The development of Ricoeur's philosophical methodology: a study of Gabriel Marcel's influence on Ricoeur's hermeneutical phenomenology

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The development of Ricoeur’s philosophical

methodology: A study of Gabriel Marcel’s

influence on Ricoeur’s hermeneutical

phenomenology

Z Janse van Rensburg

orcid.org 0000-0001-9822-8860

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the

degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at the North-West

University

Supervisor:

Dr. Justin Sands

Co-supervisor:

Prof. Anné Verhoef

Examination: November 2019

Student number: 22131906

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The development of Ricoeur's philosophical

methodology: A study of Gabriel Marcel's

influence on Ricoeur's hermeneutical

phenomenology

By Zander Janse van Rensburg, BA Hons (Philosophy)

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus

Supervisors: Dr. Justin Sands Co-supervisor: Prof. A.H. Verhoef

2019 Potchefstroom

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Justin Sands and Prof. Anné Verhoef. To Dr Sands I give special thanks for spending so much time to shape me as a student of philosophy. It was an honour to be an apprentice of these two individuals. I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Tobie van Dyk for creating an environment where I could finish this project. I am gratefully indebted to his kindness and mentorship. Then I would like to thank Anneke Coetzee and Helah van der Walt for conscientiously tracking down the sources I needed to finish this project.

Lastly, I would like to thank my family. Firstly, my dear wife, Luwaney, who has stood by me since the first day of this project. Without my parents, this would not have been possible. Therefore, I would like to thank my father Willem and his wife Amanda Janse van Rensburg, my mother Leoni and her husband Hilton Wallace, and my new parents Jackie and Jaco. I will forever be inspired by their hard work and love for me.

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Abstract

Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology was developed through a vast and rigorous project, called the Philosophy of the Will. The first volume, Freedom and Nature: The voluntary

and the involuntary, was completed as a pure phenomenology. Here Ricoeur started to

encounter the limits of phenomenology, because of its inherent methodological limitations it could not account for all the aspects of lived experience. It was then through Fallible

Man that Ricoeur slowly started to remove the strict bracketing imposed on the project. In

doing so he could account for more aspects of lived experience. This project started to unveil the fact that lived experience could only be understood by studying the documents of life. As a result, Ricoeur developed hermeneutic phenomenology in The Symbolism of

Evil. This was Ricoeur’s first attempt to develop a hermeneutics that took the long route to

the question of ontology. In this project I argue that it was Marcel that laid the foundation for the development of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology by informing Ricoeur of the development of incarnate existence with being and having, as well as ontological mystery. The most important aspect of his influence came through primary and secondary reflection which informs Ricoeur’s work on the hermeneutics of symbol and myth.

Key concepts: hermeneutic phenomenology, phenomenology, Paul Ricoeur, Gabriel

Marcel, being and having, problem and mystery, primary and secondary reflection, existence, philosophical anthropology, symbol, myth

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Chapter 1: Introduction

The individual tends to appear both to himself and to others as an agglomeration of functions. As a result of deep historical causes, which as yet be understood only in part, he has been led to see himself more and more as a mere assemblage of functions, the hierarchical interrelation of which seems to him questionable or at least subject to conflicting interpretations (Marcel, 1949:1).

1.1 Introduction

1.1.1 Background to the development of Ricoeur’s philosophical development

The background to this study involves an understanding of the historical connections among several 20th_{century philosophers. What were their mutual concerns? What engaged} them and fascinated them? How did they handle their central conceptualisations methodologically? In particular, for this study I will focus on the relations between the thinking of Paul Ricoeur and his contemporaries, and especially Gabriel Marcel, because of his influence on Ricoeur. In this introduction, I shall therefore start by highlighting those ideas that are most relevant to the analysis of this relationship.

In its successive developments, Western philosophy has always found itself on either side of such dialectics, viewing them as being engrained in understanding of existence. The challenge has been to find the balance, or equilibrium, in the way it constructs its theories when dialectic thought carries the day, and become the conceptual vehicle or their principled starting point. Therefore, philosophers have resorted to critique the principles upon which philosophical movements evolve. For the most part, these movements are predicated on principles that lead to reduction or polarisation. Fortunately, as Western philosophy has progressed, philosophers have risen to the challenge to formulate common ground amongst credible theories, despite the reduction and polarisation that has been present in it.

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One of these philosophers is Paul Ricoeur. Those who have studied his work have found reconciliatory theory across disciplines such as psychoanalysis, literary criticism, history, religion, legal studies, analytic data analysis, health sciences, and politics – to name but a few. This makes Ricoeur perhaps one of the most versatile philosophers of the last century. He managed to develop a methodology that enables the philosopher to cross the borders of disciplines, whilst still upholding the integrity and adhering to the rules of each discipline. His famous method, hermeneutic phenomenology, is a carefully calibrated procedure constructed to be able to find the value of each subject of inquiry. Few philosophers have Ricoeur’s ability to critique and simultaneously find useful elements that contribute to a better understanding of the world. It is remarkable how Ricoeur manages to work through the thinking of others across the centuries without leaving any philosophy in the wake of a destructive criticism.

An accurate description of the nature of his work is encapsulated in Andrezej Wiercieński’s

Between Suspicion and Sympathy: Paul Ricoeur’s Unstable Equilibrium. In many respects,

this is the most befitting title for an edited volume on Ricoeur’s work. It evidences the dialectic characteristic referred to in the first paragraph. Wiercieński (2002:xi), editor of this volume (Between Suspicion and Sympathy), explains that the title refers to the “dialectical tension between Ricoeur’s two modes of hermeneutic investigation”. For Wiercieński (ibid.), Ricoeur has the ability to open up a complete spectrum of interpretation resulting in unstable, yet tenable equilibriums. Wiercieński (ibid.) observes that the “equilibrium, the disruption of equilibrium, and restoration of equilibrium create[s] a dynamic of strategy implemented by each micro-unit in establishing the unity and meaning” of any given subject of investigation. This pattern, apparent in all of Ricoeur’s work, is laced with the double movement of a suspicion (critical analysis) and a sympathy (a willingness to listen), without compromising rigor and obedience to the chosen method (Ricoeur, 1970:27).

Although Ricoeur’s philosophical intuition is evident, one should not disregard his capacity to trace methodological development and its subsequent ontological structures. This is so because Ricoeur has a keen sense of dissecting a given theory and examining the predicates upon which it functions. This movement of determining the essences and meaning of

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things, manifests in Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology. This is a unique combination, first of phenomenology, and then of hermeneutics – the former, when pushed to its limits, evolves into the latter.

Ricoeur’s methodology contributed to the field of phenomenology by employing a hermeneutical method to decipher the multiple meanings of phenomena as they are reflected in consciousness. He does so by addressing how meaning is mediated through being in phenomena like symbol, myth, dream, text, narrative and ideology (Kearney, 2004:13). His work seeks to reveal seemingly abstract or, following Immanuel Kant, transcendental concepts that are expressed through and within phenomena as hermeneutical gestures, where one is always already interpreting and the world is always already being interpreted. Regarding this hermeneutical process of interpretation and understanding, Ricoeur’s protégé Richard Kearney (2004:1) notes that “this fundamental hermeneutic question is based on the thesis that existence is itself a mode of interpretation (hermeneia), or, as the hermeneutic maxim goes: Life interprets itself” (Kearney, 2004:1). For Ricoeur, life cannot be understood without interpretation and, in turn, interpretation is nothing without human experience. This is why he combines hermeneutics with phenomenology. One of the most obscure problems in philosophy is the nature and degree of interpretation of the self as being part of the world, it is through a phenomenological method that we can reach a better understanding of reality and experience (Ballard, 1976:xx). In short, Ricoeur found that through the interpretation of all the dimensions of self, we can better understand the ways in which we search for meaning. Ricoeur’s philosophy is therefore largely concerned about how one can come to a better understanding of being, how philosophy aids this discovery by looking at how one is hermeneutically situated within the world, and how this understanding helps one to become a ‘true’ or ‘authentic self’. In this regard, Ricoeur’s work is an important and necessary contribution to philosophers (like Marcel – see the quote at the beginning of the introduction) who wish to contemplate ‘the self’, intersubjectivity with other selves, and how ‘the self’ operates in the world in which it is situated.

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1.1.2 On hermeneutic phenomenology

Domenico Jervolino (2003:1) points out that Ricoeur is well known for his philosophical contributions, but that few understand the significance of and development leading up to this method. Ricoeur’s method, hermeneutic phenomenology, was initially developed through a vast and rigorous project, the Philosophy of the Will. This project was originally intended to be solely based upon Husserlian phenomenology. It was only when he discovered that he had reached the limits of phenomenology that he began augmenting his approach to the question of ontology by grafting his particular style of hermeneutics on phenomenology. It was a result of necessity and what he perceived as a failure partly due to his chosen methodology. Moreover – perhaps due to this methodological shift – Ricoeur would never complete the project – originally intended as a trilogy – Ricoeur eventually published the first text, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary. He then split the second volume Finitude and Guilt into two separate parts, Fallible Man and The

Symbolism of Evil. He would never complete the final intended volume, Poetics of the Will.

The significance of this development in Ricoeur’s thought cannot be underestimated. The shift from a solely phenomenological method to a hermeneutical phenomenology would change his entire career trajectory, thereafter every project on which he worked would in some way bear the marks of a careful hermeneutic scrutiny. Given the stakes of this major shift, it is imperative to analyse how his methodology has developed. By gaining a deeper understanding of how his method developed, we can perhaps attempt to project the unwritten volume. In addition, we may shed light on the decisions he made on projects to follow. The Philosophy of the Will is the most suitable place to start, because here Ricoeur debuted his thoughts to the world in a coherent and extensive manner.

The Philosophy of the Will is one of the first great examples of the convergence of philosophical methods in Ricoeur’s work. It is largely based on two influences, namely Edmund Husserl and Gabriel Marcel. Both Husserl and Marcel can be considered as Ricoeur’s most prominent mentors since 1934-5, where he met Marcel for the first time (at the famous Friday gatherings). In the same period, he discovered Husserl’s writings

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(Ricoeur, 1995:6).1_{The Philosophy of the Will was a product of Ricoeur’s doctorate studies} at the University of Strasbourg. Here he began to teach in 1948, and would later defend his doctorate in 1950 (Ricoeur, 1998:10). During this period, most French universities required doctoral students to complete two theses, one minor and the other major. Ricoeur’s minor thesis was a French translation of Husserl’s Ideas I, hence indicating Husserl’s influence on his early development.2 The major thesis was a longer technical work which would eventually become the first volume in the Philosophy of the Will, Freedom and Nature:

The Voluntary and the Involuntary (initially published in French as Le Volontaire et l’involontaire) published in 1950 (Blundell, 2010:65; Kohák, 1966:xii).3_{These two major} influences – the work of Husserl, and the mentorship of Marcel – are to be considered the core of Ricoeur’s early development.

Philosophy of the Will was a crucial stage of development for Ricoeur’s hermeneutic

phenomenology, which forms the foundation of his entire methodological development. Erazim Kohák (1966:xvi) explains that the trilogy of Philosophy of the Will was to frame the concept of the human will in three ways.4 Firstly, the framing was conceptually

achieved through eidetics, then through empirics, and lastly through poetics. Eidetics refers to the pure phenomenological method. Both Freedom and Nature and Fallible Man were studies within pure phenomenology, which in short means that some elements of lived experience were bracketed in order to highlight the necessary phenomena under scrutiny.

Bracketing refers to the exclusion of certain aspects of reality, and the demarcation of one’s

conceptual target. Thus, Freedom and Nature was an attempt to develop a systematic understanding of the will and what was free (voluntary), and what was nature (involuntary). What was excluded here, were transcendence and fault (ideas that will be addressed below).

Fallible Man was an extension of the previous project, where Ricoeur explores the

fallibility, or finitude of humanity (where evil becomes possible) through the means of his

1_{In, Gabriel Marcel and Phenomenology, Ricoeur speaks of a twofold debt he owed to Husserl and Marcel (Ricoeur,1984:471). Here}

Ricoeur refers to Husserl and Marcel as his mentors, however Ricoeur never met Husserl personally he did hold his work in high regard and was in a life-long dialogue with his work, particularly his phenomenology.

2_{Ricoeur translated while he was in detained in a prison of war camp during World War II, he prepared the translation in the margins}

of the book (Pellauer & Dauenhauer, 2016).

3_{Freedom and Nature was a dedicated to Marcel (Ricoeur, 1966; Philibert, 1979:137).}

4_{Erazim Kohák was the first to translate Le Volontaire et l’involontaire into English, and he also wrote an extensive translator’s}

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phenomenological anthropology (Lowe, 1986:vii). It is in this work that Ricoeur’s phenomenology confronts its own limits and, therefore, allows Ricoeur to shape his method into a new direction leaning towards hermeneutics (Kearney, 2004:13). Subsequently, The

Symbolism of Evil explores symbol and myth that demonstrates how evil possibly

actualises in existence. Accordingly, The Symbolism of Evil introduced the reader to the necessity of hermeneutics as an extension of the phenomenological approach as a method to better understand the human will with all its degrees of complexities.

1.1.3 On being-in-the-world and the extension of phenomenology

While formulating a philosophy of the will, Ricoeur simultaneously developed what Kohák (1966:xiii) would call a methodological instrument to describe a “systematic philosophy of man’s being in the world”. This project was perhaps inspired by the classic mind-body problem, or dualism, produced by the idealistic and reductionist nature of the philosophy of the Cartesian Cogito. Rather than considering the question as the duality of body and soul, or a similar dialectic, Ricoeur recasts the question as one between freedom (in other words, one’s free or voluntary will) and nature (in other words, one’s embodiment as an incarnate being and all of the involuntary consequences in it). According to Ricoeur (1978:3), he was seeking a pathway to “revitalize the classical problem of relations between freedom and nature, by proposing between them a practical mediation”. Herbert Spiegelberg (1965:575) argues that Ricoeur has at least three main points of interest in the study of the Will. Firstly, by way of Marcel’s ‘mystery of being’ (or as the third term as Ricoeur refers to it), Ricoeur sees an opportunity to elaborate on the concept due to his interest in philosophical anthropology.5_{Secondly, this study (Philosophy of the Will) acts} as a sounding board for testing the phenomenology of the essences (eidetics), thus pursing the possibilities of the human essences. And thirdly, Ricoeur scrutinises and explores the possibilities of idealism latent within Husserl’s phenomenological method. This study,

5_{In addition to Spiegelberg, Pellauer & Bernard (2016) argue that Ricoeur had a major interest in the idea of the “capable human being”.}

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according to Spiegelberg (1965:575), “prepares the way for a deepened and cautious interpretation of human freedom.” By framing the question as a relationship between freedom and nature, or as one between finite and infinite, Ricoeur manages to circumvent the issue of establishing another form of dualism.

Ricoeur found that although phenomenology was a suitable instrument for discovering the fundamental capabilities of the human self, he discovered the limits of phenomenology. An adaptation of methodology was needed to finish the project, and Ricoeur was then able to extend the possibilities of the phenomenological method. Though many see this as Ricoeur reaching the limits of Husserl’s method – or even Ricoeur revealing a glaring problem in Husserl’s method – most are either unaware of, or gloss over, Marcel’s contribution to this project.

It is the intention of this analysis to show how Ricoeur ingeniously enables the methodologies of Husserl and Marcel to lead the reader into new philosophical and methodological territory. These two influences, of both Husserl and Marcel, each act as a relay for the limitations of the other. Therefore, it is important to consider both Husserl’s and Marcel’s contribution to particularly Philosophy of the Will as the foundation of Ricoeur’s oeuvre.6_{What I intend to highlight in this project, and what is often overlooked,} is Marcel’s contribution to aid Ricoeur’s understanding of dualism and its inherent dangers, which will eventually offer a possible solution to the mind-body dualism in modern philosophy.

1.1.4 On the influence of Gabriel Marcel on Paul Ricoeur

Ricoeur’s most prominent readers are probably more likely to highlight the influence of Husserl, rather than that of Marcel. Yet, when Marcel is mentioned, there are few that commit to a deeper analysis of his influence. Ricoeur noted in his intellectual

6_{Don Ihde (1971) notes that the incorporation of both Husserl and Marcel in Freedom and Nature appeared to have cultivated a sublet}

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autobiography that he had significant relationship with Marcel (Ricoeur, 1995:7). One gathers that Marcel’s influence was both personal and intellectual especially pertaining his philosophical development. Yet, philosophical influences are not necessarily of a logical order, and sometimes originate from non-philosophical experiences.

In his exploration of Ricoeur’s work, Leo Garcia studies the fundamental experience of Ricoeur’s philosophical reflection. Garcia (1997:141) asserts that every “philosophy, whether it be in the form of a systematic paradox, arises from a primordial core of experience which it its vital source, assuring the organic unity of its parts”. Garcia (ibid.) explains that the “original source (Ursprung)” of philosophy comes from a non-philosophical source. He calls it an “inexhaustible intuition”, the inspiration of the experience. Therefore, Garcia (ibid.) urges that a philosophy should be grasped by also exploring its “central intuition, its manifold development, its organic interconnections or its systematic organization. It is a centripetal movement that goes against the centrifugal movement of explanation by sources”.

We know today that Ricoeur has read all of Marcel’s work before he met him in Paris (Ricoeur, 1998:9). In addition, Ricoeur attended the famous Friday evenings hosted by Marcel. This can therefore be counted as one of Ricoeur’s original sources of inspiration. Ricoeur was captivated by philosophy from a young age of seventeen, since his final year in high school around 1929-30 (Ricoeur, 1995:3). Notwithstanding, there is a definite connection between him and Marcel, because Ricoeur was moved, like others, by Marcel’s philosophical style. Ricoeur (1998:23) recollects:

At Marcel's [sic] one had the impression that thinking was alive, that it was doing the arguing. Moreover, when one reads Gabriel Marcel one often has the feeling not of effusiveness, far from it, but of a constant dynamic approximation, spurred by the concern with finding the right word. We argued in this way every week, for two or three hours, very actively, having the audacity to think for ourselves, which compensated in large measure for the historical culture that was dispensed at the Sorbonne.

Marcel’s philosophical work is profound, his rhetorical style is unique, and his arguments have resonated with significant names in the French philosophical community (for instance

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Wahl, Pierre Boutang, Walker Percy and Simone de Beauvoir).

In a conversation with François Azouvi and Marc de Launey, Ricoeur was asked: “Among French philosophers, which one did you most feel the presence of?” (Ricoeur, 1998:31). Ricoeur (ibid.) answers, “Gabriel Marcel is by far the person with whom I maintained the deepest relationship, beginning in the year of my agrégation, 1934-5, and again later, visiting him periodically up to his death in 1973.” He continues to say “I believe that this is what I fundamentally owe to him: to have dared to try to do philosophy and to do it in a situation assumed polemically – and this was, moreover, the kinship he saw between theatre and philosophy”. But this does not mean that Ricoeur was a disciple of his philosophy. Ricoeur (1998:24) sadly reports:

If I have moved away from his philosophy, it is not because of his deep convictions, but because of a certain lack, in him, of conceptual structure. His is fundamentally an exploratory thinking that slips from one concept to another, an idea playing the role of a melodic frame for a series of variations; thinking by conceptual affinity, where one idea is specified by a neighbouring idea. I would not go so far as to call it associationist thinking, but it does proceed by means of assonances and dissonances. In general, the intellectual distances taken from him by his closest acquaintances by no means diminished the affection he had for them. When I wrote my book on Freud, I have to say, however, that he disavowed me.

Ricoeur says that Marcel felt that he had fallen prey to the “spirit of abstraction” (see Chapter 2). But Ricoeur (1998:25) confesses that he had “always needed order and, if I reject any form of totalizing system, I am not opposed to a certain systematicity.” But Ricoeur (ibid.) admits the following, however: “Gabriel Marcel and Mircea Eliade – of whom we shall speak – are two examples of men who had a strong influence on me in our relations of friendship, but I never submitted to the intellectual constraints of being their disciple. These men made me free.” So in truth, one will not find an explicit trace of his influence. One finds that Marcel’s influence is not as explicit as one hopes, like in the manner we can see the presence of Husserl in Ricoeur’s work. But what is evident is that some of Marcel’s most fundamental ideas somehow found their way into Ricoeur’s work.

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This is the very focus of this project to analyse the implicit influence Marcel had on Ricoeur.

1.2 Research question

Marcel’s influence on Ricoeur’s works originated from both personal relations and from sharing the same academic curiosity, or focus. Marcel and Ricoeur’s lifelong personal and academic relationship is a first indication that Marcel may have had a significant effect on Ricoeur’s work. In his intellectual autobiography, Ricoeur reflects upon these encounters with Marcel and says it had a profound effect on his life and work. Amongst these encounters are the famous weekly gatherings on Friday evenings, when Marcel invited students to his home to argue different philosophical concepts. Marcel challenged his students to practice a method he developed, known as “secondary and primary reflection” (Ricoeur, 1995:7). If one adds to this list Ricoeur’s dedication of Freedom and Nature: The

Voluntary and the Involuntary to Marcel, a case can be made for Marcel’s significant

influence on Ricoeur, especially during his work on the Philosophy of the Will. The evidence of influence by Marcel on Ricoeur shall be presented by taking a closer look at Ricoeur’s movements of thought.

In light of Marcel’s personal and intellectual relationship with Ricoeur, the central research question of this study is:

In what particular way did Marcel influence Ricoeur’s thinking?

More specifically, it may be asked:

How did Marcel influence the development of Ricoeur’s philosophical methodology as hermeneutical phenomenology?

The question will especially focus on the time that Ricoeur wrote the Philosophy of the

Will, because it is during this time that he developed his hermeneutical phenomenology as

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subsidiary questions which will also be investigated in this study. These questions are mainly intended to elaborate on the possibilities of the primary research question and they include (without being limited to) the following:

1. How did Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology develop over the course of his first three books (The Philosophy of the Will), namely Freedom and Nature: The

Voluntary and the Involuntary, Fallible Man, and The Symbolism of Evil?

2. What are the central themes closely linked to or rooted in Marcel’s philosophy that may have influenced Ricoeur’s philosophical methodology?

3. How do these central themes in Marcel’s philosophy correspond to and possibly influence Ricoeur’s development as a hermeneutic phenomenologist?

4. How did Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology develop in Philosophy of the Will, as influenced by Marcel and eventually forming the conceptual basis of his (Ricoeur’s) long route to being?

1.3 Hypothesis

Marcel influenced Ricoeur’s thinking in a very particular way, namely in the development of Ricoeur’s philosophical methodology as hermeneutical phenomenology. This is especially evident in Ricoeur’s Philosophy of the Will, where he started to develop his hermeneutical phenomenology as philosophical methodology. As well as the long route that Ricoeur consequently developed as an outcome. These mentioned above could be considered to be significant outcomes of the fruitful relationship between Ricoeur and Marcel. Therefore, this study aims to show how Marcel acted as a major philosophical influence on Ricoeur throughout Philosophy of the Will, and subsequently throughout his career. By analysing Marcel’s apparent influence on Ricoeur, we will also gain insight into how Ricoeur has managed to build bridges between disciplines, and how his work can be applied to other disciplines. In addition, the reciprocity of the influences of Husserl’s and

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Marcel in Ricoeur’s work will help us gain a better understanding of how Ricoeur can analyse philosophy, for example with both suspicion and sympathy.

The hypothesis is based on central concepts in Marcel’s work, namely ‘being and having’, ‘problem and mystery’, and ‘primary and secondary reflection’. A close analysis of these concepts reveals tenable similarities between major elements of Ricoeur’s work, especially in Philosophy of the Will. Marcel’s work on being and having proposes another alternative to the theme of embodiment and a solution to dualism that has been associated with the mind-body philosophies. Ricoeur’s rendition of being and having is done in a highly systematic order, due the fact of what Ihde (1971:9) mentions of Ricoeur’s apprehension with the inexactness of Marcel’s work. Being and having nonetheless has a significant place in Freedom and Nature. It is here where Ricoeur fuses these two themes to show how that the self cannot be reduced to a dualism, or into independent realities.

In Freedom and Nature, Ricoeur makes a valuable contribution, namely that the self could be considered as a being with limited freedom, and as a capable being. Within the frame of being a self with limited freedom, Ricoeur formulates Fallible Man. It is perhaps not by coincidence that one finds methodological traces here of Marcel’s problem and mystery. If one takes a closer look at the terms of Marcel’s concepts, it is evident that they do not produce dialectical concepts, whereas Ricoeur’s main mode of interpretation is the dialectic. However, this significant difference does not negate the fact that Ricoeur did not adopt the concept of mystery. I would argue that this is one of the differentiating and foundational aspects of Marcel that Ricoeur drew on. Perhaps Ricoeur wanted to add structure to the notion of mystery. It meant that Ricoeur delineated his work with the prevailing acceptance of dialectics. It was partly through dialectics that he was able to communicate the notion of mystery in a way that could be understood by Ricoeur’s fellow phenomenologists.

By problematising the two poles of existence (finite and infinite, also with the help of Kant), Ricoeur extends his work to find the third term of being, which could easily be translated as the mystery of being. That third term is the reconciliatory moment that so often, as will be shown below, occurs in Ricoeur’s thought. Human existence, taken as a

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mixture of body and soul, mediates life between the finite and infinite. The mystery of being is perhaps what makes the human one of the most unique beings in the cosmos. However, this distinct uniqueness creates conditions for being that creates forms of transcendence, which in turn opens the possibility of evil. As is evident throughout history, the study of evil has been complicated and vast. Through his hermeneutic phenomenology, however, Ricoeur has made huge strides towards a better, or at least novel understanding of evil. I will argue in this study that Marcel’s notion of primary and secondary reflection has played a crucial role in the eventual development of this significant philosophical methodology of Ricoeur. It is by means of hermeneutic phenomenology that Ricoeur is able to analyse the mystery of being through symbol and myth as linguistic phenomena, as will be indicated in this study.

Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology has become known as the method that takes the ‘long route’ to being, as opposed to the ‘short route’ of Heidegger and Sartre. Ricoeur challenges their view that “being is accessible through the ‘short route’ of human existence (Dasein)”. Their short route “understands itself through its own possibilities” (Kearney, 2004:1). It is only through the long route of mediated interpretation, Ricoeur will argue, that we can begin to grasp the vastness of being. In this study, I argue that Marcel played a crucial part in Ricoeur’s development of his hermeneutical phenomenology and the taking of the ‘long route’.

1.4 Scope of the project

When Ricoeur joined the faculty at the University of Strasbourg, he started doing in-depth study of at least one philosopher per year. This, coupled with the fact that French basic education includes a significant syllabus of philosophy, shows that Ricoeur was exposed to a whole range of philosophers before he started his work on the Philosophy of the Will. That makes a study of the influences on the further development of his thought challenging. This is why I have chosen to concentrate on the influences of Marcel. Therefore, I will focus on Marcel through three primary concepts of his and compare them to the three

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publications of Ricoeur, particularly those in Philosophy of the Will. Here I will trace how the three concepts of Marcel are present in Ricoeur’s Philosophy of the Will.

In Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Paul Ricoeur, Marc-Antoine Vallée takes a different route to Ricoeur’s early development, by noting the influence of Karl Jasper. As a consequence, Vallée (2014:3) distinguishes Ricoeur’s initial ‘bifocal’ approach before the post-Conflict of Interpretations long-route. Vallée gathered this after a reading of Ricoeur’s earliest publications, on Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, in 1947, up to his

Philosophy of the Will (including Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil). Ricoeur’s first

formal encounter with the ontological problem was in his first two books, Karl Jaspers et

la philosophie de l’existence (co-published with Mikel Dufrenne in 1947) as well as Gabriel Marcel et Karl Jaspers. Philosophie du mystère et philosophie du paradoxe, which

he published by himself in the same year (ibid.). Due to the limitation of this study, I only focused on Marcel’s influence, on Ricoeur’s thinking, as opposed to that of Jaspers. Furthermore, I shall not present an in-depth study of Husserl and Immanuel Kant. I do, however, cover the phenomenological method throughout this study. This does not mean that I disregard the influence of Husserl on Ricoeur, since it is evident that Ricoeur used the phenomenological method throughout his career. Lastly, I did not do an in-depth study of the Cartesian Cogito, but I touch upon it in Chapter 5.

1.5 Chapter allocation

The chapters of this project are allocated in such a manner as to emphasise the development of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology. The development of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology is systematically demonstrated in chapters 2 through 4. In Chapter 3, I discussed Marcel’s concept of being and having, and how this may have influenced Ricoeur’s Freedom and Nature. In Chapter 3, Marcel’s concept of problem and mystery will be discussed, and how its influence can be traced in Ricoeur’s Fallible Man. Chapter 4 is also where I discuss Ricoeur’s The Symbolism of Evil and Marcel’s primary and

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secondary reflection, which is the forerunner of hermeneutic phenomenology. Chapter 5 binds all the previous chapters by way of a discussion on Ricoeur’s long route to the question of ontology. Chapter 6 concludes this project.

1.6 Limitations of this study

Due to the scope of this project I will not be able to elaborate on all the influences on the work of Ricoeur. I will also not be able to go through every influence Marcel had on Ricoeur and, because Ricoeur was so prolific and focused on various topics, it would be hard to do a complete review of his oeuvre. Doing so might arbitrarily create a narrative thread throughout his oeuvre that would not be accurate.

1.7 Research methodology

This project was conducted by means of literature review, because I am not aiming to analyse a specific phenomenon, or a critique against Marcel, Ricoeur, or any other particular thinker. Therefore, a literature review is the best methodology for this project. I think that my investigation will lead to a better understanding of Ricoeur’s work, especially the work done in the Philosophy of the Will. Below is an explanation of the texts I have studied for the purpose of this research.

I identified the appropriate texts that will help me understand how some of the main themes and theories function in Marcel’s philosophy, and for this I identified The Mystery of Being. This text was first presented by Marcel at the University of Aberdeen at the prestigious Gifford Lecture Series. According to Treanor (2006:54). The Mystery of Being is one of only two texts in Marcel’s oeuvre which has a structured treatment of his work. I decided to follow Marcel’s development of his argument on how philosophy should be conducted and ‘the broken world’, because these themes provide the necessary foundation to

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understand how Marcel’s philosophy functions.7_{This should provide a fair understanding} of his method and how it has shaped the development of the main tenets of his philosophy. In order to accurately demonstrate Marcel’s influences, I had to read Marcel in his own terms. In the same way it is necessary to read Marcel apart from any specific philosophical tradition. Marcel did not subscribe to one particular philosophical movement, and therefore he is often misread as a phenomenologist or an existentialist. Both Brian Treanor (2006:55) and Herbert Spiegelberg (1965) explain that Marcel has been associated with phenomenology due the proximity of his writing to known phenomenologists of his time. Yet, it is evident in Marcel’s work that rigid phenomenology is not compatible with his work. Treanor (2006:55) also mentions that Marcel’s readers have classified him as an existentialist. Although he employs existentialism, one cannot easily align his work with existentialists like Kierkegaard or Nietzsche. Spiegelberg (1965:423) notes, however, that the term existentialism gained popularity through Sartre, with whom Marcel did not want to be associated due to personal disagreements as well as fundamental difference between their philosophical approaches. For a brief period, Marcel agreed to the term Christian

existentialist, though in the end Marcel was more content with the term suggested by a

friend, namely Neo-Socratic (Treanor, 2006:55). Treanor (ibid.) notes that the term compared to Socrates’ dialogic emphasis, and the notion that philosophy is a “journey or a process rather than a destination or a goal, and thus often concluded with an aporias-like admission of the limits of human reason”. From what I have mentioned above, it is clear that it is a difficult task to classify Marcel’s philosophy. Therefore, I will exclude unnecessary references to phenomenology and existentialism in order to perpetuate the wrongful association. This will help guide me in reading Marcel as he presents himself throughout his work.

In reading the work of Ricoeur I first consulted the text contained in his unfinished project, the Philosophy of the Will. I first started with the Freedom and Nature to see how Ricoeur formulated his eidetic phenomenology, which helped me to understand how he used the

7_{Marcel (1950:3) mentioned that this publication has afforded him the opportunity to revisit and revise his work. This allows for a}

systematic reading as opposed to his journal-style of writing in earlier publication. Amongst other reasons, Marcel’s journal format has led to a fragmentary development. Take for instance the themes of the spirit of abstraction, embodiment and ontological exigence. These

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will to anchor his argument on the actualisation of the Cogito. After this, I followed his argument through Fallible Man in the form of the philosophical anthropology. Here, Ricoeur introduced the idea that man is experiences disproportion, as the symbol of fallibility. The symbol of fallibility as the first sign of fault developed into hermeneutics in

The Symbolism of Evil. This study provided a solid foundation for my understanding of

Ricoeur’s work. Consequently, I studied the most prominent secondary literature to see how Ricoeur’s readers interpreted his work. For this I did a close reading of scholars such as Don Ihde, Richard Kearney, and Boyd Blundell. In these readings I found significant clues about what Marcel’s influence entails. Other supporting materials are Ricoeur’s own intellectual autobiography and conversations with François Azouvi and Marc de Launey.8 These insights were indications of how I could trace Ricoeur’s most remarkable contributions to that of Marcel, especially the idea of mystery of being.

1.8 Additional considerations on Husserl and Marcel

Since Husserl had such a profound influence on Ricoeur, it is beneficial to highlight some relations between Ricoeur’s philosophy and that of Husserl’s. This will provide some background to the importance of Husserl and the use of phenomenology. In the latter part of this section I will contrast the phenomenological approach with that of Marcel’s metaphysical approach.

Ricoeur had an interest in Husserl’s work from the beginning of his career, as is illustrated by his translation of Ideas I. His work with Husserl continued in the Philosophy of the Will, although in a form of an extension of his phenomenology, and later Ricoeur would sharply critique Husserl in Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology. Ricoeur’s general critique of Husserl has lead authors like Scott Davidson (2013:209) to humorously label Ricoeur as one of the “Husserl heretics” (others include philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas), since Ricoeur was among the first generation of French philosophers who criticised

8_{See Ricœur, P., Azouvi, F., & Launay, M. B. D. 1998. Critique and conviction: conversations with François Azouvi and Marc de}

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Husserlian idealism. Although Husserl’s phenomenology was under extreme scrutiny, it led to the development of a whole new branch of philosophy which would include some of the most influential scholars of the 20th_{century, like Martin Heidegger, Maurice} Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Husserl was the principle founder of phenomenology and had a great influence on almost all areas of philosophy (Beyer, 2018). However, Husserl’s academic endeavours did not initially include an avid interest in philosophy, and when he started his academic career at the University of Leipzig he was interested in astronomy with a special interest in mathematics and physics (Kockelmans, 1994:1). It was only when he transferred to the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin that he gained interest in philosophy, when he returned to Vienna, where he studied for a short period. Here his exposure to Franz Brentano led him to dedicate his life to philosophy, under the guidance of Brentano (Kockelmans, 1994:2). Brentano introduced Husserl to the concept of intentionality and the relation between science and philosophy, which later became some of the central tenets of Husserl’s phenomenology (ibid.).

Husserl posited a philosophy as rigorous science and a variation of analytical philosophy. He strove to solve philosophical problems with a method that would promote certainty. Ballard (1967:xiv) indicates that the novelty of Husserl’s phenomenology is the techniques it provides for removing the “prejudices which ordinarily are interposed between ourselves and phenomena as they are presented, and secondly in developing interpretations of the self and its phenomenal world”. Resultantly, Husserl theorised that the real threat was our own complacent ‘natural attitudes’, where we are alienated by our experience and therefore must distance our intellectual endeavours from these inclinations. Consequently, Husserl attempts to reach an unadulterated philosophy.

According to Richard Kearney (2004:15), Ricoeur “rejects Husserl’s notion of an ultimate foundation of knowledge to be achieved by an ‘absolute suspension of presuppositions’ ”. The self-positing Cogito (absolute intuition) posed a problem for Ricoeur because of its optimistic objectivity and reduction of being. The Cogito, as conceived by Husserl before

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referring to this dualism, Ricoeur (1978:4) states that “we must reintegrate consciousness in the body and the body in the consciousness”. Thus, this is where Ricoeur was lead to apply the philosophy of Marcel.

Marcel had no interest in the primacy of the object or the reduction of the subject. Ricoeur (1984:477) argued that whereas Husserl was interested in strict reduction of the subject and its natural attitude, Marcel wanted to revert to the existence of the subject. This Marcel ensured through his main methodology, namely secondary reflection. The main tenant of Marcel’s philosophy is constructed upon the notion of primary and secondary reflection, which is evident in Ricoeur’s methodology in Philosophy of the Will. Treanor (2006:65) explains that primary and secondary reflection is concerned about two kinds of questions: problem (primary) and mystery (secondary). Primary reflection represents the first level of questioning, which is technical in nature. It concerns itself with abstracting external objects.

The secondary reflection seeks to unify experience by directing questions internally. Throughout Marcel’s Gifford lectures (and specifically the first volume, The Mystery of

Being: Reflection and Mystery) one can recognise this movement from the primary to the

secondary. When Marcel (1950) identifies a philosophical problem, he first reflects upon it on a primary level, and thereafter he attempts to unify it with real-life experience on the secondary level. Likewise, this movement is evident in the latter part Ricoeur’s Freedom

and Nature. In defining the voluntary and involuntary, he reverts back and forth between

the primary (Husserlian phenomenology) and secondary reflection (Marcellian existentialism). This method allows Ricoeur to utilise both the Husserlian system problematising the will and Marcellian reflection to incorporate lived experience as a mystery that the subject participates in. Marcellian reflection affords Ricoeur the ability to test the eidetic analysis, thus both methods function in reciprocity.

Ricoeur chose these two influences to guide the reader through his enterprise of constructing his own philosophy of the will. For Ricoeur, the Husserlian methodology was a philosophy of rigorous science that could be used to extend and improve upon Marcel’s own methodological limitations (Ricoeur, 1998). As a result, Ricoeur incorporated

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Husserl’s method, namely eidetic analysis (Ricoeur, 1995:12). The eidetic analysis enabled Ricoeur to take a secondary look at how consciousness functions and how it perceives itself by identifying the essence of the will. The existential influences occurred largely from Marcel, along with others like Merleau-Ponty. Kearney (2004:17) asserts that Ricoeur’s philosophical encounters with Marcel’s “concrete philosophy” made a lasting impression on him. Kearney goes so far as to say that Ricoeur believed that any philosophical reflection had to reckon with Marcel’s analysis of ‘incarnate existence’.

Marcel’s philosophy of incarnate existence was part of the influence which led Ricoeur towards the question of the totality of being, for Ricoeur philosophy should not fall victim to reductionism. Thus, the reductive properties of the Husserlian method of intentional analysis were the shortcomings from which Ricoeur steered away, but instead of negating intentional analysis, Ricoeur finds a methodological tool adequate to the task of elaborating it into a systematic philosophy of man’s being in the world. Thus, it poses a challenge to draw the lines between the convergence of the methods. However, it is possible to find the roots of influences by a close analysis of the final product, namely Philosophy of the Will, while comparing it to the methods of Husserl and Marcel. Consequently, this will enable us to differentiate where Ricoeur adheres to method and where he strategically deviates. Deviations are essential, because no philosophical method is all-encompassing.

List of abbreviations

FN Freedom and Nature: The voluntary and the involuntary

FM Fallible Man

PW Philosophy of the Will

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List of figures

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Chapter 2: A study of the Marcel’s concept of

being and having and its apparent influence on

Ricoeur’s Freedom and Nature

2.1 Introduction

This chapter offers a description of Marcel’s theory of being and having and its influence on Ricoeur’s first major book, FN. FN is a study where Ricoeur develops the foundation of his life’s works, yet this volume remains one of the least cited books in his oeuvre. The significance of FN cannot be overstated because it initiates Ricoeur’s study of being-in-the-world, which is the Philosophy of the Will’s primary contribution. In order to do this, Ricoeur developed what Kohák (1966:xiii) would call ‘a methodological instrument to describe man’s being-in-the-world in a systematic philosophy’. This project was largely inspired by the classic mind-body problem introduced by Descartes’ Cogito, and its developments in continental philosophy after its inception. Simms (2010:10) argues that Ricoeur’s key to addressing the problem was to frame the question as one between freedom (i.e. one’s free or voluntary will) and nature (i.e. one’s embodiment as a physical being and all the involuntary consequences of it). In so doing, Ricoeur (1978:3) sought a pathway to “revitalize the classical problem of relations between [human] ‘freedom’ and ‘nature’, by proposing between them a practical mediation”.

Ricoeur’s formulation of the practical mediation forms the backbone of Philosophy of the

Will, and would ultimately influence his hermeneutic phenomenology. Herbert Spiegelberg

(1965:575) claims that Ricoeur had at least three main points of interest in the study of the will. Firstly, by way of Marcel’s pursuit concerning the mystery of being (or incarnate existence) – like a practical mediation but chosen not to be described in technical terminology. In addition, Ricoeur sees an opportunity to elaborate on the concept of the will due to his interest in philosophical anthropology. Secondly, this study lends itself as a

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sounding board for testing the phenomenology of the essences (what Ricoeur calls eidetics used in FN), thus pursing the possibilities of the human essences (ibid.). And thirdly, Ricoeur studies the idealism that is laced within Husserl’s phenomenology, but Ricoeur applies phenomenology in such a way as to address its own limitations purposefully.9 Lastly Spiegelberg (ibid.) argues that “it prepares the way for a deepened and cautious interpretation of human freedom”.

Consequently, FN prepares the way for the rest of Philosophy of the Will. In FN, Ricoeur studies the ambiguous relationship between the voluntary and the involuntary aspects of being. In so doing, he sought help from various disciplines, and then developed a “guide in bridging the gap between phenomenology and the empirical sciences” (Kohák, 1966:xv). Ricoeur developed a “process of uncovering intentional structures embodied in empirical descriptions” (Ibid). Through this process he was able to uncover the fundamental possibilities of humanity in the modes of willing. The modes of willing are known as integrative moments in which we experience daily life (a distinct style akin to that of Marcel to work from life to philosophy). The dynamics of the modes of willing are considered to be the manifestation of the reciprocity between the voluntary and the involuntary of life. In order to grasp their existence, Ricoeur applied the phenomenological method, with the emphasis on its descriptive character. By way of phenomenological description Ricoeur could draw clearer lines on how the voluntary and involuntary negotiate to make life possible. As a result, Ricoeur demonstrated how the Cogito becomes actual within the world. In a sense one could argue that Ricoeur is using Marcel’s theory on incarnate existence to reintroduce philosophy to body. From here on, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics would always adhere to the findings of FN, as for instance in Ricoeur’s work on the hermeneutics of action (Thompson, 2016:xxvi).

Ricoeur’s rendition of incarnate existence has connections to many concepts in Marcel’s work. There is not a page that Marcel writes that does not include some example from being and its incarnate existence. Don Ihde (1971:8) comments that Marcel’s theory of the

9_{It is worth noting that that Husserl, in Ideas vol. II, analyses embodied consciousness in terms of ‘having a}

body’ and ‘being a body’ (Kearney, 2011). This does not, however, negate the argument presented here, but acts as reinforcement for the author’s argument that Ricoeur converges various methods, i.e. Husserl and Marcel.

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mystery of being had a major influence on FN. Ihde (1971:8) indicates that “Ricoeur early followed [sic] the Marcellian teaching concerning incarnate existence – I am my body – but diverged from it to a degree in that he considered it a premature solution to the philosophical problem of the body”. When Ihde says “early”, he is referring to Ricoeur’s work on the body in FN. Ihde (ibid.) explains that FN explores Marcel’s work on being and embodiment, but then slowly changes to hermeneutics in FM and SE that prepares the way for Ricoeur’s ‘linguistic turn’.10 Perhaps Ricoeur became so fascinated by language and the troubles it bears for interpreting existence that he felt that it is only through an understanding of language that we can adequately understand being qua incarnate existence.

Therefore, the crucial question is:

How could Marcel’s theory on “incarnate existence” (partly presented as being and having) have influenced Ricoeur’s work in FN, more importantly how has this contributed to Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology?

By gaining a better understanding we may discover some new ways of reading the work of Ricoeur – not just FN, but also PW and beyond. I will approach this chapter by firstly studying Marcel’s theory of being and having, and secondly by studying Ricoeur’s FN. Then I will conclude by drawing the lines from Marcel to Ricoeur.

2.2 Marcel on being and having: an account of incarnate existence

To link being with having, we first need to look at Marcel’s formulation of his understanding of being. Marcel’s work on being is strongly linked to the idea of the ‘spirit of abstraction’, considered to be a guiding thread througout Marcel’s work. Marcel’s pursuit was to identify where the spirit of abstraction manifests, especially in concrete situations, and to warn his readers of its consequences for being. It would then be beneficial

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for the development of my argument to provide a short overview of theory on the spirit of abstraction and its relation to the question of being. Thereafter, it will become apparent how the concept of being and having is tied to the idea of the spirit of abstraction.

Busch (1968:99) says that “‘abstraction’ can be equated to objectifying thought, instrumental reason, having, and the problematic”. Thus, the term abstraction is used by Marcel (1968:102) to explain the cognitive task to “make a preliminary clearing of the ground, and of course this clearing of the ground can appear the strictly reasonable thing to do”. According to Marcel, the mind must retain some preciseness to reach some sort of goal. Yet, Marcel argues that this method of abstraction tends to become the prevailing method, which is why he likens it to a ‘spirit’, a mode of being and/or interpreting.

The term “spirit of abstraction” is then applied to describe a mode of interpreting reality and the phenomena that is contained in it. This implies that there is a range of various means of interpreting the world around us, each of which is suited for its own contexts. The problem to which Marcel is pointing, is that the spirit of abstraction is not suited for questions regarding ontology. Marcel (1968:103) argues that “as soon as we accord to any category, isolated from all other categories, an arbitrary primacy, we are victims of the spirit of abstraction”. The issue with the spirit of abstraction, however, is that when being is interpreted through the spirit of abstraction, we tend to disengage with the subject (ourselves and others selves) and nature as if it were instruments as a means to an end – in other words, we objectify. Yet, abstraction is what is required to make scientific work possible. It is only when abstraction is applied to the question of ontology that it leads to objectification with no chance of reconciling it with the totality of its being. In consequence, an objectified being leads to loss of being.

To understand that a loss of being is of grave concern for Marcel, his conception of ontology first needs to be outlined. In what follows, I will therefore present a brief overview of Marcel’s theory of ontology. This will also shed light on how Marcel’s theory of ontology has influenced Ricoeur’s work. Marcel’s theory of ontology infers an absolute positionality (an absolute point from where I experience my existence), almost like the theory of perception in phenomenology. This leads one to conclusion that Ricoeur

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essentially incorporated Marcel’s theory of ontology in his work. To aid his study, Ricoeur utilised the phenomenological method to systematically describe the phenomenon of the embodied being, or incarnate existence – thus, taking cue from Marcel but unpacking it systematically.

2.2.1 Marcel’s critique against a definition of “being” as metaproblematic

Marcel recognised that the way in which ontology is defined, strongly influences the way we come to understand being – perhaps also influencing our experience of being. Marcel, for instance, rejects the use of the term “metaproblematic” to describe being. At the International Philosophy Convention in 1937, Marcel objected to the use of the term “metaproblematic”, a term also used by Heidegger (Marcel, 1987b:275). Marcel’s (1987b:275) position firstly was that “being … is at a level beneath all objectivity. But one would be guilty of serious confusion if he therefore concluded that being in on the side of

the subject, for that would be just another way, completely fallacious, of localizing being

in a separate region of the world of things.” Here, Marcel has a fundamental problem with the objectification of ‘being’ in any way, and instead opts for the idea that being is “beneath all objectivity”. The reason for this is that if being is not interpreted and understood as a mystery, it is problematised, and thus objectified. Marcel’s objections to the term

metaproblematic are clearly illustrated in his concept of problem and mystery.

Below, I will briefly describe the concepts problem and mystery to illustrate one of the essential elements of Marcel’s work. To argue against the spirit of abstraction, Marcel identifies that phenomena can be differentiated by framing them as either a problem or a mystery. This distinction made determines its relation to the subject, it can either be before or part of the subject. So, Marcel (1949:117) explains that a problem is something that is placed before me and that I have no direct association with it, and therefore it is something that I have to analyse. On the other hand, Marcel (ibid.) explains that a mystery is something in which I am involved myself. This means that there is no apparent distinction of what is before me or what I participate in. Put differently, a problem is something that

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is objectified before the self, whereas a mystery involves the self and which is part of its being. This is why Marcel (1967:19) describes mystery as a “problem that encroaches on its own data”. Hence, to problematise something is to subject it to an analysis that removes the involvement of the self and to treat the problem as an independent reality. There is no indication that Marcel had any objections towards problematisation as such, except that it should be applied to questions not relating to ontology, such as the empirical sciences. Marcel thus proposes that when the question of ontology is being addressed, we need to approach it as a mystery.

To apply this notion to the metaproblematic, Marcel suggests that we use terms to better describe ontological mystery. Marcel (1987b:275) argues that “no doubt it would be better to introduce the word ‘hypoproblematic’, which much better indicates that here we are

beneath the level where problems have their place”. Being is not defined here, but it

provides clues, such as the directionality of interpreting ontology. According to Busch (1987:265), Marcel exchanges the term metaproblematic for two terms that better describe ontology as hypoproblematic and hyperproblematic (beneath or above the problematic). As will be indicated below, these two terms used by Marcel denote that being positions itself by either immanence or transcendence. Busch (ibid.) explains that the hypoproblematic signals being as grounded in life, or immanence. Being in this sense refers to embodiment, as in incarnate existence. As opposed to immanence, Marcel’s term

hyperproblematic refers to transcendence. As a result, one can identify Marcel’s hyperproblematic with his concept of ontological exigence, in other words transcendence

of my situation which denotes fulfilment and plenitude. Marcel’s theory of ontological exigence will be discussed in the next chapter, but in short this term refers to the tendency to transcend to better circumstances. This implies a middle ground or mediation, namely ontological mystery. Marcel proposes two ways of describing being that involves the idea of mystery.

Taking into account Marcel’s point of the irreducibility of being, we can turn to his theory of being and having. In what follows I will discuss how Marcel’s theory of being is applied

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to the theme of embodiment, because it builds towards how this theme has informed Ricoeur’s work in FN.

2.2.2 Being and having, and embodiment

If being cannot be problematised it is, therefore, a mystery which implies that being participates in existence and this participation is contingent upon a body. (It is important that this mystery should not be mistaken for the incomprehensible). This brings us to Marcel’s work on embodiment, and the idea that “I have a body”. The auxiliary verb “have” is important here, because if we say we “have” a body, our bodies become possessions. Thus, Marcel highlights in “being and having” an interplay between the idea of “being” and the notion of “possession” (cultivating ideas of ontological dualism of being). By saying that we “have a body”, we are therefore objectifying our bodies. Marcel sharply critiques this notion, by saying that being without the body is non-being, but – as will become clear – the body cannot “be” body without mind. Treanor (2006:61) describes being and having as follows: “insofar it is my body, [it] is both something I have and something that I am, and it cannot be fully accounted for using either of these descriptions alone”. Marcel stresses the relation between being and having and he infers that that the two cannot be separated from one another – the one actualises the other.

Treanor (ibid.) says of the body: “I can look at my body in a dissociated manner and see it instrumentally. However, in doing so, in distancing myself from it in order to grasp it qua object qua something that I have, it ceases to be ‘my’ body.” The consequence of objectification of the body is problematisation, which inevitably leads to the destruction of the subject. But a soon as one reflects (also referred to as “secondary reflection”, which I address in Chapter 4) upon one’s own being, the body becomes aware of itself. This is evidently what Ricoeur explores in his Philosophy of the Will, namely the awareness of our bodies and how this awareness opens up to being. As soon as the subject becomes aware of its body, it becomes aware of its incarnate existence. Therefore, Marcel proposes that “it can no longer be something that I have pure and simple – the body is also me, it is what I

The development of Ricoeur's philosophical methodology: a study of Gabriel Marcel's influence on Ricoeur's hermeneutical phenomenology

The development of Ricoeur’s philosophical

methodology: A study of Gabriel Marcel’s

influence on Ricoeur’s hermeneutical

phenomenology

Z Janse van Rensburg

orcid.org 0000-0001-9822-8860

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the

degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at the North-West

University

Supervisor:

Dr. Justin Sands

Co-supervisor:

Prof. Anné Verhoef

Examination: November 2019

Student number: 22131906

The development of Ricoeur's philosophical

methodology: A study of Gabriel Marcel's

influence on Ricoeur's hermeneutical

phenomenology

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Research question

1.3 Hypothesis

1.4 Scope of the project

1.5 Chapter allocation

1.6 Limitations of this study

1.7 Research methodology

1.8 Additional considerations on Husserl and Marcel

List of abbreviations

List of figures

Chapter 2: A study of the Marcel’s concept of

being and having and its apparent influence on

Ricoeur’s Freedom and Nature

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Marcel on being and having: an account of incarnate existence