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The article presents an attempt to outline, from a mainly typological and partly historical perspective, what the author considers the most important varieties of the relationship between philosophy and literature (which is, of course, understood here in a working and broad sense, as poesis). In the first of these varieties, for which the fundamental significance is Plato’s gesture of excluding poets from the state, the philosophical logos defines itself in opposition to literature, or mythos. In the second, which appears to predominate from Aristotle to the 18th century, the relationship between philosophy and literature takes on a more neutral character: the former provides the latter with motifs, themes, topics, mainly related to moral philosophy in the broadest sense, while the latter provides the former with discursive modes, such as genre. Modern aesthetics and the philosophy and theory of literature (fundamentally different from the tradition of the great poets and rhetoricians of the 16th and 17th centuries), which emerged together with transcendental philosophy and its reception in German Romanticism, contributed both to the increased interest among philosophers in literature and to a clear embedding, or even closing, of literature in philosophical notions, which originated mainly in the tradition of transcendentalism and dialectical thought. Finally, the beginning of the twentieth century is distinguished, in most of the major continental philosophical traditions, by a tendency to seek, or to find, in literature the most important partner of philosophical thinking, and sometimes even the identity of philosophy.

The book of Job apparently ends happily ever after, with the restoration of the protagonist’s family and fortune (42:7–17). Juxtaposed with the rest of the book, however, this epilogue may appear incongruent and deeply problematic. In light of that, this article argues that a double reading is warranted. On the one hand, the epilogue may be read with a hermeneutic of suspicion, which resists superficial worldviews and protests against injustice. This reading will unmask troubling features in the representation of Job’s God, Job’s restoration, and Job’s speech. On the other hand, though—and drawing on Paul Ricœur—the text can be approached with “second naivety.” The audience is thereby welcomed to inhabit the symbolic wholeness of the textual world. The text invites both these readings and does not adjudicate between them. By holding them in dialectic tension, both hermeneutics and theology are enriched.

RESUMEN Este articulo tiene por objetivo principal reflexionar sobre la decisión judicial, específicamente acerca del fenómeno de la legitimidad en el acto de juzgar, y cómo, a partir de esta, nos podemos situar en una hermenéutica del texto judicial. La metodología empleada se basó en un método teórico analítico, el cual consiste en una descomposición de un todo e individualizar cada parte u elemento del fenómeno de estudio. La principal conclusión a la cual lleva el texto es que la legitimidad del juicio no se encuentra meramente en un acto de poder, sino que se va erigiendo a partir de la aceptación del instrumento que condensa la decisión por parte de los sujetos que se vieron inmersos en la Litis. Por ello, el juez busca persuadir a los sujetos procesales inmersos en el conflicto y así legitimar su juicio o sentencia. Ahora bien, el acto de juzgar es visto también como aquel fenómeno que sirve como instrumento de comprensión del sí y del otro, y de este modo nos pueda sumergir a un nivel más profundo el cual radica en una hermenéutica del texto judicial. ABSTRACT This article has as its main objective to reflect on the judicial decision, specifically on the phenomenon of legitimacy in the act of judging and how from this we can place ourselves in a hermeneutic of the judicial text. The methodology used was based on an analytical theoretical method, which consists of a decomposition of a whole, individualizing each part or element of the study phenomenon. The main conclusion to which the text leads is that the legitimacy of the trial is not merely in an act of power, but is erected from the acceptance of the instrument that condenses the decision by the subjects who were immersed in the Litis, that is why the judge seeks to persuade the procedural subjects immersed in the conflict and thus legitimize their judgment or sentence. Now, the act of judging must also be seen as that phenomenon that serves as an instrument of understanding the yes and the other, and in this way can immerse us to a deeper level which lies in a hermeneutic of the judicial text. RESUMO Este artigo tem por objetivo principal reflexionar sobre a decisão judicial, específicamente sobre o fenômeno da legitimidade no ato julgar, e como, a partir desta, nós podemos posicionar em uma hermenêutica do texto judicial. A metodología utilizada se baseou em um método teórico analítico, o qual consiste em uma decomposição de um todo e individualizar cada parte ou elemento do fenômeno de estudo. A principal conclusão à qual leva o texto é que a legitimidade do juízo não se encontra apenas em um ato de poder, senão que se vai erguendo a partir da aceitação do instrumento que condensa a decisão por parte dos sujeitos processuais envolvidos na Litis. Portanto, o juiz procura persuadir os sujeitos processuais imersos no conflito e assim legitimar seu juízo ou sentença. No entanto, o ato de julgar é visto também como aquele fenômeno que server como instrumento de compreensão de se e do outro, e desse modo nos possa submergir para um nível mais profundo que radica em uma hermenêutica do texto judicial.

PURPOSE: When a burn injured child is discharged from hospital to its home, the responsibility for the after-care treatment is transferred to the parent(s). A knowledge gap exists concerning how parents experience caring for a burn-injured child at home after discharge. The aim is to gain an in-depth understanding of parents' lived experience of living with and caring for their burn-injured child in a home setting. METHODS: Twenty-four parents of burn-injured children treated at a Norwegian burn centre were interviewed 74 to 195 days after the burn accident (June 2017 to November 2018). A phenomenological hermeneutic approach was chosen, using a Ricoeur-inspired textual in-depth analysis method. NVivo 12 Plus and COREQ were used. RESULTS: Four themes emerged. The parents' experienced feelings had been embodied and would stay forever. They felt left alone to continue the medical treatment at home without having the necessary skills. The parents grieved over the lost past and feared the unknown future. They longed to meet or be contacted by staff members who knew them and their life situation. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare professionals should see returning home as part of the course of illness and that right support during the hospital can prevent challenges after discharge.

George Eliot predicates the two principal characters of her second novel, The Mill on the Floss (1860), not on fixed traits but on gendered differences in styles of body movement. This chapter approaches the interplay of medicine and mobility through the lens of the feminist phenomenology of perception, situating Eliot’s configuration of the gendered scripts of posture in the proto-orthopaedic discourse of Victorian disciplinary power. The comparison of the characters’ growth into manhood and womanhood showcases Tom Tulliver’s increasing compliance with correct masculine posture and his sister Maggie’s persistent tomboyism in adulthood. Monika Class contends that Eliot’s realist novel engages critically with Victorian postural standards and thus conveys the link of medical and moral norms in a vision towards variable, and even untamed, gender identities. Above all, the configuration of the heroine expands the Victorian repertoire of feminine body movement.

The article discusses the relationship between autonomy and recognition; it argues that recognition is a fundamental component in the development of autonomy-related competencies. Specifically, if autonomy is considered through the lens of relational accounts, recognition indeed affects self-authorization, or the ability that agents have to portray themselves as autonomous agents. Then, I define the concept of recognition by referring to Axel Honneth and Paul Ricoeur’s accounts of recognition. While Honneth’s conception falls into an essentialistic paradigm, Ricoeur’s one portrays recognition as a gift. In addition, I argue that Ricoeur’s theory of recognition allows a shift in the symbolic order of society through the concept of utopia. This shift helps in preventing marginalizing practices that are undermining the autonomy of minorities or economically disadvantaged subjects in a society.

The analysis of fundamental texts such as “Architecture and Narrativity” and Memory, History, Forgetting aims to fill a gap in studies of Environmental Hermeneutics. Indeed, the analogy between space and narrative, through parallelism with the process of triple mimesis, is usually deduced by environmental hermeneuticists from the works Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another. However, Ricœur himself took it upon himself to make this transposition in a direct and elaborated way from a phenomenological and hermeneutic analysis of the built space (through architecture) and the inhabited space, opening the way for a broader and more grounded epistemology of environmental hermeneutics. The introduction of the critical concept of landscape, as seen today by constructivist and cultural geography, legitimizes the claims of an environmental hermeneutics as an interpretive process of formally non-textual objects. Indeed, landscape in its connection to territory has its own semiotic and semantic character, which is appealed to for reading and interpretation.

Philosophy has always examined subjectivity in terms of its relationship with time, but less frequently has it engaged with the theme of space; however, as soon as it begins to do this, it runs into questions that remain very much open. Paul Ricoeur only moved onto considering the topic of space after having reflected at length on time and the temporality inhabited by subjectivity. Making space a topic means not only thinking about the extension of the one's own body as a lived body but also reflecting on that physical space in which "the other comes closer and where the close becomes other" and in which the encounter of identity and difference creates continuous short circuits, especially in the increasingly congested western metropolises. Starting from the "unexpected application" of the narrative dimension to architecture, Ricoeur goes on to develop an interesting reflection on space built and space inhabited.

L’article est consacré aux dimensions éthique et politique de la pensée du traduire, la traduction étant ici considérée comme un lieu problématique où se trouve posé le rapport à l’autre. D’abord, l’étude expose les principes des théories traductologiques centrées sur l’accueil de l’autre et analyse les rapports qu’entretiennent les notions du « propre » et de l’« étranger ». Ensuite, sont examinées les dérives que peuvent engendrer des postures traductives « non-éthiques » qui minorent et/ou ignorent les liens asymétriques entre des langues dominantes et des langues dominées. Enfin, l’article met en perspective ces problématiques autour de l’accueil de l’autre dans la traduction en les confrontant aux thèses qu’avance Tiphaine Samoyault dans son ouvrage, Traduction et violence (2020). Il ne s’agit pas de condamner la traduction sous prétexte qu’elle ne serait que violence, mais de prendre en considération qu’elle est un lieu de tensions qu’il faut apprendre à gérer avec diplomatie. Aussi, en remplacement de la notion de « traduction fidèle », Samoyault propose-t-elle le concept de « traduction juste » qui permet de réunir dans la même expression les notions de « justesse » (trouver le mot juste) et de « justice » (ajuster la traduction, se régler sur les inégalités). En conclusion, l’article entreprend d’examiner le problème de l’autre dans la traduction en se référant à l’idée ricœurienne que l’étranger n’est ni le même (identique à nous), ni l’autre (différent de nous), mais l’analogue, c’est-à-dire la conjonction de l’identique et du différent.

This paper argues that Ricœur’s philosophy operates on the basis of a more expansive conception of rhetoric than it first appears. To show this, I reread The Rule of Metaphor through the “new rhetoric” of Chaïm Perelman. First, I survey Ricœur’s understanding of rhetoric in the 1950s and 60s. Second, I examine Ricœur’s relation to Perelman within the context of the broader “rhetorical turn” of the 1970s. After examining their respective positions, I argue that Ricœur fails to appreciate the full significance of Perelman’s conception of audience. In doing so, I draw attention to the central role that Ricœur himself ascribes to the audience or reader in the “work of meaning.” I conclude by proposing that the rhetorical triad of logos/ethos/pathos may serve as a conceptual matrix with which the rhetorical aspects of Ricœur’s philosophy can be interpreted.

Supporting spirituality is an essential aspect of the holistic nursing care of older people living with dementia. Spirituality is defined as a search for answers to questions about the meaning and purpose of life and the individual's relationship with the sacred or transcendent. This relationship may or may not involve an affiliation with a specific religion.To understand how older people living with dementia and their family members experience spirituality and its support in nursing care.A qualitative study informed by the principles of Ricoeurian hermeneutic phenomenology.We conducted the study in home care and long-term care settings in Southern Finland.We collected data between 2017-2020 from a purposive sample of 10 older people living with dementia and their 9 family members (n = 19).We used interviews to collect data and adapted and used Ricoeur's theory of interpretation as a method for analysis.The findings of this study show that older people living with dementia need spiritual support in nursing care based on their personal understanding of spirituality. The four elements of this spirituality that emerged were: religion, meaningful relationships, nature, and art. The participants addressed some challenges to spiritual support in the nursing care of older people living with dementia including: the competence and abilities of nursing, time available, presence and experience.Older people living with dementia and their family members consider spiritual support an important aspect of nursing care. To support the spirituality of these older people, the elements of spirituality need to be understood as these are central to each person's spiritual position. Additionally, spiritual support requires understanding knowledge, experience, time and presence, to manage all four elements with individuals.

Today, several interreligious organisations are publishing joint statements of obvious moral character. These may regard such things as environmental issues, peacebuilding, or freedom of thought. This raises the question of how such statements are to be justified and what role different theological and religious traditions play in justifying joint values. This study seeks to understand and critically examine these questions. The theoretical foundation is derived from Marianne Moyaert's development of Paul Ricœur's critique of joint interreligious ethics. From this, three main areas are analysed in four interreligious documents. First, what space is given to individual traditions as a source of moral knowledge? Second, to what degree is an ethic of consensus or compromise expressed? Third, how are pluralism, particularism, and radical pluralism expressed? The study suggests three conclusions for justifying interreligious statements. First, joint published documents should include both theological resources from different traditions and an explicit invitation to dialogue. Second, a dialogue that seeks common values but accepts tension, seen as a critical instance, should be appreciated. Third, interreligious dialogue and its statements could be understood as a way of, with the help of different faith traditions, examining their own and other instances' values.

Within the empirical study of moral decision making, people’s morality is often identified by measuring general moral values through a questionnaire, such as the Moral Foundations Questionnaire provided by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). However, the success of these moral values in predicting people’s behaviour has been disappointing. The general and context-free manner in which such approaches measure moral values and people’s moral identity seems crucial in this respect. Yet, little research has been done into the underlying notion of self. This article aims to fill this gap. Taking a phenomenological approach and focusing on MFT, we examine the concept of moral self that MFT assumes and present an improved concept of moral self for the empirical study of morality. First, we show that MFT adopts an essentialist concept of moral self, consisting of stable moral traits. Then, we argue that such a notion is unable to grasp the dynamical and context sensitive aspects of the moral self. We submit that Ricoeur’s narrative notion of identity, a self that reinterprets itself in every decision situation through self-narrative, is a viable alternative since it is able to incorporate context sensitivity and change, while maintaining a persisting moral identity. Finally, we argue that this narrative concept of moral self implies measuring people’s morality in a more exploratory fashion within a delineated context.

Within the empirical study of moral decision making, people’s morality is often identified by measuring general moral values through a questionnaire, such as the Moral Foundations Questionnaire provided by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). However, the success of these moral values in predicting people’s behaviour has been disappointing. The general and context-free manner in which such approaches measure moral values and people’s moral identity seems crucial in this respect. Yet, little research has been done into the underlying notion of self. This article aims to fill this gap. Taking a phenomenological approach and focusing on MFT, we examine the concept of moral self that MFT assumes and present an improved concept of moral self for the empirical study of morality. First, we show that MFT adopts an essentialist concept of moral self, consisting of stable moral traits. Then, we argue that such a notion is unable to grasp the dynamical and context sensitive aspects of the moral self. We submit that Ricoeur’s narrative notion of identity, a self that reinterprets itself in every decision situation through self-narrative, is a viable alternative since it is able to incorporate context sensitivity and change, while maintaining a persisting moral identity. Finally, we argue that this narrative concept of moral self implies measuring people’s morality in a more exploratory fashion within a delineated context.

Mit dem Begriff „Bedeutsamkeit“ wird eine vage Bedeutung assoziiert, der aber ein besonderer Wert, eine besondere Tiefe, Wichtigkeit oder Tragweite zugesprochen wird, die über das qualitative Bewusstsein gefühlt oder erahnt wird. Daher sah man in der Bedeutsamkeit lange Zeit etwas bloß Subjektives oder Psychologisches, während Bedeutung als objektiv bestimmbar galt. Hierin liegt wohl ein Grund für den erstaunlichen Umstand, dass man sich mit diesem Begriff vergleichsweise wenig beschäftigt hat, während Sinn und Bedeutung gerade im 20. Jahrhundert breite Aufmerksamkeit gefunden haben. Doch spielt erstens der Begriff (und das mit ihm Bezeichnete) innerhalb hermeneutischer Philosophie nicht zufällig eine wichtige Rolle und auch die pragmatistische Entwicklung der analytischen Philosophie in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts scheint in eine ähnliche Richtung zu weisen. Begriffsgeschichtlich zeigt sich der Terminus etwa in der Ästhetik und Geschichtswissenschaft, weshalb Schopenhauer zwischen „innerer“, ästhetischer und „äußerer“, wirkungsgeschichtlicher Bedeutsamkeit unterscheidet. Im Bereich der Symbol- und Mythostheorien (Fr. Creuzer, H. Blumenberg) versteht man Bedeutsamkeit im Anschluss an Kants Bestimmung einer ästhetischen Idee. Darunter versteht Kant „eine Vorstellung der Einbildungskraft, die viel zu denken veranlasst, ohne dass ihr doch irgend ein bestimmter Gedanke, d.i. Begriff adäquat sein kann, die folglich keine Sprache völlig erreicht und verständlich machen kann“ (KdU, A 190, B 192). Auch Ricœurs bekannte Formulierung „das Symbol gibt zu denken“ schließt sich hieran an. Dilthey betont den Bezug auf das erstpersönliche Erleben (phänomenales, qualitatives Bewusstsein), ohne den es keine Bedeutsamkeit geben kann und das in einen expressiv authentischen Ausdruck überführt werden muss, der in künstlerischen Produktionen, aber auch in Handlungen bestehen kann. Neben dieser expressiv-ausdruckstheoretischen Bedeutsamkeitsdimension kennt Dilthey auch eine zweite, nun hermeneutische; sie bezeichnet die Erschließungskräftigkeit eines Teils für ein Ganzes bzw. einen Zusammenhang. Seine dritte Bedeutsamkeitsdimension versteht unter ihr eine „Kategorie des Lebens“. Demgegenüber fasst Heidegger Bedeutsamkeit nicht als etwas Besonderes, etwa emphatisch betontes oder gar existentiell Herausragendes, sondern im Gegenteil sehr nüchtern als pragmatisches Umgangswissen, das Wissen um die „Bewandtnis“ einer Sache. Entsprechende „Ganzheiten“ werden zu praktischen Zusammenhängen, in die etwas gehört, so wie etwa ein Hammer auf den Zusammenhang von Nagel, Holz und Brett verweisen kann. Eine Türklinke wird nicht durch Wiegen und Messen erkannt, sondern ihre Bewandtnis wird verstanden, wo man weiß, wozu sie „gut“ ist und mit ihrer Hilfe eine Türe öffnen kann. Dieses lebensweltliche Umgangswissen liegt auch allen „höherstufigen“ kognitiven Erkenntnisformen bleibend zugrunde, das „Vorhandene“ (etwa eine isolierte Türklinke) ist nur eine Privationsform des „Zuhandenen“ (eine eingebaute und benutzte Türklinke) und insofern gilt für ihn: „das Bedeutsame ist das Primäre“; R. Brandom zeigt die intersubjektiv-sprachliche Vermittlung des Bedeutsamen bei Heidegger auf. Bei M. Weber und H. Rickert ist Bedeutsamkeit eine zentrale Kategorie der historischen Kulturwissenschaften („Kulturbedeutung“); darum kann sie in ihrer heuristischen Funktion begründen, was aus der unermesslichen Summe aller Themen und Fragestellungen gewählt werden sollte. Während das Phänomen der Mystik (ähnlich wie manche ästhetische Erfahrung) Bedeutsamkeit ohne bestimmte Bedeutung vermittelt, ist bei den modernen Naturwissenschaften das Umgekehrte der Fall, denn sie vermitteln Informationen, die uns nichts mehr „sagen“ und führen zum „Verlust der Lebensbedeutsamkeit“ (E. Husserl); hier zeigt der Bedeutsamkeitsbegriff seine phänomenologische und kulturhermeneutische Erschließungskraft. Bei P. Ricœur spielt der deutsche Terminus freilich keine Rolle, die mit ihm bezeichnete Problematik aber umso mehr. Der frühe Ricœur analysiert (auch aus tiefenpsychologischer Sicht) vor allem Symbole und Mythen, in denen sich eine „Sprache des Sinns“ mit einer „Sprache der Kraft“ verbindet. Weil sie über die Art und Weise verstanden und begründet werden, in der sie konstituiert und schematisiert werden, kann man hier von einer expressiv-produktionsästhetischen Bedeutsamkeit sprechen. Demgegenüber konzentriert sich der spätere Ricœur in seiner Metaphern- und Erzähltheorie auf den erstaunlichen, aber entscheidenden Umstand, dass wir auch dann sprachliche Ausdrücke verstehen können, wenn ihre Bedeutung nicht aus der Konstitution ihrer Komponenten begründet werden kann: Auch zwei zufällig kombinierte Wörter können sich u.U. als Metaphern verstehen lassen und müssen weder aus ihren sprachlichen Elementen noch aus transzendentalen oder tiefenpsychologischen Schematismen begründet werden. Nur darum ist es auch möglich, dass Erleben und Selbstsein ihrerseits auch sprachlich bzw. aus mimetischen Textstrukturen „figuriert“ werden können und eine narrative Identitätskonstitution möglich wird und diese Texte und Symbole nicht bereits vitiös zirkulär gänzlich aus jenen hervorgehen. Denn der Kreis darf sich niemals vitiös zirkulär völlig schließen, immer bleibt ein „surplus of meaning“, ein Mehrwert des subjektiven Erlebens einerseits wie des sprachlichen Ausdrucks andererseits. Weil man hier von einer rezeptionshermeneutischen Bedeutsamkeit sprechen kann, stehen auch sprachliche Produktion (Ausdruck) und Rezeption (Verstehen, Erleben) in einem hermeneutisch zirkulären Verhältnis; der Bedeutsamkeitsbegriff bezeichnet die bleibende, in der Fortbestimmung sich sogar steigernde Differenz zwischen beiden, wie sie vor allem im Gefühl (qualitatives Bewusstsein) präsent wird; Ricœur selbst spricht vom „Conatus“ als einem Streben, das sich im Bewusstsein des Mangels bezeugt und Zeichen und Dingen Bedeutsamkeit verleiht. Während schon in den früheren Teilen der Arbeit immer wieder auf die religionsphilosophische Valenz des Begriffs eingegangen wurde, wird im abschließenden Teil ausdrücklich thematisiert, inwiefern der Bedeutsamkeitsbegriff unverzichtbar zum Verständnis von Religion ist. Dem scheint ein Religionsbegriff zu widersprechen, der Religion als konstruktive „Lebensdeutung“ versteht und im Sinne einer nachkantischen, kritischen Erkenntnistheorie darauf verweist, dass sämtliche religiöse Vorstellungen von einem „Ich denke“ (KrV, §16) hervorgebracht werden. Von einer rein anthropologischen Reduktion von Religion im Sinne Feuerbachs unterscheidet sich ein solcher Religionsbegriff einerseits durch eine transzendentale Begründung der Notwendigkeit der produktiven Einbildungskraft im Sinne Kants, als auch durch einen Hinweis auf den transzendentalen „Grund“ im Bewusstsein, ohne den eine endlich freie und spontane Subjektivität nicht zu denken ist und der religiös als Gott gedeutet wird. Dieser Religionsbegriff steht auch in der Nachfolge des späteren Ricœur, um die rezeptionshermeneutische Einsicht in die Ursprünglichkeit und unhintergehbare Faktizität der Erfahrung von sprachlicher Bedeutsamkeit zu erweitern. Zwar muss ein präreflexives Fürsichsein im Selbstgefühl immer schon vorausgesetzt werden, doch kommt Subjektivität erst über Erfahrungen der Bedeutsamkeit ganz zu sich. Dem entspricht eine existentielle und hermeneutische Bedeutsamkeit im Verhältnis von Erleben und Deuten. Erstens werden Deutungen zwar konstruktiv von Subjekten hervorgebracht, doch beziehen sie sich auf ein Erleben, das ihnen bereits bedeutsam erscheint und von dem sie außerdem betroffen werden. Zweitens müssen sich Deutungen (Bibeltexte, religiöse Lieder usw.) umgekehrt so als bedeutsam erweisen, dass der Mensch ihnen nicht nur als Subjekt gegenübersteht, sondern als Person auch in sie eingeschlossen ist. Die Ungesichertheit der menschlichen Existenz, ihr „Schweben“ zeigt sich im partiellen Kontrollverlust des Subjekts, dass Erfahrungen endlicher Freiheit und authentischen Selbstseins nicht selbst hervorbringen kann; die symbolisierenden religiösen Deutungen müssen sich aus sich selbst heraus als bedeutsam erweisen.

This paper assesses the ways in which Transcendence and the question of God appear in the philosophy of Paul Ricœur. Taking stock of the debate on the theological turn of French phenomenology, the paper aims to show the unique position held by Ricœur among French phenomenology and hermeneutics, in that in spite of his Christian faith, Ricœur strove to put forward a philosophy of limits ‘without absolute’ while, at the same time, developing inquiries in phenomenology and hermeneutics of religion. The paper follows the development of Ricœur’s thought on this matter, from his early phenomenological works, through the hermeneutical turn and until the essay of fundamental anthropology of Oneself as Another, unpacking the Kantian and Hegelian influences, the approach on religion ‘within the limits of reason alone’ and also the way in which the Kantian undertones of hermeneutics as philosophy of finitude at the same time open the space to hope and imagination. Ricœur’s philosophy therefore appears as a rigorous descriptive and interpretive effort that strives not to mix the genres of discourse, while, at the same time, we can still find some ethical and supra-ethical traits in his practical philosophy that do stem from his Christian faith – but whose status is inspirational and therefore does not dent the overall theoretical framework of his philosophy of limits.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES This thesis emerges from the desire to bring to scene an interpretative style that the philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) found in the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), which makes it possible to reflect about psychic origins of the religious phenomenon and on its expressions in culture. By mapping this specific theme in Freud, Ricoeur established its legitimacy, the great themes it concerns, its validity and its limits, showing, therefore, the psychoanalysis of religion that exists in Freud’s work. The psychoanalysis of religion, as a hermeneutics of suspicion, is articulated through a critique of culture and understands God and religion as an illusion, the fruit of desire. This illusion, that the psychoanalysis of religion seeks to unmask, is a production of meaning whose key to understanding escapes those who promote it and, therefore, needs an interpretation technique that adapts to the dissimulations of its object. Just when religion was thought to be on its final path of decline, just like a phoenix, it has risen again, with expressions ranging from Christian and Islamic fundamentalisms to a variety of post-secular and New Age spiritualisms. The legacy of Christianity, however, with its subversive core, contrasts with all these manifestations. Supported by the psychoanalysis of Freud, Lacan and Žižek, I seek to show, in the psychoanalysis of religion essay that I present in this thesis, that the central core of the Christian kerygma is a paradox, since what it presents to us is, precisely, an atheistic proposal: the death of the transcendent God. A presente tese nasce do desejo de trazer à cena um estilo interpretativo que o filósofo Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) encontrou na psicanálise de Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), que possibilita a reflexão tanto sobre as origens psíquicas do fenômeno religioso quanto sobre suas expressões na cultura. Ao mapear esse tema específico em Freud, Ricoeur estabeleceu sua legitimidade, os grandes temas a que concerne, sua validade e seus limites, mostrando, assim, a psicanálise da religião que existe na obra de Freud. A psicanálise da religião, como hermenêutica da suspeita, se articula através de uma crítica da cultura e compreende Deus e a religião como uma ilusão, fruto do desejo. Tal ilusão, que ela busca desmascarar, é uma produção de sentido cuja chave de compreensão escapa àquele que o promove e, por isso, necessita de uma técnica de interpretação que se adapte às dissimulações de seu objeto. Quando se pensava que a religião estava em sua rota final de declínio, tal qual a fênix, ela ressurgiu novamente, com expressões que vão desde os fundamentalismos cristãos e islâmicos até a diversidade de espiritualismos pós-seculares ou pertencentes a Nova Era. O legado do cristianismo, porém, com seu núcleo subversivo, contrasta com todas essas manifestações. Apoiado na psicanálise de Freud, Lacan e Žižek, busco evidenciar, no ensaio de psicanálise da religião que apresento nesta tese, que o núcleo central do querigma cristão é um paradoxo, pois o que ele nos apresenta é, justamente, uma proposta ateia: a morte do Deus transcendente.

BACKGROUND: Nurse managers are often at the forefront of implementing organizational changes. Studies suggest that conflicting pressures and stress are high during such times, though little is known of how nurse managers experience the continuing run of change initiatives.AIMS: To explore nurse managers' experience of large-scale organizational changes and its impact on their working lives and conditions.DESIGN: A qualitative phenomenological hermeneutical study utilizing a Ricœur-inspired method of interpretation.METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 nurse managers at a public sector university hospital that had recently undergone large-scale organizational changes. Interviews were conducted in 2021 during the covid-19 pandemic. The analysis is based on the three-stage Ricœur-inspired analysis method by Pedersen and Dreyer.RESULTS: Three themes emerged outlining the nurse managers experiences of large-scale organizational change: The need for support structures to be incorporated in the change process, The need for a guiding star, and The challenge of the values embedded in the Nurse Manager mindset. These themes were consistent across both predominantly positive as well as mainly negative experiences.CONCLUSION: This study reveals the potential that receiving support from management, staff and peers has to positively influence the experiences of nurse managers during large-scale organizational changes. However, lacking a clear vision for the process negatively influences their ability to support high-level quality care within their wards, potentially increasing their feelings of stress and conflicting pressure.IMPACT: Participants offered important insight into the sparsely explored subject of nurse managers' experiences of organizational change, the complexity they face and the potentially high personal costs. The study highlights the detrimental effects of not providing support to all managers in organizations undergoing change, and the parallels to the covid-19 pandemic. No Patient or Public Contribution was required for this study due to its aim.

In this anti-colonial treatise, Ricœur reflects on the responsibility of every French citizen and of the French state with respect to colonialism. He establishes five principles that should guide his readers in their reflection on this issue and expresses his support for the independence of the colonies.

Hermeneutics encounters three current challenges: by more quantitative orientations, by stances that reject pluralism, and by criticism that the hermeneutic field is elitist and esoteric. The article offers a response through Ricœur. The hermeneutic “choice in favor of meaning” insists upon the ontological value of the human condition. It shows the insufficiency of the quantitative approach, the remaining value of pluralistic consideration of what human meaning entails, and the real world consequences of interpretation. Examples in Ricœur show how a hermeneutic choice in favor of meaning is not passive but instead reads texts with a particular orientation even when the text seems engaged in another project. The article’s final part undertakes an internal critique, raising the adequacy of Ricœur’s emphasis on meaning as an affirmation of “being.” The example of Buddhist insistence on “emptiness” is offered as one counterexample. The article concludes by arguing that in our contentious times hermeneutics confirms its contemporary vitality through its choice in favor of meaning even as it retains pluralistic consideration of what that meaning entails.

This article reconsiders Paul Ricœur’s political philosophical writings on the task of decolonization and European responsibility in light of a horizon of intercultural dialogue. Departing from the exchange between Ricœur and his former student Enrique Dussel, it discusses the Ricœurian critique of modernity. After giving some background on Ricœur’s reflections on decolonization, it will clarify what Ricœur calls the “crisis of the concrete universal in the thinking and in the historical experience of Western Europe,” and what role cultural difference has in this crisis. Considering Ricœur’s explicitly European perspective, this will lead us to a critical discussion on the envisioned possibility of a world-historical subject. Finally, I will discuss the role of European self-reflection in relation to a horizon of intercultural dialogue and narration from a post-/decolonial perspective.

In this autobiographical essay, introduced by Ernst Wolff, Paulin Hountonji gives an account of his relation to Paul Ricœur. A sketch of his own academic development and his experience of the Parisian philosophy milieu in the 1960s serves as background for his chosing Ricœur as his doctoral supervisor. The essay makes plain the proximities between Hountondji and Ricœur (especially the study of Husserl), but identifies also occasional and missed encounters.

In this anti-colonial treatise, Ricœur reflects on the responsibility of every French citizen and of the French state with respect to colonialism. He establishes five principles that should guide his readers in their reflection on this issue and expresses his support for the independence of the colonies.

This paper employs Paul Ricœur’s insights to examine how European states should approach their colonial past. First, I explore the significance of historical knowledge for people from formerly colonized countries through the views of several anti-colonial thinkers. Then, referring to Ricoeur’s analyses in History and Truth, Time and Narrative and Memory, History, Forgetting, I examine the grounds and the legitimacy, of a historiography of colonization. I argue that European states should make the history of colonization part of their school curricula, as an expression of Europeans’ debt to the victims of the colonial past, and as a way to prevent the repetition of the colonial crimes.

In this autobiographical essay, introduced by Ernst Wolff, Paulin Hountonji gives an account of his relation to Paul Ricœur. A sketch of his own academic development and his experience of the Parisian philosophy milieu in the 1960s serves as background for his chosing Ricœur as his doctoral supervisor. The essay makes plain the proximities between Hountondji and Ricœur (especially the study of Husserl), but identifies also occasional and missed encounters.

Between 1962 and 1967/68, Ricœur devoted several courses to the question of language. Even though there are many traces of these lectures in the articles and essays published during these years (and collected in part in The Conflict of Interpretations), they have so far attracted little attention from the research community. However, they mark a decisive turning point in Ricœur’s thinking and lay the systematic foundation of the hermeneutics of the text that he would deploy in his later works. The article first clarifies the place occupied by these courses in Ricœur’s work. It then presents the archival material and characterizes the specific approach of each of the courses on the basis of Ricœur’s preparatory manuscripts. In a final section, three particularly instructive aspects of the courses are discussed: the shift from symbol to metaphor (in discussion with Greimas and Jakobson), the articulation of analytic philosophy and phenomenology (Frege and Husserl), and finally the program of a transcendental foundation of the rules of discourse production (Strawson, Wittgenstein and Chomsky).

This presentation serves as an introduction to Paul Ricœur’s essay "The Question of the Colonies" (1947). The essay is contextualized in relation to other contemporary anti-colonial writings and to Ricœur’s own later philosophy. The argumentative structure of the essay is clarified, while identifying some difficulties in evaluating it today.

This article aims to address an essential theme for the theory of literature and for the philosophy of language. Halfway between the two, there is a current of thought that considers that language is essentially a metaphor and that, with the passage of time, it has lost its ability to metaphorize and has become expressively stagnant. In this line, we can see the most diverse authors who have tried to approach the subject in different ways. Gary Lachman, relying on Owen Barfield, offers a current presentation of the problem from a literary point of view and, as it could also be described, intuitive one; Nietzsche managed to conceptualize it in an exemplary way, and Ricoeur manages to technically explain why the phenomenon occurs, how it could be reversed and how to recover, therefore, from the language itself its metaphorizing power and its possibility of redescribing the world.

O objetivo deste artigo é o de refletir, no contexto de uma investigação sobre a racionalidade, sobre o que poderá ser uma dialética hermenêutica e mencionar algumas das suas caracte- rísticas e domínios de aplicação. O artigo analisa os conceitos de dialética e de hermenêutica, apresentando a versão forte da dialética tal como ela aparece em Hegel e mencionando de que forma, a partir de uma leitura da hermenêutica ricœuriana, é possível compreender a especificidade da dialética hermenêutica e os efeitos que ela tem no alargamento da noção de racionalidade., The aim of this paper is to reflect, in the context of an investigation on rationality, on what could be something such as a hermeneutical dialectics and to mention some of its traits and domains of application. The paper analyzes the concepts of dialectics and hermeneutics, presenting the strong version of dialectics such as it appears in Hegel and showing in which way, from a reading of ricœurian hermeneutics, it is possible to grasp the specificity of hermeneutical dialectics and how it can expand the notion of rationality.

Persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) cannot speak about their Quality of Life (QoL), which makes it necessary to involve others. In current approaches, these ‘others’ are seen as assessors trying to describe QoL as objectively as possible, which involves a reduction of their experiences, through which they develop knowledge on the QoL of the person with PIMD. The objective of this paper is to give caregivers’ knowledge on the QoL of a person with PIMD a theoretical basis that values these experiences. We will argue that caregivers should be seen as witnesses, not assessors, and their statements on QoL as testimonies, not assessments. Audiences judge the trustworthiness of these witnesses intersubjectively, which implies a relationship characterized by trust and suspicion. Trust supports the witness to tell in her own words about the QoL of the person with PIMD; it demands receptivity, indicating that both the witness and the audience are willing to reconsider their perspective on QoL. Suspicion is necessary too, which helps the witness to critically approach her own interpretations and supports her to create more trustworthy testimonies. We conclude that the concept of witnessing helps to acknowledge caregivers’ experiential knowledge of QoL of a person with PIMD, which may also apply to other persons who cannot speak about their own QoL. We hope that our study will empower caregivers to give testimonies on QoL of a person with PIMD, which is crucial when complex decisions about the life of this person have to be made.

One of the key debates about applying virtue ethics to business is whether or not the aims and values of a business actually prevent the exercise of virtues. Some of the more interesting disagreement in this debate has arisen amongst proponents of virtue ethics. This article analyzes the central issues of this debate in order to advance an alternative way of thinking about how a business can be a form of virtuous practice. Instead of relying on the paired concepts of internal and external goods that define what counts as virtuous, I offer a version of speech act theory taken from Paul Ricoeur to show how a business can satisfy several aims without compromising the exercise of the virtues. I refer to this as a polyvalent approach where a single task within a business can have instrumental, conventional, and imaginative effects. These effects correspond to the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary dimensions of meaning. I argue that perlocution provides a way in which the moral imagination can discover the moral significance of others that might have not been noticed before, and furthermore, that for such effects to be practiced, they require appropriate virtues. I look at two cases taken from consultation work to thresh out the theoretical and practical detail.

Questioning Ricœur’s positioning of Aristotle and Augustine as the founders of the two mutually exclusive conceptions of time that dichotomize the Western tradition, this article suggests that what Ricœur describes as the aporetics of temporality is a product of the modern social time regime. Extracting Aristotle and Augustine’s conceptions of time from this modern problem reveals the Aristotelian so-called “naturalist” view of time as one that rather unifies humans and their world through symbolic mediation, while Augustine’s alleged “subjective” conception of time is read rather as expressing the subordination of time to divine transcendence.

Beyond the disparate and mainly fleeting references to life in Ricoeur’s Oneself as Another, whether as life as power, living well and with others, or as Ricoeur’s attempt to develop a concept of embodied subjectivity as flesh, which is presumably living flesh, not dead flesh, a further and arguably primordial life principle needs emphasis, namely, living space. Ricoeur’s recognition of the vital significance of space primordiality, as a pivotal dimension that is even prior to language, offers a significant conceptual leap in Ricoeur’s later work, Oneself as Another. Ricoeur’s proposed ontology of the flesh is one dimension towards expression of an authentic phenomenology of spatiality, though not necessarily the only one. Building upon but going beyond Ricoeur, the article explores concentric and diametric spatial interplay in relation to the early Heidegger’s existential spatiality, Angst and care, as candidate living spatial movements. This proposed primordial spatial discourse re-examines Ricoeur’s conatus as power to act, and his quest for a structure of relation to the other that is not closure, separation, or diametric opposition.

Com esse artigo almejamos estabelecer uma discussão acerca da cientificidade da psicanálise de Freud. Pleiteamos investigar se o pensamento freudiano se afina com as ciências humanas ou poderia ser encaixado no rol das ciências da natureza. Qual a posição do pai da psicanálise em relação à querela dos métodos (Methodenstreit), instituída por Dilthey? Seria Freud um combatente em prol da hermenêutica da suspeita, como advogou Paul Ricoeur, ou um corifeu do modelo de ciência natural que triunfou na primeira metade do sec. XX? Com essas questões aspiramos confeccionar a argumentação de nosso texto e levar a cabo uma investigação acerca da identidade epistemológica da psicanálise freudiana. Para tanto, transitaremos na clareira (Lichtung) aberta pela obra de Heidegger intitulada Seminários de Zollikon. Nessa obra, o filósofo empreende uma abordagem ontológica acerca do solo no qual estão fincadas as raízes que sustentam a psicanálise de Freud.

RESUMEN Este artículo plantea un análisis hermenêutico del cuento "Embargo" de José Saramago, parte del libro Casi un objeto, a partir de la propuesta de comprensión textual de Paul Ricœur. Para ello, se toman, como punto de partida, los dos movimientos hermenéuticos básicos que, según el filósofo francés, hacen parte de esta tarea: explicar e interpretar. En este aspecto, la explicación se asume como el ejercicio de hallar el sentido en el relato y esto apunta a encontrar los nexos que existen entre sus partes constitutivas y la obra como un todo. A su vez, la interpretación se entiende como el proceso de actualización y apropiación de la obra por el lector, de tal manera que le resulte posible incorporarla a su experiencia vital en el acto de lectura. Así pues, el ejercicio hermenéutico se realiza apelando a categorías tomadas de la narratología que permiten efectuar la explicación: revelar las relaciones internas de la estructura narrativa, mientras a la par se argumenta la hipótesis u horizonte interpretativo que se propone para el cuento: el mundo de los sueños como una realidad alternativa que enfrenta al soñador con sus deseos y sus esperanzas, pero que también lo confronta con los miedos y las angustias propias del vivir. ABSTRACT This article proposed a hermeneutical analysis of the story "Embargo" by José Saramago, part of the book The lives of things, based on Paul Ricœur's proposal for textual understanding. To do this, the two basic hermeneutical movements that, according to the French philosopher, are part of this task, explain and interpret, are taken as a starting point. In this aspect, the explanation is assumed as the exercise of finding the meaning in the story and this aims to find the links that exist between its constituent parts and the work as a whole. In turn, interpretation is understood as the process of updating and appropriation of the work by the reader, in such a way that it is possible for him to incorporate it into his life experience in the act of reading. Thus, the hermeneutical exercise was carried out by appealing to categories taken from narratology that allow the explanation: to reveal the internal relationships of the narrative structure, while at the same time arguing the hypothesis or interpretive horizon that is proposed for the story: the world of dreams as an alternative reality that confronts the dreamer with his wishes and hopes, but also with his fears and anguish of living.

RESUMEN Este artículo realizó un análisis desde la categoría hermenéutica del símbolo según Paul Ricoeur de la novela de José Saramago Ensayo sobre la ceguera, en que, después de definir la categoría de análisis, su importancia y relevancia y el impacto que su comprensión puede tener para comprender situaciones actuales y pertinentes de nuestra sociedad, se procede a desarrollar la categoría con los símbolos escogidos en la novela del pecado, la mancha y la culpa. Haciendo uso no solo de los textos referentes a la hermenéutica de Ricoeur, sino también de La simbólica del mal, se propone un recorrido conceptual para dilucidar cómo se configuran los sentidos y significados de los símbolos del mal en nuestra cultura y mediante esta comprensión abordar la situación del aparato simbólico de la novela de Saramago. Llevar a cabo un análisis de estas categorías hermenéuticas en una novela como Ensayo sobre la ceguera se convierte en la oportunidad de evidenciar un significado y un sentido diferentes de una novela que ha mostrado claramente su relevancia en épocas anteriores y que hoy, en una pandemia, nos invita a repensar ese mundo y a enfrentarnos al hecho de entender nuestra propia ceguera y la ceguera del mundo en medio de una velocidad vertiginosa que nos exige asumir nuestra realidad de otra forma. En palabras de Ricoeur, el símbolo da qué pensar y es momento de que pensemos a través de nuestros propios símbolos la realidad que se nos plantea en la novela de Saramago y la extrapolemos a las realidades que se configuran cada día en nuestro mundo occidental. ABSTRACT This article carried out an analysis from the hermeneutical category of the symbol in the novel Blindness by José Saramago, following Paul Ricoeur, in which the symbols of sin, stain and guilt were chosen to be developed after defining the relevance and the impact of the category of analysis on current situations in our society. Making use not only of the texts referring to Ricoeur's hermeneutics, but also of The Symbolic of Evil, a conceptual journey is proposed to elucidate how the senses and meanings of the symbols of evil are configured in our culture and, through this understanding, address the situation of the symbolic apparatus of Saramago's novel. Carrying out an analysis of these hermeneutical categories in a novel such as Blindness becomes the opportunity to show a different meaning and sense of a novel that has clearly shown its relevance in previous times and that today, in the middle of a pandemic, invites us to rethink that world and to face the fact of understanding our own blindness and the blindness of the world in the midst of a dizzying speed that requires us to assume our reality in another way. In the words of Ricoeur, the symbol gives food for thought and it is time for us to think through our own symbols about the reality that is presented to us in Saramago's novel and to extrapolate it to the realities that are configured every day in our Western world.

Nous nous situons d’emblée dans la tradition de la Théorie critique, afin de proposer une définition de l’émancipation en guise de corrélat d’une critique sociale d’orientation constitutive. Nous montrerons que l’approche phénoménologique du social dans la philosophie de Ricœur a pour objectif d’orienter ainsi la critique. Les premières générations de la Théorie critique ont inspiré Ricœur en ce qui concerne la mise en relation des notions d’idéologie et d’émancipation. Mais grâce à son héritage husserlien, il traitera le phénomène de l’idéologie à partir de l’expérience de la subjectivité en tant que fondement de l’imaginaire social du point de vue constitutif. Nous soutenons que cette perspective phénoménologique constitue un précieux apport pour la toute dernière génération de l’École de Francfort.

To investigate patients' existential experiences in everyday life after a kidney transplantation with a living donor.A qualitative study anchored in a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach inspired by Ricoeur's theory of narrative and interpretation.Eleven patient interviews were conducted approximately 6 months after a kidney transplantation with a living donor. The interviews were conducted between August 2017-May 2019. Analysis and interpretation are based on Ricoeur's theory of interpretation.Four themes were identified: Experiencing bodily vulnerability while getting back to life; Feeling guilt while experiencing gratitude; Living in limbo while one's identity is changing; and Facing the future with hope while having reservations.This study reveals that patients experience multifaceted existential challenges in their everyday lives during the transition of the kidney transplantation process. Post-surgery complications for donors lead to feelings of guilt in patients; plus, they must adapt to a new existence, including a new identity. The patients feel they are in limbo, as they experience their existence as uncertain and their identity as unknown.The study highlights a need for developing a rehabilitation programme to address the individual and various existential challenges faced by patients who need to undergo a kidney transplantation.目的: 探讨活体供肾移植后患者日常生活中的生存体验。 设计: 受Ricoeur叙事和解释理论的启发, 进行了以诠释现象学方法为基础的质性研究。 方法: 在活体供体肾移植后约6个月, 对11名患者进行了访谈。访谈于2017年8月至2019年5月期间进行。根据Ricoeur的解释理论进行分析和解释。 结果: 确定了四个主题:在回归生活的同时感受生命的脆弱; 怀带感激之心的同时体味内疚感;体味身份变化所带来的边缘感;以及对未来充满希望, 同时又能够接受失望。 结论: 本研究揭示了在肾移植过程中, 患者在日常生活中经历了多方面的生存挑战。供体术后并发症导致患者产生负罪感; 另外, 患者必须适应新的生活、新的身份。患者感到自己处于边缘状态, 因为在体验到自身存在的不确定性的同时,感到对自己的身份不甚明了。 影响: 本研究强调了制定康复方案的必要性, 以解决需要接受肾移植患者所面临的个体和各种生存挑战。.

Fiction television series are one of the few cultural expressions in which men’s infertility experiences are represented. Through a content analysis of twenty fiction series, this article describes and analyzes such representations. By drawing on Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity and Ricoeur’s understanding of paradoxical power structuring, four character types of infertile men are identified: (1) the virile in/fertile man, (2) the secretly non-/vasectomized man, (3) the intellectual eunuch, (4) the enslaving post-apocalyptic man. While these various dramatis persona outline different ways of how infertile men relate to normative hegemonic masculinity, they all represent infertile men as diverging from shared masculine norms. This non-normativity initially excludes many represented men from hegemonic positions. Eventually, however, these men generally aspire to and succeed in reaffirming their hegemonic masculinity through coercive force towards women and other men, through instigating the precondition for any power structure – the shared will to live together as a community –, and/or by seeking and finding explicit recognition for their normativity and dominance. At the end of this paper, I will reflect on the potential harmful effect of these outlined representations of infertile men and make a plea for diversifying representations of infertile men in our culture.

Against the dominant trends of the scientification and naturalization of philosophy and the concurrent reduction of traditions of practical wisdom to private opinions, this article pleads for a revaluation of philosophy’s original relation with wisdom. It does so by shedding a philosophical light on several related aspects of wisdom through three different lenses. The first one, taken from Aristotle, explores the relation between theoretical and practical wisdom, leading to the conclusion that practical wisdom has to confront general moral principles with particular situations. The second lens, taken from Kant, argues that wisdom offers existential orientation, which requires the combination of an external and an internal moral principle. Yet, the external principle cannot be determined univocally because it is not empirically given. This lack of univocity raises the question of the fate of wisdom in our times, marked by a plurality of existential points of orientation. With the help of a third lens, stemming from Ricoeur, it will be argued that universal moral rules should be amendable to enrichment by ‘potential universals’ embedded in foreign cultures, thus creating a situation of reflexive equilibrium between theoretical and practical wisdom.

The main question in this article concerns whether hermeneutic phenomenology as a methodology can address some of the problems and critiques raised in the study of religions. Inspired by Gilhus’s proposal in her article ‘The Phenomenology of Religion and Theories of Interpretation’, I investigate the possibilities in this strand of thought concerning interpretation and explanation from the perspective of Ricœur’s hermeneutic phenomenology and language theory, taking Norse mythology and the goddess Freyja as examples of how this method might work. I argue that Ricœur’s contribution to hermeneutic phenomenology is important to methodology in the study of religions, and that the historicity of the interpretation of religious phenomena is based on a lifeworldly intentionality. I also analyse the depth of understanding, the formation of ideas, and meaning in its historical context at the level of the historian’s process of interpretation, and I argue that the method may constitute a theoretical basis for an objective science.

Aim: To investigate the lived experience of being a relative to a patient admitted to an acute neurological ward to bring knowledge of what is essential to them. Design: The study takes a phenomenological–hermeneutic approach. Methods: Data were gathered through six individual semi-structured interviews with relatives from an acute neurological ward. A three-levelled analysis and interpretation inspired by Paul Ricoeur's philosophy was applied. Results: Two main themes were identified: To make yourself strong while feeling vulnerable inside and To live in a changed everyday life. Within these themes, the connection between the relatives and the patients appeared to be a relationship of love. In this relationship, the relatives experience existential vulnerability. The lives of relatives undergo a difficult upheaval, which is challenged by deep emotional feelings. However, to be able to be there for their loved ones they are sheltering under a shield of love.

Paul Ricœur’s ontology of art is derived from his hermeneutics, and Ricœur’s hermeneutics bridges his idea of aesthetics and ontology. Paul Ricœur’s ontology of art (in which the concept of refiguration plays a central role) sheds a new light in understanding and experiencing works of art. Ricœur discusses the metaphorical reference of poetic texts that opens up the realm of possible worlds. This idea of metaphoric reference can be extended to works of art as well. Both fictional narratives and artworks may be defined by the formula seeing as, and this formula represents their ontological status that may be defined as being as. Paul Ricœur argues that non-linguistic symbolic systems such as gestures, sounds and pictures also have the power to make and remake the world. Ricœur’s narrative theory can be applied to both to literature and visual arts as it identifies narrative capacity of artworks. Ricœur introduces the concept of refiguration that includes the transformation of reality, which is first prefigured in the consciousness of the author (mimesis 1). It is then configured in the artwork (mimesis 2), and finally into the experience of the viewer or listener of the artwork (mimesis 3), which leads to comprehension.

This article suggests a shift in focus from stories as verbal accounts to narrative interpretation of the every day as a resource for achieving person-centred health and social care. The aim is to explore Ricoeur's notion of narrative and action, as expressed in his arguments on a threefold mimesis process, using this as a grounding for the use of narration to achieve person-centredness in health and social care practice. This focus emerged from discussions on this matter at the IPONS conference in Gothenburg, 2021. Based on philosophical resources from Ricoeur's notions of narrative and action developed in his arguments on a threefold mimesis process, we propose a wider use of stories in health and social care practices. We suggest expanding from only focusing on verbal accounts to focusing on narrative as a human way to interpret and make sense of everyday life and circumstances and to communicate possible meanings. We discuss how such complementary focus can be a resource in getting patients involved and collaborating in their health and social care and thereby help develop person-centred practices.

Hosea’s reception history shows the existence of two distinct interpretative traditions in relation to the metaphor “God is a husband” employed in the first three chapters of the book. Many commentators, reading with the grain, focus on the unfaithfulness of Israel, the justice of her punishment and the love of God. More recently, feminist scholars have highlighted the problematic nature of this metaphor since it glorifies maleness and normalises gender–based violence against women. At first glance, these two approaches seem contradictory and mutually exclusive. However, Ricoeur’s discussion of the “conflict of interpretations” provides a fruitful way forward in dealing with this contradiction. Rather than being incompatible with one another, feminist and androcentric interpretations of Hosea are a particular example of the dialectical tension and integration of the hermeneutics of trust and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Both play a vital role in the reading process. One unmasks the idols produced by the false consciousness of the ego, the other opens oneself to hearing the voice of the Sacred, which comes into the text from beyond the realms of language.

Background: Research on COVID-19 has reported data on epidemiology and pathophysiology but less about what it means to be a person living through this illness. Research involving the patients’ perspectives may help to improve healthcare professionals' understanding of ways to support patients. Aims: To gain in-depth understanding of the meaning of a COVID-19 illness trajectory from the patients’ perspective. Methods: Fifteen participants who had undergone an illness trajectory due to confirmed COVID-19 infection participated in individual qualitative interviews. Data collection, analysis and interpretation were inspired by Ricoeur’s philosophy and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and embodiment has been applied as a theoretical frame. Findings: Being infected with coronavirus is expressed as an experience in which the participants oscillate between relief, security, imprisonment and raw fear. A predominant focus on the physical dimensions of the diseased body was found in the encounters between patient and healthcare system, and distance may furthermore be a consequence of use of protective equipment. Stigma and fear of infection were also expressed. After COVID-19, an overwhelming feeling of a door opening to freedom is perceived. However, the body is marked, and bears witness to decay from this insidious and frightening virus. The responsibility for assessing their bodily symptoms is placed with the individual patients themselves, who feel lonely and fearful and this keeps them indoors. Conclusions: During a COVID-19 illness, trajectory concerns about the unknown course of this disease are highlighted. Isolation is confrontational; however, a companionship between patients might emerge. The study shed light on an unavoidable gap between the patients and healthcare professionals due to the use protective equipment. After COVID-19, the body is labelled as something others fear and become a symbol of awe and alienation for others.

Esta investigación sobre la hermenéutica y la exégesis bíblica de Paul Ricoeur se hace a través de un recorrido por su biografía y su trayectoria intelectual desde su nacimiento en Valence (Francia) en 1913 hasta su muerte en 2005. En su evolución como filósofo influyeron Emmanuel Mounier en el personalismo, Karl Jaspers en el existencialismo y Husserl en la fenomenología, en la hermenéutica Wilhelm Dilthey que fue pionero en abrir los textos a la compresión histórica con Heidegger y Gadamer que coinciden en que toda compresión ha de estar mediatizada por la interpretación también se habla del lenguaje religioso y la filosofía en los que Ricoeur profundiza en la labor de Freud y el psicoanálisis, su visión del mundo entorno al par Eros y Tánatos. Se hace una hermenéutica de la interpretación de Ricoeur mítico, simbólica, metafórica en la Biblia, desde el mito adámico, los símbolos, el pecado, la culpa, el perdón y la hermenéutica metafórica. Hago una investigación sobre la identidad religiosa y una exégesis sobre los textos de San Pablo de los cuales se aprecia una interpretación sesgada.