Mythic-Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology: A Constructive Interpretation of the Thought of Paul Ricœur

163 Pages·1971·3.56 MB·English

by  David M. Rasmussen (auth.)

MYTHIC-SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE
AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
A Constructive Interpretation 0/ the Thought 0/ Paul RicfBur
MYTHIC-SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE
AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
A Constructive Interpretation oj the Thought oj Paul Ric(Eur
by
DA VID M. RASMUSSEN
MARTINUS NI]HOFF / THE HAGUE / 1971
(i:) I97 I by Martinus Nijhoff. The Hague. Netherlands
Softvover reprint oft he hardcover 1st edition 1971
All rights reserved. including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
ISBN 978-94-011-8563-9 ISBN 978-94-011-9327-6 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-011-9327-6
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebeted to Paul Ricoeur for having created the body of thought
to which this book is critically and constructively addressed and for
choosing to respond to it with an essay. That essay should be read as a
further elaboration of hermeneutic phenomenology. I must also thank
Mircea Eliade whose insights into myth and symbol initially stimulated
this writer's interest. To Sandra and Anne, my gratitude.
DAVID M. RASMUSSEN
Department of Philosophy
February I, 1971 Boston College
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
I
I. A NEGATIVE CORRELATION BETWEEN MYTHIC-SYM-
BOLIC LANGUAGE AND THE NATURE OF MAN 6
A. From Language to Special Language 6
B. Bultmann: Hermeneutics and the Nature of Man 9
I. The Definition of Myth 10
2. The Problem of Hermeneutics I I
C. The Problem of a Negative Definition of Mythic-Symbolic
Language 15
II. METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES: FROM PHENOMENO-
LOGY TO HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY 24
A. Global Philosophical Anthropology 26
I. The Eidetic Method and Its Limitations 30
2. Existential Description and Its Limits 37
3. Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Language 40
III. FREEDOM AND GLOBAL ANTHROPOLOGY 51
A. Freedom and Nature 54
I. Freedom and Decision 55
2. Freedom and Action 57
3. Freedom and Consent 61
4. Freedom, Nature, and the Eidetic Method 66
B. Freedom and Fallibility 67
I. The Hypothesis 69
2. Epistemology and Fallibility 70
3. Action and Fallibility 71
4· Feeling 73
5. Freedom and Fallibility 74
C. Freedom and Fault 76
I. Symbol and the Servile Will 78
a. Stain 78
b. Sin 79
c. Guilt 79
2. The Symbols and the Servile Will 80
VIn TABLE OF CONTENTS
D. Myth and the Problem of Evil
I. The Cycle of Myths
IV. HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY AND LANGUAGE 86
A. Philosophy as a Hermeneutic 87
B. Philosophy as a Reflective Task 95
C. Structuralism and Phenomenology 102
D. Ricoeur's Hermeneutic: An Evaluation 107
E. Conclusion I I I
V. TOWARD A WORKING THEORY OF LANGUAGE CORRE-
LATED WITH A PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 113
A. Theory 115
I. Phenomenological Epistemology and the Possibility of a New
Anthropological Model 115
2. Hermeneutics: The Initial Validity of the Mythic-Symbolic
Form 118
3. Mythic-Symbolic Language and the Problem of Definition 120
4. Definition: The Validity of Mythic-Symbolic Language 120
a. Uniqueness 121
b. Dimensions of Experience 123
c. Meaning 124
5. Mythic-Symbolic Language and the Theory of Language 126
6. Mythic-Symbolic Language and a Global Understanding of
Man 127
7. Conclusion 128
B. Methodology 128
I. Hermeneutic Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Religion 128
WHAT IS A TEXT? EXPLANATION AND INTERPRETATION.
by PAUL RICOEUR 135
I. What is a Text? 135
II. Structural Analysis as "Explanation" 139
III. Towards a new Concept of Interpretation 144
Bibliography 151
Index 156
INTRODUCTION
This book will attempt to achieve a constructive and positive correla
tion between mythic-symbolic language and philosophical anthropolo
gy. It is intended as a reflection on the philosophical accomplishment of
Paul Ricoeur. The term mythic-symbolic language in this context
means the language of the multivalent symbol given in the myth with
its psychological and poetic counterparts. The term symbol is not con
ceived as an abstract sign as it is used in symbolic logic, but rather as
a concrete phenomenon - religious, psychological, and poetic. The task
inherent in this correlation is monumental when one considers the dual
dilemma of problematic and possibility which is at its heart. The prob
lematic arises out of the apparent difficulty presented by the so-called
challenge of modernity which seems to require the elimination of my
thic-symbolic language as an intelligible mode of communication.
Mythic-symbolic language is sometimes eliminated because in a world
molded by abstract conceptualizations of science, such a language is
thought to be unintelligible. The claim is that its "primitive" explana
tions have been transcended by our modernity. Others believe that
the problem of mythic-symbolic language is the problem of the myth.
If the mythic forms of language could be eliminated, the truth of such
language could be preserved through its translation into an intelligible
mode of discourse.
The problematic is heightened further by the relation of consider
ations of language to philosophical anthropology. Any consideration
of language involves a related view of the nature of man. It has been
suggested that contemporary men are somehow different from their
predecessors in the sense that they no longer require a mythic and sym
bolic mode of discourse. It is claimed that they live in a "scientific age"
which can be contrasted with a "mythic age." Therefore, men who
are influenced primarily by this contemporary scientific-historical
2 INTRODUCTION
epoch can ascribe no longer to the outmoded language of the symbol.
On the immediate level, this book is simply an argument for the
correlation between mythic-symbolic language and the nature of man,
predicated on the assumption that any view of language will bear with
it a correlative interpretation of the nature of man. For example, to
claim that the goal of language is to achieve univocal, transparent con
cepts, as Wittgenstein does in the Tractatus, assumes that language
must be formulated in such a way that it expresses the quintessence of
human rationality. To claim, like Ernst Cassirer and Susanne Langer,
that language, one of a number of symbolic forms, is composed of dis
cursive symbols, has as its basis and consequence, the assumption that
man is primarily homo symbolicus, a symbol forming being. In each
case a correlation between language and the nature of man is made, and
although that correlation may not be stated explicitly, it is assumed
implicitly. 1
But the argument for this correlation cannot be launched on neutral
ground, for if anything, this correlation has been stated negatively in
modern thought. A positive correlation is possible. This correlation
would affirm mythic-symbolic language in its primary form and in its
secondary (hermeneutically interpreted) form associated with a philo
sophical anthropology, an understanding of man which requires such
language. In a sense the issue is the necessity of a mythic-symbolic
mode of discourse. Does mythic-symbolic language have any specific
and necessary role, or is it better rejected in favor of another type of
language?
This issue is raised in part as the consequence of a study of the works
of Paul Ricoeur, the subject of this book. The question is the working
question that has resulted from a study of his works. Why should a
philosopher consider mythic-symbolic language at all? This is the
challenge of Ricoeur's thought. Why does mythic-symbolic language
present something to a philosophic investigation that is thought to be
unattainable otherwise? This is the question a study of Ricoeur raises.
Here we confront the question of a hermeneutic. The interpretation of
an author, a living author, is perhaps the most difficult of tasks. Inter
pretation really begins when the interpreter opens the first book, as
this interpreter did some years ago with Fallible Man. At that point
1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by D. F. Pears and B. F.
McGuiness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963); Ernst Cassirer, The PhilosoPhy 01
Symbolic Forms (3 vols.; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1953-57); Susanne
K. Langer, PhilosoPhy in a New Key (New York and Toronto: Mentor Book, 1951).
INTRODUCTION 3
the interpreter begins to formulate his question. Like the symbol, Ri
coeur's thought is multivalent. Consequently, this interpretation can
not bring together all the facets, all the meanings, of this prolific writ
er. In the last analysis, all the interpretations for all of the writings
are given through a reading of the basic works. Our hermeneutic of
this author is a modest task. However, the problem to which this her
meneutic found solution in Ricoeur's works is not a modest one. Ri
coeur's thought raises the question of meaning in a new way. It sug
gests a new direction for philosophy culminating in a phenomenological
hermeneutic.
A positive correlation between mythic-symbolic language and philo
sophical anthropology is that reflection which is derived as a consequence
of reading the works of Paul Ricoeur. If there is a sense of collabo
ration between author and interpreter it is this problem that the author
helped this interpreter to clarify.
There is a central theme in the writings of Paul Ricoeur. Fundamen
tally his thought emanates from the question "who is man" ? Methodo
logically his works represent a systematic quest for the resources for
understanding the nature of man. The problem is massive. It raises the
question of the resources for human meaning in our so-called contem
porary, modern and often nihilistic society. Are there sources of mean
ing beyond those which are autonomous and self-created? Are the
radical existentialists and the nihilists correct when they suggest that
the only sources for human meaning are those which are self-construct
ed? A reader of Ricoeur's works would suggest that they are not.
Herein one finds an argument against that kind of thinking. As Ri
coeur has stated so aptly, if the first Copernican revolution in philoso
phy was the discovery of the self in knowing, the second must be the
discovery of that which is given to the self. It is perhaps this generation
that will discover the limits of autonomy by moving beyond it. Myth
ic-symbolic language provides us with a given for this second Coper
nican revolution.
Such a movement in philosophical reflection is not simply progres
sive, futuristic, and eschatological; rather, it is something of a process
of anamnesis. It is not simply by the creation of meaning, but also by
its recovery that we can arrive at a philosophical anthropology. It is
this understanding that a prolonged reflection on Ricoeur's thought
gives us. It is this understanding that a hermeneutic of the symbol
gives us: discursive and non-discursive, latent and meaningful, mul-
4 INTRODUCTION
tivalent and enigmatic. An enquiry into its meaning may tell us some
thing that contemporary societies have forgotten.
This approach to the writings of Paul Ricoeur incorporates a two
fold attempt to understand both its methodological transformations
and the manner in which the central problem of the will with its as
sociated problems of freedom and limitation develop. To study Ricoeur's
thought is to involve oneself in a kind of methodological dialectic
which leads from the threshold of eidetic phenomenology to hermeneu
tic phenomenology. Ricoeur is a rigorous methodologist. A foremost
interpreter of Husserl, he has attempted to move beyond an eidetic
phenomenology of a Husserlian type (the classical form of phenomeno
logy) to a phenomenology of language incorporating a hermeneutic
method. To understand Ricoeur is to understand that methodological
transformation. But a method, after all, is that which is designed to
meet a set of problems. For Ricoeur the central problem for philoso
phical anthropology is the will. How does human freedom come to
terms with necessity? It is to meet this issue that Ricoeur's methodo
logy first, is established, and second, is transformed. That problem is
the central issue of Ricoeur's constructive thought, Philosophie de la
volonte. In its choice of subject Ricoeur's work becomes something of
an exercise in what must be the central issue of post-Kantian continen
tal philosophy. One finds the problem of freedom arising in the Kantian
notion of autonomy and the autonomous self creation of value, the ne
cessary free will, coupled with the existential and phenomenological
protest against modern forms of determinism in the name of freedom.
The problem of limitation is illustrated through the psychological re
velation of the unconscious and the modern positivistic interpretations
of man. In the last analysis Ricoeur opts for freedom. But it is a realis
tic view of freedom, a human freedom. It is this attempt to uncover the
meaning of freedom, confronted with limitation that drives him be
yond the limitations of an eidetic phenomenology (Le Volontaire et
l'involontaire, translated Freedom and Nature) to consideration of the
more radical limitation of fallibility (L'Homme faillible, translated
Fallible Man), and finally to the direct human encounter with evil
(La Symbolique du mal, translated The Symbolism of Evil). This prob
lem causes him to turn to a consideration of psychological symbol
ism (De l'interpretation: Essai sur Freud) and finally to the debate
with structuralism. It is this problem that causes Ricoeur to move from
an eidetic phenomenology to a hermeneutic phenomenlogy which fo
cuses upon language.