39/94

Polysemy and Metaphor 33

gin of one of the most crucial phenomena of language: polysemy.3 It is from

polysemy that such central problems arise as metaphor and symbol on the one

hand, and ambiguity and misunderstanding on the other.

All our words are polysemic. Their accumulative character means that they

receive a differentiated meaning from previous use and are still made capable

of acquiring more meaning from future use. Thus a dimension of history is

brought into the synchrony of the system. It is primarily within the system

that words have more than one possible meaning, but they have acquired this

potential in speech, and there they will gather more meaning. To understand

language is therefore to understand it under two aspects, as structure and

process, system and innovation. This dual character prevents it from becoming

pathological. On the one hand, the process of innovation and the polysemy

that results from it safeguard the system. Without polysemy the need to express

every possible nuance would require an infinite number of signs. A language

witout polysemy would violate the principle of economy (Ricur, 1994, p.

115). On the other hand it is the system which guards the word from becoming

overloaded. Without the disciplining function of the system the process of

accumulation of meaning would cause a surcharge of meaning, rendering the

words meaningless. Certain words, because they signify too many things,

cease to signify anything (Ricur, 1974b, p. 69). The system has a regulative

function. It fixes a certain core meaning by preserving the distinctions between

the signs. Words have a certain literal meaning, a specific value within the

system which advocates a way of using them.

The word itself is consequently a tensive entity. It is governed by a

system that wants to restrict it to a limited range of possible meanings, and

it is involved in a process of innovation and transgression of its possibilities.

Based on this understanding of the universal character of words Ricur tries

to comprehend the more specific phenomenons, metaphor and symbol. Both

are cases of polysemy. An attempt to understand them from the criteria of

the normal functioning of words prevents an over-hasty rejection of them as

3The capacity of a word (or other discursive token) to have more than one meaning. Self-evident as it might seem in retrospect, this insight has profound implications.


40/94


abnormalities of speech. The metaphorical process is the most purely linguistic

of the two and has to be considered first.

Within the system signs have multiple possible meanings. In discourse

a part of this potential is realized. Here analogous dimensions of word-

meanings reinforce each other, and other meanings are repressed. The context

of the sentence and the context of speech exclude them. The word receives

from the context the determination that reduces its imprecision (Ricur, 1994,

p. 130).4 This process of sifting out unwanted meanings is normally sufficient

to make communication possible. Most of the inappropriate meanings of

words in a given context do not even cross our mind. But the rest of the

semantic possibilities are not canceled; they float around the words as not

completely eliminated possibilities (Ricur, 1974b, p. 71). Ordinary speech

does not completely suppress ambiguity.

Consequences

Ricur sketches two possible reactions to this situation. It gives rise to the

striving for a completely unambiguous language. This is the ideal of all

technical languages. In each sentence all the possible meanings of its words

should be erased minus one. The poetic strategy is exactly the opposite to this.

The equivocity of discourse is not considered as blameworthy confusion, but

rather as a possibility of surcrot de sens, a surplus of meaning. Ambiguity is

not combated but utilized. Of this creative use of polysemy (Ricur, 1974b,

p. 105), the metaphor is the most important example.

What is a metaphor? In short, there are sentences in which the clash

between the normal meanings of the words is so vigorous that these sen-

tences remain absurd as long as one holds to the accepted meaning of their

words. The only way of rescueing such a sentence is to retain all the accept-

ations allowed plus one (Ricur, 1994, p. 131).5 The old connotations of the

4It is precisely this reduction in polysemy that is the function and aim of hermeneuticexplanation in Ricurs theory.

5In the case of metaphor, none of the alread codified acceptations is suitable; it is necessary,therefore, to retain all the acceptations allowed plus one.


41/94

The Traditional Conception of Metaphor 35

words should be retained but from the tension between them originates a novel

dimension of meaning. Thus a hitherto unknown relation of meaning and a

new dimension of truth are discovered.

Two points in this characterization require more attention: First of all,

metaphor is not a specific to the word but to the sentence; secondly, Ricurs

theory of metaphor insists that the metaphor opens up new dimensions of

truth.

In the first of the eight studies that make up The Rule of Metaphor (Ricur,

1994), Ricur sketches two lines of thought that are to be found in the works

of Aristotle. Firstly, Aristotles choice of the word as the locus of metaphor is

the seed of the rhetorical tradition Ricur opposes, that regards metaphor as a

mere ornament of language. On the other hand, Aristotle developed a theory

of poetics as a way of redescribing the reality of man by means of mythical

mimesis, and gave a place to metaphor in this mythic-poetical discourse. It

is from this model of poetic function the new concept of metaphorical truth

germinates.

The Rule of Metaphor may be read as, in the first place, an effort to overcome

the word-focused conception of metaphor in the rhetorical tradition, and,

secondly, as an elaboration of the aristotelian idea of a poetic redescription

of reality. In the terms of the two points formulated above, the linguistic part

of Aristotles theory which tied metaphor to the word is rejected, whereas the

idea of a poetical reference to new dimensions of truth is expanded.

The first decisive step in Ricurs theory moves from the rhetorical tradi-

tion to an understanding of metaphor within a semantics of discourse. It is the

step from a substitution theory of metaphor to an interaction theory or theory

of tension.

The Traditional Conception of Metaphor

Inspired by Aristotle a long rhetorical tradition focused on the word as the

place where metaphor occurs. According to Aristotles definition, metaphor is

the transposition of one world for another (epiphora). Thing A is referred to


42/94


with the unexpected word B instead of with its proper name A. As everything

has its proper name (A is called A1), and every word has its literal meaning

(A1 belongs to A, B1 to B), the word B1 is used improperlyfiguratively. The

metaphor is thus primarily a case of denomination, of substituting a figuratively

used word for a literally used one. The raison of this substitution is resemb-

lance: there is something in B1 that has affinity to something in A. In fact,

instead of B1 the proper name for this something might as well have been

used. As a consequence the rhetorical theory holds that a metaphor is under-

stood as soon as man has found the proper t

Documents

Ricoeur o Razumijevanju- Radnja