Thinking the flesh with Paul Ricoeur

Richard Kearney

pp. 31-40

in: Scott Davidson, Marc-Antoine Vallée (eds), Hermeneutics and phenomenology in Paul Ricoeur, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

Paul Ricoeur developed a phenomenology of flesh inspired by Husserl in the 1950s. But while this early phenomenology was developing strongly in the direction of a diagnostics of carnal signification—in tandem with Merleau-Ponty—once Ricoeur took the so-called "linguistic turn" in the 1960s he departed from this seminal phenomenology in order to concentrate more exclusively on a hermeneutics of the text. There are, however, some fascinating reflections in Ricoeur's final writings which attempt to reanimate a dialogue between his initial phenomenology of the flesh and later hermeneutics of language. I will take a look at these by way of suggesting new directions for a carnal hermeneutics—directions which might bring together the rich insights of a philosophy of embodiment (developed with Husserl and Merleau-Ponty) and a philosophy of interpretation (deriving from Heidegger and Gadamer).

Cited authors

Merleau-Ponty Maurice

Husserl Edmund

Heidegger Martin

Ricoeur Paul

Gadamer Hans-Georg