UNTHINKABLE, INDISPENSABLE

The notion of Classic in Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics

Authors

  • Daniel Frey University of Strasbourg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14195/0872-0851_64_8

Keywords:

Classics, reading, Ricoeur, tradition, translation

Abstract

As fruitful as it is paradoxical, the notion of “classics” implies a standard of excellence that is only recognized in hindsight, a historical insertion as much as a timeless value, the authority of a tradition as well as the creative freedom of a current appropriation, the elitism of reception combined with the popularity of access. After an etymological and lexicographical synopsis, this article explores the notion of “classics” in Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. Indeed, it encompasses the entire spectrum of the theory of interpretation, but also of translation and reading that can be mobilized to address this notion, ambivalent in the very use made by the author of Time and Narrative. Hermeneutics begins as “the art of understanding the classics” in the broadest sense of the term: both sacred and profane texts at the crossroads of geographical and historical horizons. Explanation and understanding, criticism and belonging, distancing and de‑distancing are all methodological dichotomies through which the idea of the multifaceted and active reception of the classics unfolds. As much as his theory, it is also Ricoeur’s practice that highlights his conception of the “classics”. Paul Ricoeur is a reader‑thinker who mediates tensions as much as he articulates the oppositions between canonical authors from which he develops his own thought. These are some of the challenges of the unthinkability and indispensability of the “classics” and of its very notion.

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Published

2023-10-26