Key Influences on Ricoeur: Karl Jaspers

Ricoeur was a prisoner of war from 1940 to 1945. During this period, Ricoeur spent a great deal of time studying the complete works of the German existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers.

According to Thornhill (2008) Jasper's work is "a subjective-experiential transformation of Kantian philosophy, which reconstructs Kantian transcendentalism as a doctrine of particular experience and spontaneous freedom, and emphasizes the constitutive importance of lived existence for authentic knowledge." Jasper's most important philosophical work is His three volume Philosophy.

Each of the three volumes explores a different way of being: orientation (vol. 1), existence (vol. 2) and metaphysical transcendence (vol. 3). Jaspers considers these three ways of being as the essential existential modalities of human life.

Thornhill (2008) writes,

Each level of being in Jaspers' Philosophy corresponds to one of the Kantian transcendental ideas, and the modes of thinking and knowing defining each level of existence elucidate the intellectual content of Kant's ideas. The level of orientation in the world corresponds to the idea of the unity of the world; the level of existence corresponds to the idea of the soul's immortality; the level of transcendence corresponds to the idea of God's necessary existence. However, whereas Kant saw transcendental ideas as the formal-regulative ideas of reason, serving, at most, to confer systematic organization on reason's immanent operations, Jaspers viewed transcendental ideas as realms of lived knowledge, though which consciousness passes and by whose experienced antinomies it is formed and guided to a knowledge of itself as transcendent. Jaspers thus attributed to transcendental ideas a substantial and experiential content. Ideas do not, as for Kant, simply mark the formal limits of knowledge, marking out the bounds of sense against speculative or metaphysical questions. Instead, ideas provide a constant impulsion for reason to overcome its limits, and to seek an ever more transcendent knowledge of itself, its contents and its possibilities.

Ricoeur's first book following his World War II captivity was Karl Jaspers et la Philosophie de l' Existence, co-authored with his friend and fellow prisoner, Mikel Dufrenne. In the 1950's Ricoeur had the intention to complete a three-part work titled Philosophy of the Will. In reality only two sections of the tripartie conception were formally completed: The Voluntary and the Involuntary and Finitude and Guilt (two volumes Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil).

In an interview with Charles Reagan (1996), Ricoeur reveals both how Jaspers influenced this project and how part three Poetics of the Will was completed through other endeavors.

The trilogy that I proposed in the preface to the philosophy of the will is clearly inspired by the trilogy in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers. . . . In his trilogy, the first part was called "Exploration of the World," the second "Existence," and the third "Transcendence and Metaphysics." This is the format I planned for my future work. . . . I deviated from this plan because of the development of the philosophy of the will itself. That is to say, I began with a reflexive method borrowed from Husserl . . . . the continued goal is less important than the change in method . . . . what I call the grafting of hermeneutics onto phenomenology. . . . As for the third part of the plan . . . I would claim that what I have already called a poetics of the will was accomplished in other modalities. (pp. 123, 124).

Ricoeur, in his conversation with Reagan (1996) gives the example of three of his works which accomplish the third part of his initial plan. First, The Rule of Metaphor examines the creativity in language on the semantic level. Second, Time and Narrative is concerned with the creativity of language at the level of constructing plots, and third, Idelogy and Utopia is an investigation of the social imagination.


References

Reagan, C. E. (1996). Paul Ricoeur : His life and his work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thornhill, Chris, "Karl Jaspers", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Key Influences on Ricoeur: Gabriel Marcel

Dauenhauer (2008) divides Ricoeur's professional works into two periods. The first is the pre-hermeneutic anthropology period. The second is the hermeneutic anthropology period. Ricoeur's works in the pre-hermeneutic anthropology period (prior to 1960) fall within the tradition of existential phenomenology. During the 1960's Ricoeur's work took a literary turn and his work integrated phenomenological description and hermeneutic interpretation.

The remainder of this post begins a discussion of Ricoeur's pre-hermeneutic anthropology period. Ricoeur's early works were particularly influenced by three philosophers Gabriel Marcel, Karl Jaspers, and Edmund Husserl. First we will take a look at the influence of Gabriel Marcel (pictured above) on Ricoeur.

Marcel (1889-1973) and Ricoeur first meet in 1934 while Ricoeur was studying at the Sorbonne. Marcel had a great influence on his personal life and his professional work. Marcel, a Catholic, is often associated with Christian existentialism, though He later resisted this designation. Consequently, both Marcel and Ricoeur are in the philosophical lineage of Soren Kierkegaard who is considered the "father of existentialism".

Treanor (2009) makes clear the significant influence of Marcel on the work of Ricouer.

Marcel's influence on contemporary philosophy is apparent, for example, in the work of Paul Ricoeur, his most famous student. Through Ricoeur, Marcel has influenced contemporary philosophy in and around the hermeneutic tradition. The pattern of “detour and return” that characterizes Ricoeur and some of his students closely resembles Marcel's dialectic of primary and secondary reflection.^[13] Likewise, Marcel's understanding of otherness—illustrated by his image of “constellations,” conglomerations of meaningfully connected but non-totalizable beings—is an explicit challenge to philosophers of absolute otherness including Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and John D. Caputo, and a valuable resource for philosophers with a chiastic understanding of otherness, including Ricoeur and Richard Kearney.

In my next post, I'll examine the influence of Karl Jaspers on Ricoeur.

References

Dauenhauer, Bernard, "Paul Ricoeur", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Treanor, Brian, "Gabriel (-Honoré) Marcel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Paul Ricoeur and Philosophic Anthropology

Dauenhauer (2008) asserts that the ultimate aim of Ricoeur's philosophy can be described as a philosophic anthropology. According to Dauenhauer, Ricoeur referred to his work as an anthropology of the "capable person". Ricoeur's aim was to give an account of the fundamental capabilities and vulnerabilities that we display, as humans, in our ordinary lives. The accent is always on the the possibility of self-understanding. However, he rejects any notition that the self can be transparent to itself without any reference to or knowledge of the an exterior world.


Dauenhauer, Bernard, "Paul Ricoeur", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

A Classic in Millennial Studies

Norman Cohn's work, The pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and it Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements (1961), is a classic work in the field of millennial studies. It is also, perhaps surprisingly, relevant to today's contemporary environment of religious terrorism. Cohn was one of the first scholars to identify the phenomenon of apocalyptic violence which he refers to as militant, revolutionary chiliasm (p. 309). Cohn traces apocalyptic violence from the viewpoint of a historian. Concluding his work, Cohn discusses the two major totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, Nazism and Communism, and connects them with medieval apocalyptic movements. This book, according to the Times Literary Supplement, is rank among the 100 most influential books of the 20th century.

Getting to my Guess

Ricouer's interpretation theory consists of three stages (1) The Guess, (2) Validation, and (3) Comprehension and Appropriation. Right now I' m thinking about the Guess. This is the phase where one elucidates one's preliminary understandings of the text. Here one allows the text speak and takes its discourse at face value. In phenomenological terms, one observes as the text reveals itself through the appearance of various horizons. One then makes a preliminary guess concerning the meaning of these horizons apart from exegetical inquiry.

Horizons are similar to themes. However, horizons are unlimited and they are never static. For example, when I gaze into the sunset on the horizon, the way the horizon appears to me changes because I change my physical proximity to it, the descent of the sun, the movement of the clouds, or the appearance or disappearance of people or objects on the horizon that I had not anticipated. Likewise, horizons that appear in lived experience or in text become visible and recede or change as new aspects previously hidden to me come into my view.

So, how will I get to my Guess regarding John's Apocalypse? Because I am approaching John's Apocalypse not as prophetic literature but as narrative, I am beginning with David Barr's analysis of this text as three interrelated stories about Jesus. Barr structures the text around three scrolls: (a) the Letter Scroll (1:1-3:22), (b) the Worship Scroll (4:1-11:18), (c) the War Scroll (11:19-22:21).

In order to develop my Guess I plan to write 3 articles of around 1200 words each, one article for each Scroll. In these articles, I will simply observe and document the horizons that appear to me and describe their relationship to my research question which is: What does organizational leadership mean in a chaotic, nihilistic, and apocalyptic era?

Catching Up

Well, I can't believe its been almost 10 months since I posted to this blog. I took on new responsibilities at work and my dissertation went on the back burner. I had hoped to graduate this May, but that is not going to happen. So, I have to pick myself up and start again.

Not finishing is not an option!

So, let's review what has worked well in the past.

1) writing at least 200 words a day worked well.
2) spending an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening writing worked well.

I am still working on the Literature Review. I've gotten really tired of this section. So, on the advice of my Chairperson, I am going to start writing the Methodology chapter to take a break.

On the positive side. the first chapter of my dissertation was one of six winners of the Christian Business Faculty Association Dissertation Showcase. I presented the paper at the CBFA annual conference in Indianapolis this past November.

Making Progress

My recommitment to the dissertation progress is going well this week. As planned I got up at 4:00 am and wrote for an hour. It really feels good starting the day having finished an hour's work on my dissertation. It's very motivating for coming back to spend an hour in the evening.

So this morning, I finished the section on Aum Shinkiyo. I've included it below for those who are interested. This evening, I began working on a definition of religious apocalypticism. I'll be sharing segments of that work as it comes together.

So, tomorrow my goal is another two hours of work, one in the morning and one in the evening. I will continue to build the definition of religious apocalypticism.

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Aum Shinkiyo and its leader, Shoko Asahara, gained the attention of the world in March 1995 when they released sarin gas into several Tokyo subway trains. According to Lifton (2003) Aum Shinrkiyo was a relatively small cultic group that acting upon its “vision of cosmic purification” (p. 57). The attack was not “apocalyptic” in its scope, killing only 12 persons. This limited loss of life occurred because Aum Shinkiyo knew Japanese authorities were closing in on the group, which caused the rushed execution of the attack. “The group’s plan had been to release enormous amounts of sarin later that year in order to create a major disaster and set in motion a series of catastrophic events and so fulfill its guru’s world-ending prophecies” (pp. 57, 58).

The cult was an eclectic mix of religious belief and practice. Its religious roots were Buddhist, but heavily influence by strains of early Tibetan Buddhism closely tied to Hinduism. In fact, Asahara, claimed Shiva, the Hindu world-destroying and restoring Hindu deity, as his personal god. Nevertheless, Asahara grounded his apocalyptic vision in the Christian concept of Armageddon. In addition, the group practiced high states of mystical experience often associated with New Age spirituality (pp 65, 66). Aum Shinkiyo’s aim was to be the sole survivors of an apocalyptic end of the world, who would “respiritualize a cleansed and vacant world” (p. 71).

Reference

Lifton, R. J. (2003). Superpower syndrome : America's apocalyptic confrontation with the world. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books.