Maria Sidorova 1
Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of Action: From Interpreter to Actor
2024,
vol. 23,
No. 3,
pp. 201–226
[issue contents]
It is difficult to find a text by Paul Ricoeur in which the hermeneutics of action is presented as a whole concept. However, the philosopher constantly returns to the problem of action, developing his own project of hermeneutical philosophy. This article analyzes Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of action as a theory formed in two stages: the social action hermeneutics and the action hermeneutics within the concept of the “capable man”. The study shows that the social action hermeneutics consists of semantics and poetics of action and its basis is the hermeneutics of text. The action hermeneutics in the concept of “capable man” is presented as a result of Ricoeur’s answers to four questions about the “who” of the self: “Who is speaking?”, “Who is acting?”, “Who is recounting about himself or herself?”, “Who is the moral subject of imputation?” The stages of action hermeneutics are analyzed as concepts with different responses to the question of who comprehends the action. In the hermeneutics of social action, he who gives meaning to the action is an interpreter. In the concept of “capable man”, he is an actor. The interpreter is the reader and creator of the social meaning of the action. Ricoeur assigns this role to representatives of the social sciences (historians or sociologists). An actor is a self or a subject capable of doing things, giving meaning to their actions and taking responsibility. As a result, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of action can be understood as a concept that integrates various themes from his philosophical work (such as textual hermeneutics, narrative theory, phenomenology of self and ethics) as well as different philosophical approaches to understanding action: Anglo-Saxon and Continental. The findings of this paper can be used to examine and analyze Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and the history of the philosophy of action more broadly.
Citation:
Sidorova M. (2024) Germenevtika deystviya Polya Rikera: ot interpretatora k aktoru [Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of Action: From Interpreter to Actor]. The Russian Sociological Review, vol. 23, no 3, pp. 201-226 (in Russian)