Paul Ricoeur and the hermeneutics of translation

Research in Phenomenology

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 147-159

  Kearney, Richard ^a  

^a BOSTON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Ethics; Hermeneutics; Hospitality; Memory; Translation

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149339083     PISSN: 00855553     EISSN: 15691640     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156916407X185610     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Paul Ricoeur, Sur la traduction (Paris: Bayard, 2004); translated by Eileen Brennan as On Translation (London: Routledge, 2006).
2. I am indebted to Dominico Jervolino for this reference to Dolet and to several other sources on the history of translation cited below. See Jervolino's illuminating paper, "The Hermeneu tics of the Self and the Paradigm of Translation," presented at the Rome International Conference on Translation (April 2004) and his Introduction to La traduzione: Una sfida etica (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2001), 7-35.
3. See also his pioneering essay, "Herméneutique et traduction. L'autre, l'étranger, l'hôte," Archives de Philosophie 63 (2000): 79-93.
4. Antoine Berman, L'épreuve de l'étranger (Paris: Gallimard, 1984).
5. "The Hermeneucics of the Self," 6;
6. see also Paul Zumthor, Babel ou l'inachèvement (Paris: Seuil, 1997).
7. Emile Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-europèennes (Paris: Minuit, 1969).
8. Sur la traduction, 19-20.
9. George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).
10. For an excellent analysis of the ontological aspects of translation see John Sallis, On Translation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002).
11. "The Hermeneutics of Self," 8;
12. see also Jervolino, "Translation as Paradigm for Hermeneutics and Its Implications for an Ethics of Hospitality," in Ars Interpretandi vol, 5 (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2000), 57-69.
13. and "La question de l'unité de l'oeuvre de Ricoeur: La paradigme de la traduction," Archives de Philosophie 4 (2004): 659-68.
14. Ricoeur, "Reflections on a New Ethos for Europe," in Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of Action, ed. Richard Kearney (London: Sage, 1996), especially the section entitled "The Model of Translation," pp. 4-5.
15. Ricoeur, La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli (Paris: Seuil, 2001), 657;
16. translated by David Pellauer as Memory, History and Forgetting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
17. "Reflections on a New Ethos for Europe," 5-14.
18. Another plea for a certain kind of understanding, wisdom, and phronetic 'reason' as alternatives to panic and fear before terror is offered by Corey Robin, "Reason to Panic," in "Fear itself," special issue, The Hedgehog Review 5, no, 3 (Fall, 2003): 62-80.
19. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Sheed and Ward, 1975), 273f.
20. This principle of radical hermeneutic plurality calls for an equally radical pluralist politics. I would suggest a political theorist like Chantale Moufle offers some interesting possibilities here when she talks about moving beyond an 'antagonistic' politics of us-versus-them to a more democratic 'agonistic' politics that fosters a robust and creative conflict of interpretations. She argues that when the political channels are not available through which conflicts can take an 'agonistic' form, they degenerate into die 'antagonistic' model of absolutist polarization between good and evil, the opponent being perceived as an 'enemy' or 'demon' to be destroyed. The mistakenness of apocalyptic politics is evident here. But there is a more subtle error committed by certain strands of liberal rationalism and individualism when they ignore the crucial motivational role played by communal affects, passions, and identifications in our contemporary world. Mouffe concludes that the goal of genuine democracy is nor to move from a bipolar to a unipolar system of politics but to foster the emergence of a multipolar world with a balance among several regional poles allowing for a plurality of powers. By converting antagonism into agonism, we are allowing dissent to express itself within a common symbolic space, rather than resorting to violence. Adversaries thus become legitimate opponents, rather than illegitimate enemies. This, she suggests, is the only way to avoid the hegemony of one single hyperpower or the collapse into violent chaos. See her book, On the Political, (London: Routledge, 2005).
21. "Reflections on a New Ethos," 9.
22. See also Ri coeur "Memory and Forgetting" and "Imagination, Testimony and Trust," in Questioning Ethics, ed. Mark Dooley and Richard Kearney (London: Routledge, 2004), 5-11 and 12-17.
23. See also on this subject of critical and empathic remembrance, R. Kearney, "Narrative and the Ethics of Remembrance," in Questioning Ethics, 18-30.
24. See also Francis Clooney Hindu God, Christian God, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 26-27;
25. Buddhists Talk about Jesus, Christians Talk about the Buddha, ed. Rita Gross and Terry Muck (New York: Continuum, 2002);
26. Swami Tyagananda, "Harmony of Religions," (lecture, Harvard University, April 8, 2000) (www.vedanta.org).
27. For a more elaborate analysis of this point see Ricoeur, "Love and Justice," in Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneuties of Action, 23-40.
28. See also here Ricoeur's concluding section on "Difficult Pardon" in Memory, History and Forgetting and Derrida's more deconstructive notion of 'impossible pardon' in On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London: Routledge, 2001).
29. Notions of unconditional love, pardon, and compassion are by no means the exclusive preserve of the great monotheistic or religious Wisdom traditions. They are also centrally present in the philosophical tradition of ancient Greece, as we have noted elsewhere: see the conclusion to "On Terror" in my Strangers, Gods and Monsters (London: Routledge, 2003), 137: "Theseus sets out to slay the Minotaur. But Socrates declines that option. He argues instead that the Monster is best resisted by the guiding principle: 'do not harm, no matter what the circumstances'. Socrates prefers to stay on in the city than to become a murderer of its laws by escaping. Resolving to address the hidden cause of the Monstrous, rather than simply slay the beast, Socrates confirms his basic philosophy that it is better to suffer than to do wrong. He says no to the lure of sacrificial vengeance. He refuses to scapegoat."
30. On the challenge of responding creatively, spiritually and therapeutically to our hidden monsters of fear, terror, and darkness, see Thomas Moore, Dark Nights of the Soul, (New York: Gotham Books, 2004).
31. Julia Kristeva, "Forgiveness," PMLA 117, no. 2 (March 2002): 282
32. cited by Kelly Oliver in "Forgiveness and Subjectivity," Philosophy Today 47, no. 3 (2003): 280.
33. Oliver offers a very useful critical overview of some of the most significant discussions of forgiveness in contemporary psychoanalysis and deconstruction, with particularly instructive attention to the work of Derrida, Arendt, and Kristeva. She concludes her analysis with a plea for an ethics of the unconscious, capable of combining responsibility with forgiveness: "Subjectivity requires revolt and transgression in order to individuate but it also presupposes forgiveness in order to belong to the community.... The revolt of those excluded from the dominant order... is seen as uppitiness, perversion or terrorism. Their revolt is not forgiven-This withholding or foreclosure is an essential part of domination and oppression, which operate through the colonization of psychic space precisely by denying the possibility of sublimation, revolt and forgiveness." She proposes this response: "The notion of the unconscious gives us an ethics of responsibility without sovereignty We are responsible for what we cannot and do not control, our unconscious fears and desires and their affective representations. In addition, we are responsible for the effects of those fears, desires and affects on others. This impossible responsibility entails the imperative to question ourselves and constantly engage in self-critical hermeneutics, which also gives meaning to our lives. Responsible ethics and politics requires that we account for the unconscious. Without doing so we risk self-righteously adhering to deadly principles in the name of freedom and justice." (289).