Thesis: From transcendental subjectivity to narrative identity. Time and subject from Husserl's phenomenology to Ricoeur's hermeneutics
Abstract: the aim of this research project is to study the philosophical path through which Ricoeur claims at once to inherit the authentic tenet of Husserl’s phenomenology while overcoming it towards an hermeneutical phenomenology. According to Ricoeur, the connection between these two philosophies is twofold: hermeneutics, as interrogation of sense, is indebted to phenomenology, which, in its turn, assumes the hermeneutic condition of interpretation. However, for hermeneutics to be grafted on phenomenology, the latter must abandon the idealistic domain of transcendental philosophy. The graft of hermeneutics on phenomenology entails a major shift within the phenomenological domains of temporality and subjectivity: the direct experience of time described by Husserl must be mediated, according to Ricoeur, by the act of narration, whose function contributes furthermore to the constitution of a narrative identity, as a new subjectivity at the crossroad of individual and community, history and fiction, and whose aim is to replace transcendental subjectivity. A critical analysis focusing on the entire theoretical path through which Ricoeur selectively transforms Husserl’s phenomenology into a hermeneutics would allow to address three main questions, which will shed light on the entire relation between the two philosophers. Which traits of Husserl’s phenomenology are the actual targets of Ricoeur’s critique? How effective is Ricoeur’s systematic critique of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology? Is it still possible to find within Ricoeur’s hermeneutics some traits of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology? By following the thread of temporality and subjectivity, it will be possible to measure the validity of Ricoeur’s critique and to assess his attempt to build a hermeneutics on the ruins of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. The final purpose of the research is to determine whether Ricoeur’s graft necessarily implies the abandonment of the transcendental horizon and the denial of all its consequences, and to measure the effective debt that Ricoeur owes to Husserl.
