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History and Phenomenology: Dialectical Structure in Ricoeur's The Symbolism of Evil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Stephen N. Dunning
Stephen N. Dunning
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

A recent rereading of Paul Ricoeur's influential study, The Symbolism of Evil, led me to a surprising realization: the dialectic of primary symbols in that book, which superficially resembles the dialectic of subject and object found in many phenomenological studies of religion, can be extended to Ricoeur's analysis of myths and even to his hermeneutical program. The result is a systematic dialectical structure which recalls Hegel's phenomenology more than that of Husserl. This structure also suggests a solution to the problem Ricoeur encounters when he tries to understand the historical linkage between the Christian myth of Adam's fall and the Gnostic myth of the soul exiled in the body. Most significantly, the systematic structure of The Symbolism of Evil helps to illustrate the radical difference between transcendental and historical phenomenologies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 343 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

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References

1 (trans. Buchanan, Emerson; Boston: Beacon, 1967)Google Scholar. Originally published as Finitude et culpabilité, vol. 2: La symbolique du mal (Paris: Aubier, 1960).Google Scholar

2 For a discussion of Ricoeur's extensive work on Husserl, see Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1978) 2. 563–79.Google Scholar

3 Schrader, George, “Hegel's Contribution to Phenomenology,” The Monist 48 (1964) 18–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Ibid., 24–26.

5 Ibid., 26.

6 Ibid., 27–30.

7 Schrader reserves the word “dialectical” for the Hegelian tradition. I prefer to distinguish between two types of dialectic: transcendental and historical.

8 (trans. Carman, John B.; The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960).Google Scholar

9 (trans. Turner, J. E.; New York: Harper & Row, 1963).Google Scholar

10 See Guthrie, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement (New York: Norton, 1966) 201, 268–69.Google Scholar

11 This sequel is mentioned on 3, 249 n. 309.

12 John David Stewart seems to have reached a similar conclusion by analyzing Ricoeur's other theoretical writings. See his article, “Paul Ricoeur's Phenomenology of Evil,” International Philosophical Quarterly 9 (1969) 572–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 “Reflection” is also Stewart's term for the third stage, but he calls the first “description” and the second “hermeneutics.”

14 One recent example is Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley: University of California, 1976) 371– 73.Google Scholar

15 In particular, Ricoeur observes that the myth of primordial chaos “anticipates typologically the most subtle ontogeneses of modern philosophy, especially those of German idealism” (177). A corollary is discerned in their agreement on the necessity of evil or a negative moment (327). Even more striking is Ricoeur's praise for the idealist interpretation of Adamic myth: “In transcribing the movement from the ‘old man’ to the ‘new man’ in Adamological terms, St. Paul opened the way to all the ‘progressivist’ theologies of history…. That is why there is less of error in the interpretation of the Adamic myth given by German idealism than in all the dreams of a return to an earlier paradise” (272–73).

16 A striking exception is Bellah, Robert N., “Religious Evolution,” in Bellah, Robert N., Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World (New York: Harper & Row, 1970) 20–50.Google Scholar

17 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method (trans. Barden, Garrett and Cumming, John; New York: Continuum, 1975).Google Scholar