Andrew Tracing Ricoeur

7/29/2019 Andrew Tracing Ricoeur

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TRACING RICOEUR

DUDLEYANDREW

Frangois Dosse. PAUL RICOEUR:LES SENS D'UNE VIE. Paris: La Dicouverte,1997. [PR]

The Timeof the TortoiseGilles Deleuze chose not to see the end of the centurythat Michel Foucaultclaimedwould be named after him, a century that began just as philosophy registered theaftershocks caused by the work of his closest progenitors,Nietzsche and Bergson.Amplifyingthewaves theymadewithtempestsof his own, Deleuzetriedto capsizetheflat-bottom oatof academicphilosophyby insisting hat t lookbeyond tsowndiscoursefor both the life and the vocabulary o account for life that should be its only mission.ScanningFrenchphilosophyfor what it mightcontribute o art, fiction, andcinema,Iinvoke thestirring haracter f Deleuze,butIdo so to deflect attention o another igure,PaulRicoeur,whom Deleuze convenientlysets off by contrast.Less than a decade since his death,Deleuze is in dangerof havingcededhis claimto Ricoeur, he reallong-distancerunner,who is now pressinghis publications nto thenew century,moving relentlessly beyondhis exhaustedreviewers. Lastyear,a fanfareof publicitygreetedLamimoire,l'histoire, 'oubli, anothermagisterial omeappearingtoo late to be includedin FranqoisDosse's intellectualbiographyor in my overviewhere,which lifts off fromthatbiography.Ricoeur,destinedto keep writing-unable toconclude his conversation with philosophy-has outlastedDeleuze, whose notorietyderives fromthe radicalbreakhe makes with the thoughtof ourtimes, for his abruptdeviationsand moreabrupt onclusions. Ricoeur'sreputation ests seldom on anythingconclusive but insteadon his persistent nteractionwith anddeploymentof so much ofthat thought. By accident or by savvy design, Ricoeur's trajectory(initiatedin thephenomenologicalatmosphere f theprewar ra)has takenhimthroughmythcriticism,psychoanalysis, tructuralism,anguagephilosophy,analyticphilosophy,deconstruction,poetics, historiography, thics, and epistemology.He carries his learningforwardtoeach new endeavor,notbelievingin "theradicalbreak"orthe prefixpost-.

FranqoisDosse tracks Ricoeur in a magnificentaccount thatplaces its subjectinrelation to each of these movements. But Parisianacademic fashion forms only onefacet of a life whose brilliance s refracted s wellby theology,politics,andaremarkablesocial network.The thicknessof his life evidentlyprovidesRicoeur henecessaryballastto maintainhis orientationon the stormyseas of intellectual debate. In fact, across aspanof seventy yearsof uninterruptedeadingandwriting,he hasanticipated,nvoked,or debatedvirtuallyevery important chool of Frenchthought, doing so in a way thatboth establishes their value and serves his own agenda. Ricoeur profits from theproductivetension that results, even-indeed, especially-when this brings about adislocation of his views. Theseexchanges inevitably eave his own ideasclearer,moredefensible, and invulnerable o chargesof parochialism.AlthoughRicoeurconcludeshis three-volume Time and Narrative with an aggressive chapterexplicitly asking,

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"ShouldWe RenounceHegel?,"there s somethingdeeply Hegelianabout his strategyof takingon, thenmanaging o assimilate,all comersso as to emerge stronger.Ricoeurmay not shareHegel's limitless arrogance literallyarrogating verythingto himself),but his humility s equallyambitious.There was neverany questionfor Deleuze aboutrenouncingHegel. His antipathyto this "philosophede l'Etat"was immediate, otal,anditself completely arrogant.Asfor Ricoeur,Deleuze apparentlyavoided the man Dosse dubs"philosophede la Cite,"at least before 1986. Then, he links their names after each had just published amultivolume reatiseontemporalityandfabulation,Deleuze's cinema bookspicking upthe notion of "bifurcatedime"that Ricoeurhadjust developedin TimeandNarrative.Proustwasexplicitlyakey source orbothof theirstudies.Butapparently,ndoutwardly,it gets no closerthanthis. Inconcatenating hese two Frenchphilosophers, follow thelead of OlivierMongin,who finds themboth to be supremephilosophersof time, yetincompatibleon the basic questionof mediation with regardto time [Mongin 128].WhereDeleuze's bookson the cinemaproclaim he immediacyof time,Ricoeur nsiststhat time is unthinkableexcept as mediated,whetherthroughfictional or historicalnarrative.Mongin opposes Ricoeur and Deleuze by distinguishingthe objects theyrespectivelychampion(the rdcit andthe cinema),butI proposeto dragRicoeurto thecinema,wherehe couldhave the effect of cultivating deas about hefilmimage(indeedthe ideaof cinema)thatDeleuze sowed in the firstplace.Indoingso, I force a chemicalreaction hatnevercatalyzedon itsown,despite heproximityof thesemen,whocertainlymust have met at the famous week with Heideggerin 1955 at C6risy-la-Salle[Dosse,PR418] and whenthey taughtphilosophyin Paris thereafter.The cinema, it turns out, opens a historical context thatjustifies, if only in ahypothetical way, the yoking of such divergent philosophical styles. As a buddingphilosopherandcin6phile n the late '40s and into the '50s, involvedin a complex waywith the then-reigningphenomenologicalparadigm,Deleuze must have paid specialattention to Andre Bazin's great essays in Esprit, a journal whose rapportwithphenomenologywas explicit, and whose guiding philosophical intelligencewas PaulRicoeur. Ricoeur was only intermittently n Paris duringthe decade after the war;nevertheless,hisclose relation oEspritwould havebroughthim into contactwithBazin,who like him was a disciple of its charismaticeditorEmmanuelMounier.Moreover,Ricoeur had been led by GabrielMarcelto thinkphilosophythroughart,particularlydrama.WithSartre,Merleau-Ponty, ndAmed6eAyfrewritingaboutcinemain theseyears,we shouldexpect Ricoeurto have been intriguedby this art,which was, underBazin's aegis, inflatingits ambitionsto the limit.And so I am permitted o imaginealost chapterin Dosse's biography.It details the chance encountersamong Ricoeur,Deleuze, and Bazin at the Cin6mathequeFranqaiseor at Truffaut's"Cin6-clubde lasallenoire."The "bifurcatedemporality"hatbothRicoeurand Deleuze developin the1980s Bazineffectively wrote aboutin his 1950 OrsonWelles, he firstauteurstudyIknowof. As much as the pithof Proust,the complexly perspectivalworldof Welles-andof the modernist dea of cinema that flourished n postwarParis-could have setbothRicoeurandDeleuzeon theirpaths,which wouldcrossdecades ateronthequestionof temporality.Comparedto Deleuze, Ricoeur has pursuedhis path in a "patient"and "long-suffering"manner, wo of his manyvirtues.Thesecomplement he beatitude hat"Themeek shall inherit heearth,"which canjust as easily be read as a sloganfor a crusade.Meekly,Ricoeur's houghthas infiltrated umerousdomains n the humanities ndsocialsciences,producing high-minded, ententious indof resistance.Tocalculate heimpactof his workadayethic, it is enoughto note thatRicoeurdirectedthe thesisor served asmentorto Jean-LucNancy, JacquesDerrida,JacquesRancibre,VincentDescombes,

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Jean-FranqoisLyotard,and Michel de Certeau[PR254-55]. He has left his mark,andmore.While the Protestant aith he has steadfastlyprofessedmay not have directed or

organizedhis strictlyphilosophicalundertakingsa"philosophicalChristian" ather hana "Christian hilosopher," e circumspectlycalls himself),it hasdecidedlyaffected hisreception n Franceand abroad.He was ignoredfor years,then vilified in France--butChristian ntellectualsthroughoutEuropewelcomed him. At his direstmoment,afterthe disasterhe sufferedat Nanterren 1970,he acceptedathree-yearpostat the CatholicUniversityof Louvainin Belgium.The crucialrapporthathe has maintainedwith theUniversity of Chicago dates from the same period (teachingin the Divinity Schoolrather hanin the department f philosophy,from which he alwaysfelt alienatedevenwhenofferingfor thempopularseminars n Continentalhought).InParis,by contrast,Ricoeurendured hecontemptof prestigiouspeersforkeeping religionwithin the orbitof his concerns.PierreBourdieu,Michel Foucault,andJacquesLacan refused to takehim seriouslyor to engage in the dialoguehe always invites. Their immense influenceturnedstudentsawayfromreadinghim.He was takento be a throwback o anotherageof philosophy,addressingan audienceof grayingparishioners.Whenhe was forcedtoresignas deanof NanterreUniversity n 1970, it was as if this view hadbeen officiallyconfirmed.At the same moment,Foucaultemergedas a hero of the radicalyouthandwas elevated to a chair at the College de France,which he took in directcompetitionwith Ricoeur[PR 517-18].But the pendulumhas swung the other way. English readershave been able toregister Ricoeur's reemergence in the past two decades throughthe instantaneoustranslation f his books,theappearance f an830-pagecompilationof his interchangeswithother hinkers,editedby Louis HahnfortheLibraryof Living Philosophers eries,andCharlesE.Reagan'samiablePaul Ricoeur:HisLifeandHis Work. n FranceRicoeurhas been ever moreprominent n the media andin publicexchangeswith high-profilepeersfromthehardandsocial sciences.Increasingly,cholars ndomainssuch ashistoryandcinema studies have cited him. And then in 1997 came Dosse's nearly800-pagePaul Ricoeur:Les sens d'une vie. Dosse took on thisproject ollowinghis indispensabletwo-volumeHistory of Structuralism.Evidently n preparinghatstudyhe encounteredRicoeuragainandagainas someoneatoddswith,or to the side of, the dominant rendsinpostwarFrench ntellectualife [Dosse interview].Determiningoreaddress heperiodthroughRicoeur urnsout to have been notonly afair but an astutedecision,forRicoeurgives Dosse entr6e o traditionsof thought hatprecedestructuralism ndpersistafter t,trends hatRicoeurhasbeen atpainstoput n dialoguewith structuralismnd tsavatars.

AlthoughDosse may originallyhave takenup Ricoeuras a convenience to roundout hispictureof thepast half-century,he man soonemerges nDosse's bookasperhapsits mostresponsiveandresponsible hinker.Givenenoughtime andsufficientoccasions,Ricoeur'smodestyanddoggednesshave been rewardedeven in a countrythatprizesostentationand flair.This would be thehagiographic xplanation:Ricoeur,philosopherof will, hastriumphed y sheer"goodwill,"notby "thewill to power."Dosse charts herisetopowerof Ricoeur'sgoodness, finding n his achievementof continuityanantidoteto the discontinuityof ourage. But if Ricoeurhas managed o engage intellectual adsseriously, ettinghis own ideas be inflectedby the signs of the times,a morestructuralrather hanbiographicalanalysiswould examinepreciselythose signs and those times,findingit logical thatthegeneralmalaiseof French houghtafterpoststructuralismndparticularlynapostcommunist eriodshouldprovokeareturno ethics(asinEmmanuelLevinas).From this perspective,what Dosse calls Ricoeur's"consecration"s merelyanothermoment n the self-propelledmovementof fashion,andthisbiography orms acontinuation,not the obverse,of his volumes on structuralism.

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EmpathyandBiographyThe shapeandstyle of this biographyemulate the ethos of its centralcharacter.Dossedubs Ricoeur "unmaitrea penser,"someone who unobtrusivelyelicits and extendsthinking; his, to distinguishhim fromthe lionized"maitrespenseurs"of the last half-century, he fashion-model masterthinkers amedLacan, Althusser,Derrida,Barthes,Bourdieu,et al. [PR600; Dosse interview].The abundanceof the book's researchandtherangeof topicsaddressedn its seventy chapters ryto matchRicoeur'sown drive tobe comprehensive n each of his studies andin theiraccumulated hrust.Where mostbiographiesof intellectualsaim to account or thedevelopmentof ideasin the events ofa life, Ricoeur's rathereventless life temptsDosse to reverse the direction,explainingthepersonas in fact a productof the ideas. As in one of Ricoeur'shermeneutic tudies,Dosse feels obligedto take seriouslyeach positionRicoeur has encountered, rom theempiricismof his firstphilosophyteacher n high school to a moresophisticated ormof the same philosophyin the work of the neurobiologistJean-PierreChangeux,withwhomhe recentlydebated[ChangeuxandRicoeur].

Althoughhe associatesmainlywith thegreats nphilosophy,heology,and iterature,Ricoeur dismisses personalityandcharacter,dissolving biography nto a vast culturalfield of reading and discussion. Personality amounts to a style of reading andinterpretation, tailored rajectoryof detoursanddisplacementsmadein passingfromone knotty ssueto another,alwaysin searchof solidground.Butpersonal dentity, ikeontology,is an unfinishedproject,a constantlyrecedinghorizonthat orients but doesnot constitutea life. Dosse acceptsRicoeur'sbelief--as much an intellectualpositionasaprivatedesire--thatthesubject s best known ndirectly.Decidingnot to accessRicoeurhimself,he pursuedhis work from the outside,interviewingscoresof those who haveknownhim,reading"Ricoeur he reader." ndhe has donesowith the sameforthrightnessandgenerositythat characterizeRicoeur'sreadingandwriting.No dramaticor secretmomentsbring nstant llumination o this life. Nothingis hidden,except,of course,thetruthtself,whichthe life is everinsearchof. Ricoeur'sstrongestdeas involve "narrativeidentity," fact thatpromptsDosse to discover his subjectonly through ncounterswithothers, in a dramaof decenteringand contextualization,as "Ricoeur"expands andtransformshis thought,his concerns,and,if we can use the contestedterm,"himself."Dosse adoptsRicoeur's favoredposture:by maintaininga forthrightyet deflectedapproach,he arrivesat a second,ordeliberated,naivete.Otherbiographersmighthavedweltpsychoanalyticallyon Ricoeur the orphanof WorldWarI, strivingto grow intothefatherwhom thatwar ook fromhim;or on theusurpationf his lifebyan interminableprogramof academiclabor.(We are told thathe has the constitutionto write twelvehours a day on a routinebasis.) But Dosse, except in one instance,triangulates hepersonalityof his subject,pinpointinghis relationto one thinker after another.Theexceptional nstance s the suicideof one of Ricoeur's ive childrenn 1987.Thischapter,titled"Latraverseedu mal absolu,"shows Ricoeurgrapplingdirectlywith somethinghe cannot assimilateto a highergood or to the orderof understanding.This worstofprivate ragedieschangedhiswritingandhisdemeanor; et, inDosse's account, tmadehim all the more "himself,"becoming the somberimpetusbehind his masterwork,published n 1990,Soi-memecomme un autre(Oneselfas Another).What makes Ricoeur'strajectoryof readingandinterpretationo worthtracking?"Philosophede la Cite,"he exists as a publicintelligencewith the publicgood ever inmind.Rarely calling uponarcanesources,Ricoeurreturns o the tradition-from PlatoandAristotle o HeideggerandAustin-to reorientmainstream hilosophybyprotectingit fromextremes.And he hasconsistentlymade use of philosophyto disentanglepubliccontroversiesand to plead for responsible action. Dosse's long book lays out one

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intellectual,political,religious,orpedagogicalsituationafteranother,ocatingRicoeur'sneed to respond,and then detailingthatresponse throughexcellent summariesof histexts. Along the way we are treatedto succinct reviews of the work of majorwriters(GabrielMarcel,KarlBarth,EdmundHusserl,DietrichBonhoeffer,ClaudeLevi-Strauss)and of someforgottenones as well (thepoliticalphilosopherAndrePhilip,forinstance,or Ricoeur's rival in the fifties, TranDuc Thao, the brilliantHusserl scholar who leftParisto helpbuild a government n Hanoionly to return,after the VietnamWar,out offavor,destitute,andwithoutacountry).OccasionallyDosse indulgesourtaste forgossipof the high and the mighty,as when he details severalegregiousinstances of Lacan'sunpardonably aughtybehavior oward heingenuousRicoeur.On thewhole, however,Ricoeur's devotionto theinterplayand alsoto the fairplayof ideasdiminishespersonalandprofessionaldrama.Dosseis convinced andheconvincesus)thatRicoeur'sapproachto the life of themind,to life itself, is vigorouslyhealthy.Regardlessof thepositionshehas upheldover the years(mostof which,in Dosse's survey,seem apropos,consistent,and iberating, houghseldombrilliant),his selflesslyvirtuousattitude, t oncepassionateandreflective,has had a salubriouseffect in a worldwheretop intellectualsseem moreoften to behave like politiciansand celebrities.As a public intellectual,Ricoeuris best defined by the situations into which heinsertedhimself. Dosse parseshis life into tensections:the 1930s;theexperienceof theprisoner-of-war amp;the periodof reflection in the mountainvillage of Chambon,1946-48; the Universityof Strasbourg,1948-56; the nonconformist n the heartof theSorbonne,1957-64; facingupto the mastersof suspicion Althusser,Lacan,Levi-Strauss,Greimas),1960-70; the adventureof the Universityat Nanterre,1965-70; eclipse inFranceandthedetour hroughAmerica,1970-85;recognitionandtriumph; philosopherin the Cite. Eachsectioncontainschapters hathighlight, nturn, hespheresof Ricoeur'sconcerns:politicalandpedagogicalconflicts, philosophicalproblemsandchallenges,religiousandtheologicalissues, theextended amilycirclewithin which he hasworkedandlived; internationalontacts. His has been a life of words,thoseof ancientthinkershe has drawnon, of current hinkers he has promoted,of courses he has taught,ofcontroversialournalarticleshe haspennedorreacted o, of memorable ectureshe hasgiven and othershe has attended.Over 1500 names show up in the index, a roster ofthose whose ideas have matteredover the last century,andnotjust in France.Indeed, not just in France. Dosse makes us believe that of the many Frenchintellectuals who have struckup relations with one Americanuniversityor another,Ricoeurhas profitedmost fromthe interchange.His yearsatChicagohavealteredtheway he gives seminars n Paris,turning hem into dynamicsessions of give-and-take,rather han the edifying lecturesthat are the normin theFrenchsystem.Nor would hisrecent books exist without the influence of Anglo-American philosophy (Austin,Strawson,Davidson,Parfitt,andso on). Morerecently,he has left the dooropenfor adialoguewithAsianphilosophersandreligiousthinkers,wantingeverto multiplypointsof view on questionsof Being. Ricoeurdoes notexpect thetruth romanyinterlocutor,eachnecessarily inite,but he does expectto understand etterwhateverquestionsbothhe and that interlocutorwhetherancientGreek or contemporary apanese)havecometo address.

Ricoeur's hermeneuticsconstitutes a faith in the humanquestfor Being, as muchas a methodforunderstanding uestionsposedof Being. Inthis Ricoeuredges close toBazin's"Ontology,"whereincinematography llowsus to accessreality,butonly fromshiftingandalways finite perspectives.The art of makingandwatchingfilms, like thepracticeof interpretation,s a disciplineof establishingandmultiplyingperspectivesonreality.Languages,styles, and ideologies mix and clash, yet accordingto these men,they do so over issues thatstretchbefore andbeyondall views.



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Ricoeurputs divergentviews to work,settingthem one againstthe other,chartingaroute romoneproblematico thenext,as hekeepsthedialogueof philosophymovingforward. And so one finds in Dosse's biography-and then supremely throughoutRicoeur'soeuvre--exceptionallyclearrecapitulations f key issues in Husserl,Freud,Althusser, Greimas, Derrida,and many others. But Ricoeur is no encyclopedist.Heneeds to cut cleanly to the center of the positions involvedbecause his own positionencompassesthe dialoguebetween,say,phenomenologyand structuralism rbetweensemiotics and the theoryof reference. His hermeneuticsdefines itself as a methodtobreakthroughthe limits of positions and vocabularies.Somethingmore, somethingpotentially iberating,becomes available o theunderstandingwhen vocabulariesbrushupagainstone another.Sometimes,asin metaphor, ne field is helpfullyredescribedbya foreign vocabulary(for example, mythology newly understood n the languageofstructural inguistics);sometimes two vocabulariesopen onto a domain that neithercould access alone(historiography ndnarratology llowinga conceptionof "narrativeidentity").Ricoeurhas had to counter insinuationsof eclecticism. He would call hisdisplaysof eruditionstrategic; hey allow him either to triangulatehis own emergingviews or (to use his definition of metaphor) o remapa philosophicalproblementirely,allowingit to come intoview in anentirelynew way.

Situationsand TrajectoriesRicoeur'spiety beforegreatthinkersand his taste for abstract deas wereundoubtedlyabettedby the sermonshe was asked each Sundayto meditateon. While he dutifullypursuedhigh school and undergraduate hilosophy courses, his nascent social andreligious imaginationwas ignited by the vibrant"non-conformism" f 1930s France.Extracurricularhilosophyfor Ricoeur includedBergsonon one side and the faddishGermanphilosophers n the other Nietzsche, o be sure, ollowedbyHusserl,Heidegger,andthe return f Hegelvia AlexandreKojeve'smuch-discussed ourses).WhereDeleuzewould resuscitate heBergsonandNietzsche of the 1890swith the two wonderfulbookshe wrote n the 1960s,RicoeurencounteredBergsonasvirtuallyacontemporary,ndeedas the authorof Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion,a best-seller when heread it in 1932. Ricoeur at nineteen was just finishing his baccalaureateat Rennes,undera Neo-Thomist who pushedhim to read the canonsystematicallyand withrigor,and forwhomBergson,despite havingmoved towardCatholicism,was forbidden ruit.In anycase, Bergson'sdayhadpassedwith the GreatWar;his popularitywas withthepublic,not with those who taughtandstudiedat the Sorbonne.AlthoughRicoeur didnotdirectlystudy Bergson, manyin his circle had felt his influence;andhe couldonlybeimpressedwithaphilosophyhatdealtwithpressingproblemsnanengaged,decidedlynonscholasticstyle.Philosophycould,in short,be alive. Ricoeurset off from Rennesinsearchof this life, firstby moving to Paris,and thenby looking outside the academicenvironmentdominated hereby the lucubratoryneo-KantianLeon Bruschwicg,withwhom he wrote a master'sthesis.

In Paris,Ricoeur found the vivacityhe was lookingfor in GabrielMarcel,whoserenowned"Fridays"eassiduouslyattended san antidote o his coursesat the Sorbonne.Refreshingly unacademic,Marcel insisted that his salons be free of the weight ofphilosophicalauthorityand thatthey deal with mattersof existence, not method.Yearafter year, political, social, religious, and aesthetic issues were presented by theparticipantswhothought hemthroughwithout hesupportor clarificationof canonicalformulations.Sartreand Levinas were amongthose who attended rom time to time,doubtless haking hingsupwith the HusserlandHeidegger heyhadstudied nGermany.

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(Sartrewould always disdainMarcelfor his conversion to Catholicism,andperhapsbecausehe hadprecededhim as a successfulplaywright.)Youngactivists came as well,full of thefierydiscourseerupting achmonth n suchupstartournalsasOrdrenouveau,Presences, andReaction.Marcelencouragednonconformist hought-in-action; ndinthe freedomandmoral eriousnessof thisfellowshipRicoeurpresentedhis firstgenuinelypersonaldisquisition,"Justice," topicon whichhe continuesto writeto this day.In the cauldronof the PopularFrontera,the youngRicoeur could speakof justiceas morethanaphilosophicalssue.Calvinist,hearguedagainstKarlBarth'sLutheranismthatChristianitymusttransform,notturn ts backon, theworld. Transformationhouldmove fromreflection to action,he wrote in Hic et nunc,one of the short-lived eftistjournalson whoseedgeshe hoveredduring he entiredecade.AProtestantrganpublishedout of Andre Gide's apartment,where Denis de Rougemont,one of its directors,wasliving in 1936, Hic et nuncmeant to serve as a site for intellectual ransformation,ikethe more radical ETREand Terrenouvelle. The latter,"a journal of revolutionaryChristianity," porteda cross as well as a hammerand sickle on its cover,and so wascondemnedby the Vaticanand Moscow alike. In one of its issues Ricoeurproclaimedhimself a pacifistwho nonethelessmust advocate interventionof the international efton behalfof RepublicanSpain.Inthesecomplexdayshe drew closest toEsprit(foundedin 1932),establishinga relationshipwith EmmanuelMounier hat would flourish afterthe war.Mounierrepresented omething ike Marcel in action.But it was notjust thepressingpoliticsof thedaythatpushedRicoeurbeyondthosecozy Fridaysat Marcel'sapartment.His commitment o the act of reading ed him todistrust he primacyof personalreflection that Marcelpersistentlyadvocated.The tworetainedgreataffectionfor each other,however. Marcel was the first personto greetRicoeuruponhis return romcaptivity n 1945,and it is to Marcelthat n 1950 Ricoeurdedicated he firstvolume of his own philosophy,FreedomandNature.In the late '60stheypublisheda wonderfulbooktogether,TragicWisdomandBeyond.On the surfacea setof radio nterviewsof Marcelby Ricoeur, nfact thisbook constitutesasympatheticandproductivedialogue, dialoguebeing the cast of thoughtandspeech they mutuallyupholdas primary.Dialogue clarifies differences and filiations. While Ricoeurworries that Marcelcanbe chargedwith murkinessand lack of method,no one can questionhis couragetoface philosophybare-handed.The twin topics Marcel introduced n the secondpartofhispath-breakingournalmitaphysique,andthenpursuednlaterstudies,"TheMysteryof Being" and "IncarnatedThought,"are scatteredthroughoutRicoeur's books andbecome the focus of his essay on Marcelwritten n 1984 [Lectures2 50-53]. Ricoeurhas tried to answerto the depthof bothmysteryandbody,but in a way that sheds onthem the brightestpossible light, somethingMarcel,a manof music andliteratureasmuch as a philosopher,never cared to do. Marcel's existentialphenomenology growsout of his experiencewith art,whichhe felt could tell us more thanpurephilosophicalanalysisabout the topics that mattered o him, such as "identity."n "BergonismandMusic,"he described he "figureof the theme"as welling up froman anonymouspastin the music listener who intuitsit and "recognizes"ts aptness.Marcel describes thisquasi-pastas "notany particularectionof a historicalbecoming,moreorless explicitlyassimilated o a movement n space,such as a film sequence.Itis rather he innerdepthsof oneself . .. sentimentalperspectivesaccording o which life can be relivednot as aseries of events but to the extent that it is an indivisible unity which can only beapprehended s suchthroughart"["Bergsonismand Music"149].Ricoeur's later ideas, particularlyon "living metaphor"and "narrativedentity,"can be seen in germherein Marcel's deas: a composerandhis hearersencountereachotherin the figureof a musical theme which satisfiesanexpectation hat is discovered



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onlyin thehearingof it. This"anonymous ast,coloredby personalnuance" haracterizesnotonly ourresponseto musicbutour relation o culturegenerally.We are bornnot tocreatemeaningfrom theisolatedpointof our existence(Sartre,Descartes);we are bornalreadybelongingto meanings hatwe graduallydiscover,recognize, modify,make ourown in returningto. Marcel shared with Sartre the sense of the essential risk ofsubjectivity, ts insubstantiality, ut Marcel's faith waited in the expectationthat thisrisk would reapdividendsof authenticityuponits maturation.Never self-confident nits being, a self neverthelesscan proceedconfidentlyon a road called genuineness,whose final destinationremainsever the road:Homo viator.

Dosse picks up an echo of homo viator in his subtitle, for Les sens d'une viecharacterizests subject,Ricoeur,as engaging meanings("sens")butonly as someonewhosethoughts en route.LikeMarcel,Ricoeurholds no doctrinebutfollowsadirection("sens")with a distincttrajectoryandcontinuity.And yet one can precisely plot everyzigzag,detour,andsuddenbreakthroughf hisjourney,since theseall takeplaceon theimmensemapof philosophywith whose coordinateshe, far more thanMarcel,orientshimself. When faced with a problem, Ricoeur's characteristic first movement isbackwards,"retreat." his term bearsa prominentpedigree,Ricoeuradopting t fromGabriel Marcel, who was ever suspicious of progressivism, positivism, scientism,dialectical Hegelianism. Marcel counseled retreat when faced with a "mystery,"aconundrumn which one is intimately nvolved(unlikea mere"problem"o be solved).Inpullingbackwithin heself,in amoodof recollection,one canscanthe inner andscape,includingone'sresources,heritage,andsituation,notto mentionone'saffections,beforeleapingforward n a calculatedriskof thought.

Marcel'sdramaticandhighlypersonalmannerof doing philosophy s bolsteredbya French tradition one can trace to Montaigneand Pascal. His modernprogenitor,however, s Maine de Biran,whoatthe outsetof the nineteenthcentury nitiateda styleof personalthoughtfrom the literal retreat hat,as a nobleman,he was forcedto makeduring he FrenchRevolution.Marcel'sJournalmitaphysique akes its cue fromMainede Biran'sJournalintime,a sustainedreflectionon the inner ife, beginningat what hethoughtwas thebeginning: he sensationsof thebody responding o anexterior ield ofobjects and other selves [see Gouhier].After a generationof the determinismof theFrenchphilosophes,Maine'srecoveryof free will within the materialworld (enactedthrough orporeal owersof vision andmovement) etthestageforBergson'ssubsequentelaborationof the topic at the end of the century n Matterand Memory.Bergson'sgreatbook, which Deleuze championedall his life, which Marcel wasbeholdento (he dedicatedhis Journalmitaphysiqueto Bergson),and which Ricoeurcontritely agrees is a masterpiecehe has yet adequately o address[Ricoeur,Azouvi,and Launay188-89], couches the existential human drama n proto-scientificterms.Bergsonalternatesbetweenneuroscientistandreflectivephilosopher, akingbothparts,as it were,inthe same sortof dialogueRicoeurandChangeuxwouldexchangeacenturylater[see ChangeuxandRicoeur].He doesn't shrink romdescribingthe humanbrainas a relaybetweensensationandaction,butcruciallyhe addsthatthisrelayworkswitha built-indelay [Matterand Memory30]. Consciousness-reflection-takes place inandasthisdelaywhen,facedwith some situation n thepresent, ayerswithin a volumeof memoryare traversedandsampledbefore the organismadjusts ts stance and reactsto face the future.Marcel was struckby this image of consciousness as time spentin amemoryvault.Heconceivedof thisvault,as didBergsonandMainedeBiran, npersonalterms,the self as unplumbedvolumeof depth.Ricoeur,who cites Marcel,Husserl,andMaine de Biranaskey influenceson the samepageof his "IntellectualAutobiography"[Hahn12],would ikelycharacterizehis "vault" s some sortof library,ull of "volumes,"whose ideas, sentiments, and positions shuffle in constantinterplayand to which we

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turnwhenconningexperience.Librariesormsecond ines of retreatwhen innerresourcesfail and we must think furtherand otherwise. Unlike Marcel,Ricoeur accordeddirectinteriorreflection ittle credit.Howquickhe is to burrow nto the further ecesses of thelibraryandfrom there into the meandering deas of individual volumes.As he puts it,hermeneuticdistanciations avariantof Husserl'sphenomenological poch6[Riflexionfaite 58], a way to achieveclarityand to depersonalize mmediateexperience.Thevalueandpracticeof retreat, urely ngrained arlyon in hisreligiouseducationandthenin his formativediscussions withMarcel,becameRicoeur'sdefacto mode ofexistence duringthe 1940s. So too did the German anguageandGermanphilosophy,which he had begun systematicallyto studyafter 1936. For Ricoeur was captured n1940 andsequesterednaprisoncamp nPoland or theduration f thewar.Miraculously,he foundhimself incarceratedwith otherintellectuals, ncludingMikel Dufrenne,theKantianphenomenologistwho would remain a lifelong friend. Dosse paints a vividpictureof thisoddrefugeof philosophy,supportedby amodest ibraryof donatedbooksthat included the complete works of KarlJaspersand the Ideen of Husserl.Ricoeurmade an interlinear ranslation f the latter,while he andDufrennesystematicallywentthrough he Jaspers,preparinga coauthored tudythatwould come out in 1948. TheyperfectedtheirGermanandimprovised ectures,Ricoeurextemporizingon Nietzschewithout notes at one memorablesession. Oncereleased,rather han throw himself likemost of hiscontemporariesnto the workof reconstructing rance'sculturalnstitutions,he took his familyto the mountainvillageof Chambon,whichhadbeen a literalrefugeforJewishchildrenduring hewar. Invitedto teachin this idyllic communitybyAndrePhillip,the charismatic ocial activist whom he had knownin Protestant ircles in the'30s, he effectively optedout of thepostwarstruggles orculturalpower.Ricoeur n themountains, ike Christ n the desert,tested himself and his ideas in completeisolation.Subsistingon verylittle for threecold years,he used this "haut ieu de retraite" o finishhis doctoral hesis,his Husserltranslation,and theJaspersbook(whenDufrennecameto visit). He also triedout on very young students he courses he would soon give at hisfirstuniversitypost in Strasbourg.Ricoeurbroughtto Strasbourga certain brand of Frenchpostwarexistentialism,especiallythatof MarcelandMerleau-Ponty,which he bolsteredwith the morerigorousphenomenologyof Husserl.BeyondIdeenandHusserl'sotherpublishedbooks,Ricoeurcould now studythousandsand thousandsof pagesof themaster'snotesjustuncoveredin a Belgian archive. Ricoeur stakedhis claim to become their principaloverseer,apositionhe wouldinherit romMerleau-Ponty.This was more thanacademiccuratorialwork, for Husserl's "particularism"ormed the mentalist obverse of Marcel's carnalapproach. While Ricoeur would ultimately recognize how different were thephenomenologiesthey practiced, hey equallycontributed o foundinga conceptionof"theperson."Crucialhere s Husserl'sdoggedness nfillingtheinterstitial one betweenintention andsheer sensation. When supplementedby his Phenomenologyof InternalTimeConsciousness,this zone in effect becomes for Husserlthe site of the person,includingstyle andcontinuity.Ricoeur understoodHusserl's abstract ormulations o underlie the personalandpolitical deas(hecouldnot term t"philosophy")f Mounier,without helatter's ealizingit. In chapterfive of his summarybook of 1946, Qu'est ce que le personnalisme?,MouniercallsonMarcel,Jaspers,Kierkegaard, ndMainede Biran o helphimaccountfor the double alienationafflictingmodern humanbeings (from the world and fromotherpeople) [seeMounier].Ricoeurgrewveryclose to Mounier ustbefore the latter'sdeath n 1950 while Ricoeurwas translatingHusserl'sIdeen.EvidentlyMounierhopedto recruita heavy-hittingphilosopher,as he might a lawyer, to validate his socialmovement in the eyes of the academic court. In a most happy moment, Ricoeur



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contributedhis abstractntellectualwork(on HusserlandMarcel)to the social reachofPersonalismanditsjournal,Esprit,forwhich he beganto writeregularlyand where hefound,as Dosse putsit, a "collective intellectual dentityof a communityof hope"[PR57]. As withMarcel,Ricoeurbelieved he hadto stepbeyondHusserl,but neverbeyondHusserl'sdesireto grasp ife at its immediatepointsof contact.Modest,Ricoeurdoubtedthathe (or anyone)could fulfill this desire unaided.In fact, contraMarcel and contraHusserl,he readilydeclared he need forprecedent ormulations,notso much to leanonas to think with into the future.And so, althoughhis philosophyis suspendedbetweenthe quest (modernist and Husserlian)to build things up anew and a belief (moretraditional) hatmankindhas ever confrontedthe selfsame problemof rememberingexistence-a problemMarcelencouragedeveryoneto pose as thoughforthe veryfirsttime-Ricoeur has formalized what appearsa most standardphilosophical practice,that of readingandinterpreting arlierphilosophers.Hermeneuticsnames the practicehe would eventually adoptto mediateproblemsthat have been deliberatelyposed byphenomenology s immediate.Hermeneutic henomenology, tfirstanoxymoron, omesto stand or contactwith existencethat s culturally haredbeforebeingtakenaspersonal.Ricoeurenlargesthe temporalityat the heart of phenomenologybeyond the subject,until it stretches across centuries on the wings of interpretation,while remainingauthentically uman.Thisaspiration e shareswithGadamer,houghhe invariablyurnstoward he futureand owardaction,whereasGadamer'sonstant oncern s with traditionandthe past.The built-inculturaldimensionof Ricoeur'sphilosophicalprogram its perfectlyapersonalitythat thriveson dialogue and social concern.At Strasbourg rom 1948 to1956 he enjoyedfertile interactionwith a close-knitgroupof colleagues andstudents,in bothphilosophyandtheology.He treasuredgood conversationabout serioustopicsin the classroom, in the extremely active Esprit study group, and in his religiouscongregation.Buildingon the reservoirof readingnotes and ideas accumulatedduringhis isolation in the 1940s, his courses grew in reputationand variety, as did hispublications.Calledto the Sorbonne n 1957,he would leave forever the conventionalsatisfactionsof provincialuniversity ife for a far moreconsequentialpublicarena.In Paris, as Dosse recountsit, Ricoeur could not help but become involved incontemporaryocial issues discussedin thejournalshe kept up with. He arrivedat theSorbonneafterhaving ust lobbed into thepublicsphere hreepieces ontheresponseofthe West to China, which Dosse finds feeble but which indicate a new sense ofresponsibility o the largerworld of politics.Almost immediatelycame the Hungarianuprising hatsplit the left over Stalin;hardlyhadthis stormdiminished han the brutaldebate overAlgeriaescalated. Ricoeur took animmediateandforthright tandagainstcolonization;he found himself questionedby the police for hiding soldiersdesertingfrom thatwar. His name couldbe found on petitions, n theologicaldebates,and on thepagesof a rangeof journals.His bibliography hows a surprisingnumberof addressesconcerning topics as diverse as science, youth, internmentcamps, communism,andZionism[Hahn646-53].In all thisEspritfelt like his home;forthere, n the spiritof a PersonalismmbibedthroughHusserl,Marcel,andMounier,he could writewithoutcondescensionon mattersatoncephilosophicalanddirectlypolitical.So closely did he identifywith itsprinciplesthatin the late 1950s he would be thoughtof as the nextdirector,Protestanthoughhewas. Esprit iterallybecame his homein 1957 whenhe moved into Les Murs BlancsinChatenay-Malebrayust to the southof Paris.Mounierhadboughtthis lovely propertywithits threebuildings n 1939 andshared t with otherPersonalists.Even aftera 1957shake-up in editorial direction, Chatenay-Malebraymaintained itself as a unique

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intellectualandmoralcommunity.Dossedescribeswithenvyanambienceof generositysufficientlyutopianto quiet the occasional conflicts of position and personalitythatinevitablyaroseamongthe men, women, anddozen childrenwho lived therein closecompanionship.

Chatenay-Malebrayffectivelyservedasthe editorialheadquartersorEsprit,wherefriendsandadherents,often morethanfifty strong,regularlygathered o plan-and toexchangeviewson-topics the ournalhaddecided ofeature.Ricoeur'sviewsinvariablyputhimon theleftevenby Esprit'sstandards.n 1960hetookituponhimself toorganizeanissue of thejournaldevotedto sexualmores, norder o bringEsprit ntocontactwithcontemporaryoncernsandwithachanging ociety.But it was hisgraspof the conundrumposedby the Soviet Unionasputative eaderof world socialism thatgainedRicoeurthegreatestrespect.IntheMay 1957 issue of Esprithis "Leparadoxepolitique"appeared,an essay thateven today drawspraisefor its independenceand breadth.As usual helinedupextremistsonboth sides (Hegelon thesideof thestate,Marxon thatof distrustor resentment), nsisting that both be given their due in a synthetic political stance.More heretically, he chided Marx for having left politics out of his 100 percentsocioeconomic analysis.This lacunapermittedanyone(Leninand Stalin,as it turnedout) to develop every sort of political mechanismin the name of furtheringMarx'sgoals, includingthe militaryoppressionof Hungary n the current nstance[Ricoeur,Azouvi, andLaunay95]. Elaboratingdeas HannahArendtwas makingfamous atjustthistime(hewould write hepreface or theFrench ranslationf TheHumanCondition),Ricoeurdistinguishes power, exercised verticallyby strataand associatedwith evil,from politics, a horizontalpractice associated with "being together."He could notcountenance hepaternalism f the USSR at the timebutadamantly efusedthe lure ofso-called American democracy saturatedwith commercialism. While he practicedpreciselythe Personalism hatwas thelegacyof Espritfromthe 1930son, he developeda philosophicalvocabulary ojustify this "thirdway."This periodof activism subsided n the '60s as Ricoeur found himselfengagedinall-consumingacademic debates and in the internalpoliticsof the Universityof Paris.Quiteunfairlyhe became inkedto theestablishment, espitehisquiteprogressivedeas.Anyonewho believedininstitutionsandRicoeurbelievesin their nevitable mportanceas well as theirimperfection)was suspect.Morethanone former ntransigent adicalwho hadloathedRicoeur n thedaysof the seizure of Nanterre atercame to appreciate,indeed to revere, him after rereadinghis many social essays [PR 601]. Ricoeur'sconsistently thoughtful eftism,and the action he has personallytakenor supportednthe face of a rangeof social causes, gain compoundinteresteach yearuntil its worthstacksup well againstthe now devalued rhetoricof the blusteryfirebrandsof 1968.Since Dosse was schooledin thatgeneration,Paul Ricoeur:Les sens d'une vie has theairof a penance expiatingthe arroganceof an earlierperiod.This shift in the tone ofacademic discoursecan be measuredby the ascendancyof EmmanuelLevinas,whosereputation urely helped resuscitatethe prominenceof his friendand colleague PaulRicoeur. From the 1930s to the end of the century, both men submittedGermanphenomenologyHusserlandHeidegger espectively)o theprimacyof ethicsand ustice,which they considered not corollaries to philosophy but its very heart [Ricoeur,Autrement].

Paradigmsand PositionsAs recently as 1990, when Levinas characterizedRicoeur's thoughtapprovinglyas"phenomenological,"he latter did not deny it [Ricoeur,Aeschlimann,and Halp6rin

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35-37]; on the otherhandhe has styledhimself "a sortof post-Kantian,f only throughHusserland Naber-even apost-HegelianKantian,as Ijokinglycall myself' [Ricoeur,Azouvi, and Launay 83]. The program of existential phenomenology-to graspprereflective xperience hrough eflection-occupied the firstphaseof Ricoeur'scareer,but it did so ambivalently.His earlybooks on Marcel and KarlJaspersquestionedtheideal of the unity of the humanperson,whether the "itinerantview" (Marcel)or the"tragicview" (Jaspers).Even Sartre's ar more careful andcomplex writingultimatelyfalls prey,in Ricoeur'sopinion,to an immaturedesire forunity.Ricoeur's Kantianismemergestime and againto map the limits of thinkingin the murkierareas of humanexperiencethatphenomenology s drawn o. Kantcan be felt in Ricoeur'spenchant orkeeping modes of experience(invariably hree of them) autonomousbut interacting.Both philosophersdefine the limits beyond which reason cannot pass, while Kantvalidates he centralplaceRicoeuraccords magination, hesingle facultythatanimatesevery mode andevery concern.

Appropriately,he imaginationwas the focus of the course Ricoeurpreparedn hismountainretreatust afterthewar.Neverpublishedas such,this syllabuswould inflecthis writing orthe nexthalf-century, oth because of its topicandbecause of thelogic ofitsexposition.InRicoeur'soutline,recoveredandpresentedbyDosse,everythingbeginswith a descriptive phenomenologyin the mannerof Maine de Biranand, of course,Sartre, o asto catchtheoperationof theimagination.Ricoeurdescribes he structure fsimple experiencesof illusion and then moves to ever morecomplex functions,fromdaydreamingo art andreligion. Havinggraspedthe processfrom the inside, Ricoeurthen moves outside, where Sartrerefused to go, deconstructing he imaginationwithwhatever disciplines claim to explain its presence and its operations (sociology,psychology, psychoanalysis).Then comes that third moment Ricoeur always insistsupon,the momentof synthesiswherein the process(herethe imagination),despitethecritique t hasundergone,nstructsus in itsuniqueway.Inthis case apoetics reintegratesall levels andall formsof theimagination.Poetics,the nameforthestudyof thespecificityof imaginative exts,also serves,inthe mannerof Kant'sCritiqueofJudgment, ojustifyfaithinthevalidityof taste and of reason, ncludingthatverycriticalreasonthatputtheimaginationundersuspicion.Thus in 1947, beforehaving yet publisheda book or namedhermeneuticsas hismethod,Ricoeurdisplays ntheembryoof a syllabuswhatwill become his idiosyncraticapproach.He also displays his fundamentalethos in so adamantlyrefusingto allowreflectionon experienceto get trappedn exclusive concernwith self.Always he woulddistributeself-concernacrossa field of meaning,reference,andultimatelyaction,viaproductiveencounterswith texts andotherselves. While Ricoeurconsistentlyexhibitsthis methodandapproach n various opics,theparticular opicof theimaginationmustbeprivilegedasthemotorof productivityneveryinstance.Theimaginationwill surfaceunmistakablynLamitaphorevive (1975) as thatwhichpushes languagebeyonditself,and it underwrites the value of narrative,which after all is precisely a poetics oftemporalityhatthinksbeyondtheaporiasof reason.Kantian ritiqueallowsRicoeurtoidentify aporiasandto locate limits of thought,while poetics, underwritten y Kant'sthirdCritique,restores, f notunity, henatleastthevalue of thehumandrive to attain t.The inevitablethwartingof this persistenthumandrive hadbeen the core topicofRicoeur'sdoctoralthesis. Underthe globalrubric"Philosophyof the Will,"he beganpublishinghis immensepersonalphilosophicalproject,volumeonecomingoutin 1950as La volontaireet l'involontaire(FreedomandNature)with the secondpart,Finitudeet culpabilit6 Finitudeand Guilt),cominga decade later.Thesetitlescertainlypartakeof the problematictone of existentialism,althoughit is Ricoeur's Kantian turn thathelpshim confrontdeterminismand wrest from it some spacefor humanbeings in our



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abilityto synthesizeinventiveness with lawfulness.(Thisoppositionreturnsagainandagainin his thought,most notably n LaMitaphorevive,where it is raised to the basicprincipleof languageuse.) No theologicalcompensation s offeredfor the scandal oflimitationandguilt,the desolatecondition n whichhumans indthemselvesand whichis Ricoeur'sgoad to philosophize n the firstplace. Inthe idiom of phenomenology,hedescribes"pre-humanature,"hat s, the state rom whichsomething ikehumannatureemerges, includingvarious"personal tyles"of responding o limitation, romthe mostconsensual to the most rebellious. Ricoeur would say that all his laterwork,includinghis books on Freud, on language, and on narrative identity, is anchored in thisphenomenologicaldescription,which runs in parallelthroughthe three separatebutinteractingsphereshe adaptsfrom Kant:the spheresof knowledge,of action,andoffeeling.In all three, he humanconstitutesarangeof values thatcanvirtuallybegraphedon two fundamental xes, that which runsfrom theparticularsense perception) o thegeneral(concept, language)and thatwhich runs betweenoriginandpossibility,archeand telos [see Klemm].Ricoeur's later books will depend on, but break free of, the convolutions ofintrospectionhatshape he usualcourseof existentialphenomenology.Late n the 1950she deliberately ook the stepfrompersonalto culturalexperienceand reflection whenhe splitFinitude et culpabiliti in two: volume 1, titled "FallibleMan,"remains n thereflectiveidiom, while volume 2, "TheSymbolismof Evil," locates the "fault ine"inhumannature hroughanexegesis of culturalexpressions.Edgingclose to the workofMirceaEliade,highly popularat the time,he turned irstto symbolsandthen to mythsthat coordinatesymbolsinto narratives.Althoughhe ultimately udgedthis forayto beunsophisticated,t initiatedwhat wouldbecome a lifelong series of "detours" n routeto a fuller butalways partialandperspectivalcomprehension f lack.Indeed,everafter,Ricoeurwould identifythe "route"as a startingpointandrejectthe conceptualclarityof radicalorigin,insistingthatphilosophybeginnot at thebeginningbutin the midstofthe meaningsall around t. Hence theprimacyof interpretation.In embarkingon The Symbolismof Evil (1960), Ricoeur opted to employ thevocabularyof poetics on the one handand of anthropologyon the other,two of the"human ciences"thatwere coming to the fore atjust this momentandthat he wouldneed to address head on. His admiration or Merleau-Ponty, lways high, soared in aeulogyhecomposed n 1961[seeLectures ], whichrecognizedMerleau-Ponty'sudacityin supplementingphilosophywith thedisciplinesof linguistics,sociology,psychology,andhistory.Ricoeur ookup Merleau-Ponty's aton n fullknowledge hatexistentialismwascedingpowerto les scienceshumaines,aparadigmhift visibleinall fields. Marxistswho had followed Sartrenow had to adjust o the new force of LouisAlthusser. ndeedSartrewas felt to have been knockedoff hispositionwhenin 1962 ClaudeL6vi-Straussconcluded TheSavageMind (dedicated"tothe memoryof Merleau-Ponty")with theextraordinarypilogue"HistoryandDialectic."Ricoeur,while neverclose to Sartre,mightneverthelesshave beenexpectedto takehis side, andindeedthe editorsof Espritcampaigned o defend humanismagainstthehuman sciences in the name of agency and freedom.But Ricoeur in effect adoptedMerleau-Ponty'sxpansiveroleinhis interchangeswithL6vi-Strauss.As Dosse reportsit, Ricoeur ookednot to debateL6vi-Strauss o much as to apprenticen anthropologyand inguistics f onlytoemergefromtheculde sacof TheSymbolism fEvil. And so heconstitutedaL6vi-Strauss tudygroupatEsprit.For severalyearsrunninghe conductedcourses that minutely dissected the argumentsand contents of an anthropologyofAmericanIndiansthatposed as a studyof humannature n the universalsense.Alongtheway,Ricoeurschooled himselfdeeplyin the structuralinguisticsso crucialnotjustto L6vi-Straussbutto RolandBarthes,A. J. Greimas,andJacquesLacan.

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ThusRicoeur's1967 riposteto L6vi-Strauss,"Structure,Word,Event,"representsthe fruit of a deep andpartiallysympatheticunderstanding f this alternativevision ofculture.His brilliant,characteristicmove in this seminalessay was to interposea termbetween the dyad "langue/parole" f Saussurian inguistics;thatterm,"mot,"carriesthicktracesof theologyandhistory, omplicatingwhathe saw astoosimpleadistinction.Everyword,Ricoeurpointsout,bearsin its etymologythe sedimentof prioruses thatamountto a historyof experience. Historycan be accountedfor neitherby structuralrules(langue)norby anaccumulation f individualevents(parole).Words-les mots-especially in theirevolution, are what beartradition,heritage,and the credit humanbeingscan drawon forashared uture.Structural nalysisof textsmaybe indispensableto anexplanationof theirpowerto makemeaning,but it is completely nadequateo thetask of comprehendingheirimportandconsequence.This much he retained romhisselective acceptanceof Heidegger.Ricoeur'sopponents n this argumentwere notjust the famous namesassociatedwith les sciences humaines;they includedtheologiansand biblical scholarsas well.Indeed one could read Ricoeur'scontestationwith Levi-Strauss,Greimas,Althusser,and Lacan as preparationor the more lethal battle he fought for a perspectivalandpolyvalentview of the Bible and of religion againstabsolutists on the one hand andrelativistson the other.As has so often been the case in the life of a man for whom alldiscoursesinterrelate,biblicalhermeneuticshad laid the groundfor,and was then thebeneficiaryof, a renewedpoetics.The literaryworkbecame for Ricoeurtheprototypeof the intersectionbetween the personaland the universal that marks his theologicalconcerns.For both the scriptural ext andthe poetic text can be considered fertileyetunfinished, open to a future that readers find themselves drawn to forge throughinterpretationndapplication.Theliterarywork carriesvalues released romthecontrolof its author.Like a "word,"t can be cited and takenup in distinct andquitedifferentmoments.Interpretationllows thepoem to functionfully at a distance from the eventor intentions hatbrought t about.Still, its forcedependson its statusas event,both asrecord of a processof composition (subjectto psychoanalyticandideological forces)andasgoadto aprocessof appropriationn which those whoencountert takeit into thefutureas partof theirlives. Only its independence rom any actual event allows it toplay this role as "virtual event." And that independenceresults from its structuralorganization, he understanding f which is preciselythe goal of the humansciences.Ricoeur recognizes what appearto be opposed approachesto literature(includingphenomenological laboration, tructural escriptionandanalysis,poetic interpretation,and historical contextualization),while at the same time making these approachesmutually nterdependentn accounting or the richnessof phenomena hatgo to the rootof humanexperience, ike literature ndreligion.Ricoeur'sreputationbeyond those drawn to the theologicalreverberation f histhoughttook off with the 1965 publicationof De l'interpretation:Un essai sur Freud(translatedn 1970asFreudandPhilosophy:AnEssayinInterpretation).Whatadaringcareermovethiswas.Caughtwithina self-justifying heologicaldiscourse hatunderlayeven his forayintoanthropologicalpoetics, TheSymbolismof Evil, andsensing,alongwithMerleau-Pontyn his finalyears,theentropyof phenomenology,Ricoeurabruptlyset out on the unlikelydetourposed by psychoanalysis.Freud stoodout as a challengeto his faith,his reason,his very sense of identity.To his credit,Ricoeur did not shrinkfromthinking hroughFreud o theend. Thismeant ocatingtheplaceswhere Freudianthought tops,its "ends."Ricoeurwasmaligned nFrance orfailingto takeinto accountFreud's egacy, particularlyn Lacan.Indeed t wasLacanwho mostvilifiedRicoeur orthis omission,even thoughRicoeurattendedLacan's seminarsand didhis best to havea dialogue with a man who, in Dosse's account, was interested mainly in self-

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aggrandizement.But in the United States, where his book had gestatedas the 1964TerryecturesatYale,Ricoeurbecamea mostapproachable renchphilosopher.Ricoeurgaveus a Freud hatwascomprehensible,powerful,yet limited,ascomparedo Lacan'sFreud,whose thoughtbecameintimidating, ncomprehensible, nd limitless.Freudallowed Ricoeurto raise the questionclosed to phenomenologyconcerningthat which lies beyond consciousness. Husserl had made room for the "unreflected"areasoff thehorizonof everyintuitionof consciousness,butwas constrained o believethatsuchzones literallyexistonlyto the extentthattheyare available oreventualentryinto consciousness. Freud's"unconscious,"however,is far more radical: rretrievableto consciousness,it not only exists but controls the existence of theconscious subject.Ricoeur's religious upbringing may have permittedhim to abandon the pride ofconsciousness,somethingunthinkableorHusserl.Heechoes St. Paul:"Consciousnessfinds itself by losing itself. It finds itself instructedandclarifiedafterlosing itself andits narcissism" RicoeurandIhde153].Onemustgive overconsciousnessto theanalystso as to receive in returnanother ife in abundance.This is the miracleof therapy,amiraclefew haveexperiencedbutwhichhas beenreported requently noughto bolsterthe belief of the faithful n the truthof the unconsciousandin the projectof analysis.

MightRicoeuracceptthe humiliations o the ego exactedby psychoanalysisas aruse to convertthe heathen[Ricoeur,Azouvi, andLaunay90]? Dosse's accountallowsus to imaginethis. For Ricoeur claims thatFreud,Marx,and a line of "prophetsofextremity"[see Megill] stemmingfrom Nietzsche have torn down every institution,every monumentof civilization,includingthe institutionof the self, leavinghumanitywithnothingbut the movementof forceandscattered lementsof signification Ricoeurand Ihde 148].And yet these prophetsevince a heroic embraceof a deepertruth hanthat whose edifice they have shattered.The result is a gain for consciousness. TheNietzscheanoverman, ike thepatienton theotherside of psychoanalysis,hasgainedacertainadulthoodof consciousness nrecognizingandwillingthe loss of the dominanceof consciousness within existence. Itis atthispointthatRicoeurbringsHegeltobear, na move thatwould haunthim for the next twenty-five yearsuntil the "renunciation fHegel" at the end of Time and Narrative.Hegel's developmentaland suprapersonalPhenomenology f theSpiritrepresentshecountercurrentf Freud's egressiveanalysisof theindividualpsyche.WhereFreud racesexperienceto its infantileelements,Hegeltracesthe maturation f the Spiritfromits happychildhoodphasesin the "figures"ofthe Greekthinkersthroughits troubledskeptical figures that precedethe adulthoodreached n Hegel'sown consciousnessof Spirit.Ricoeurwould locateinthe institutionsof cultureboththe irrational ourcesof symbols(Freudmercilesslyshowsus these)andtheir fruits(Hegel promisestheir ntelligibility).Symbolsare once againtheprivilegedsites of bothregressionandprogression,andof ananalysisthatbreaks hem downintotheforcesandtheprimitivemeanings hatgaveriseto themas well as into thepossibilitieswith which their adultformulationsallow us to think.FreudmaytakeOedipusbacktopatricideand incest, but Hegel recognizes in the blinded,castrated,woundedego ofOedipusthe wisdom thatemerges at Colonus. Symbols provide the possibility of a"gainof thoughtandof consciousness,"even as they insist on a dispossessionof theself.

A Thousand,or Just a Few Well-SitedPlateaus?Gilles Deleuze has been muffled long enough in this article which opened with hisname.And he mustbe groaningat the lastparagraph, reudandHegel epitomizing heenemiesof freethought,whichitwashis missionto liberate.To him Ricoeurmust seem

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caughton a tightrope ike a circusmonkey runningback toward Freud'sarchaeologyand forward owardHegel's teleology, destinydrivinghim in both directions.And yetRicoeur'sbeliefintheopennessof thesymbolwould attractDeleuze. Both menwillinglyrelinquish standardphilosophy for the insights made possible by the disreputableintellectualfruitsof artand(forRicoeur at least) of religion.Even in the realm of art,however,they disagreeaboutthe extentof the opennessof the symbolthattemptsbothof them to thinkthoughtbeyondconsciousness. Insofaras Ricoeur follows Freud,thesymbol gives ontoanexpandedhumannature,beginningwith the immutablebuthiddenstructureof the unconscious that inclines us to be as we are. Deleuze refuses theconstrictionhisimplies.Herejects heprimacyof nature,heorganic, he hidden. nsteadhe sings of the virtual, he incompossible,the machinic.The "Powersof the False" arenot those of the unconsciousthat have been lurkingbeneaththe surfaceall along, butthose thatproliferate--even schizophrenically-along contoursof life only the barestfractionof which come to consciousness and into "reality."Deleuze makes us godsinsofaras we participatenthisspreadof thepossible.Ricoeur'sdevotion otheexpansionof meaning s drivenby his faithin truthsalreadygained by his forebears n philosophy,by artistsof every epoch, and by contemporaries iving and thinkingdifferentlybutliving andthinking n the selfsameuniverse,one that s in partshareable,one thatall ofus explorein our own fashion. Whenhe announcedon television that"Philosophy orme is ananthropology" Marquette],Ricoeurmeant okeep theological nquiry eparatefromthenaturalnquiryof philosophy.But the term"anthropology" ptlysuitshis wayof studyinghumanbeing (includingfirstof all himself)through"other"humanbeingsandthrough heirpractices.It should be evident, then,why, despitetheirwildly differentstylesof thoughtandexpression,Ricoeurand Deleuze have both been able to claim the interestof humanistsoutsidetherealmof philosophyproper.His two-volume treatiseCinemaI andCinema2 has made Deleuze essentialreading n film studies,renewingthatdisciplineat a timewhen it was in dangerof dissolvingintomerelyanother ite of cultural tudies. Ricoeurhas tantalized iteraryscholarsin an analogous way. His lengthydetour ntometaphorandnarrative-four largevolumesappearing etween 1975and1985-offer a sustainedreflectionandanalysison the natureandpotentialof literarydiscourse.Bothmenrecruitimaginativeand creative texts to replaceor supplementphilosophicalones. Invariablythese are drawn fromthe modernistparadigm.Deleuze showed himself an incrediblyversatileconsumerof films, art,andfiction,ableto writewithgeniusonanextraordinarydiversityof difficultworks. Ricoeurevidentlyis also at home in the thicketof the finearts,poetry,and even photography.Still, his practicalcriticism has been confined tofairly predictable eadingsof Proust,ThomasMann,andVirginiaWoolf in volume2 ofTimeandNarrative,choosingnovelsthat hematizehis theses. His discussionof paintersremainsabstract.He pays homageto Cezanne and van Gogh as men driven to repaysomevague"debt"when aftercountlesstortured ttempts heycometo rest on asingularsolution to some "singularknot" of issues that only their paintings allow them toexperience[Ricoeur,Azouvi, andLaunay178].Deleuze andRicoeuracknowledge hatart achieves universalitywhen it is most particular,o particularhat no language,andcertainlyno philosophy,could restatewhat it has madeintelligible.Althoughhe is personallydrawn ononfigurative aintingandto twelve-tonemusic,Ricoeur's main discussion of art relates to narrative,where questionsof identityandrepresentation re central.His attitude owardrepresentationwould seemto sunderhimfrom Deleuze at the outset, for Deleuze has done more thananyone to dethroneitsstatus in philosophy.The very word representationacknowledgesa priorand deeperrealitythat exactsdebtsof fealtyfrom the humanall-too-human.Representation urbscreativity nfavorof knowledgeandposition; tprovidesa fundamentallypatialmodel



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rather hananevolving, temporalone. Deleuze'scritiqueupdates hatof Bergsonandofphenomenologistsike Merleau-Pontywho are concernedwithprocessandemergenceover clarityandthecertainrecognitionof statesof affairs.Ricoeur, on the other hand, has welcomed representationprecisely because itinevitablyintroduceswhat he takes to be the inescapabilityof position. He is amongthose for whom (French)philosophyfell into its originalsin, "egology,"havingbeentemptedby the snake of consciousnesswhichheld outthe apple, seeminglynaturalandhealthy,of directreflectionon transpersonal roblems.But reflectionis neversimple.As soon as a representations engaged, the "pointof reflection"of phenomenologybecomes merely "point-of-view,"which Husserlhoped to neutralize via the second(eidetic)reduction.Ricoeur,afterfindinganeideticapproachunsatisfactoryn his firstvolume of Philosophyof the Will[Ricoeurxiv], acceptedperspectiveas inevitableandadvocates a hermeneuticswhereinperspectivescan be multiplied,crossed over, andopposed nthe midstof a culturalworldwhosehorizons hiftwithhistory.Representationsserveas heuristicsorknowledgeandaction.Somerepresentationsxtend houghtbeyondtheirapparent ontent to life itself. And representations lways work "byextension."Metaphorsand narratives,whether fictional or historical,are representations roundandthroughwhichthought merges.Theyformstepping tones--or,whynot,plateaus-in a trajectoryof understandinghat circles pastthe aporiasthatinevitably open up infrontof directreflection.Here Ricoeurcrossespathswith Deleuze who likewise woulddislocate thepathof thoughtby means of the "intercessors" e loves to introduce romfar afield [Deleuze,"Mediators"].

Hegelian in spite of himself, Paul Ricoeur's plateausare fewer in number thanthose of DeleuzeandGuattari.When asked about he scopeof philosophybythe sonofhis friend,EspriteditorJean-MarieDomenach,Ricoeuraphorized:"Listenyoungman,philosophy s reallyvery simple.Thereareonly twoproblems: he one and themultipleand the same andthe other" [Dosse, PR 270]. But philosophyhas a history,becausethese nsolubleproblemsarealwaysraised ndiscursive ituations hat hemselvesrequirestudy.Hermeneutics,t turnsout, amounts o the careful,indebtedexplorationof suchsituations,strivingto understand-that is, to recover anduncover-what mustever liebeyond the particularmoments and motives of our questioning and answering.Unsurprisingly,history and fiction are the landscapesfrom whose most prominentplateausRicoeur'shermeneutics akesflight.Philosophy s indebted o,andattheserviceof, these textualpracticesby which the imaginationstrives to bringcoherenceandtheillusion of permanence o ceaseless change.Thisdiscourseof debt with which Ricoeur ustifiedtheirreplaceable alue of bothhistoryand fictionmayhave come from EmmanuelLevinas,with whom he interactedintensely after 1980 [Ricoeur,Time and Narrative 3: 124-25]. Lurkingbeneath hisdiscussionof traces, adavers, ndforgetfulnesssunquestionablyheShoah,unavoidablein France n thisperiod.Ricoeur'sProtestantism,ensitive to thecoupledterms "debit"and "debt,"is able to respond positively by invoking the notions of "credit" and"credibility."He even seems to emphasizethe economic connotationbehinda favoritephrase:"Someone counts on me" [Breuil].Foras he makes clear in a 1991 televisioninterview n the series "PresenceProtestante,"verypromisederivesfrom,contributesto, andputsat risk the vulnerabilityof self, of other,and of language [Marquette]. f Ibreaka promise,I make a mockeryof theself I pretended o be, I disrespectwhomevermybrokenword njures,andIdamageanguage, he chief institution ndmedium hroughwhich humanbeingsextend themselvesbeyondthe here andnow.Languagestabilizesstatesof affairsonly if itspropositionsarebelievedto apply beyondthe momentof theirutterance.This is as true,Ricoeurmight argue,for deconstructivephilosophyas formarriagevows; both assume a debt to the institutionof languagewhich makes whatthey statemeaningful,andpersistentlyso.

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Deleuze has no patiencewith debts or promises,andcertainlynot with a balancesheetof debits and credits.He would unmoorphilosophyfromlanguage altogetheranddestabilizethesubjectso as to releasenew energiesandconceptsthathavebeen held incheck by therepressiveself. Nietzschean,he demands he overthrowof commonsenseand commonlanguageon behalfof a living powerwhichrunsthroughandbeyondtheself and which the self can help release by letting go of self-consistency.Hence thepremiumhe placedon schizophrenia,nomadism,andthefalse,all of whichaccumulateandreleasepower only by upsettingevery institution hatties life to predictability ndsameness.If hehad tin him to be snide,Ricoeurwouldsurelyridicule nDeleuze aContinentaltendencyto addressproblemsas if from scratch.Extremepositions play their role inRicoeur'sthought oo, but it is a heuristicrole;theyserve as guidesto thought,barriersagainstwhichthoughtmustreboundnitscareer oward hetrueandtheright.Extremistssuccumbto the hubrisof believing themselvesat the sourceof whatever s valuableinphilosophy,readyto jettison most or all other views from the outset.Ricoeur insteadmodestlybelieveshehassteppedntoaworldalreadymademeaningful yearlierhought.Indeedhe believes we areborn on a moving walkwayof thought,heading n adirectionnot of our own choosing [Breuil]. Agency comes into play first and mainly as"reconnaissance,"iterally e-cognizingourheritage, nddecidingwhatpartsof itactivelyto maintain.How then does one initiate a decisive action or submitto a conversion,when one is always alreadyenmeshedin significance?The answercomes in the modeof a hermeneutics,areinterpretationndpresent-dayapplicationof thealready hought,thealreadywritten.Hermeneutic henomenology mounts o a tacticof retreat,eflection,deflection,andredirection.Ricoeurseeshimself moreasa "negotiator"hananoriginatorof ideas;or rather,n the idiomof La metaphorevive,his originalitycomes throughas"perspective."He allows utterly new meaning to open up through his adroit andsometimes brilliantmaneuveringof conceptsrather hanthrough hatpure"creationofconcepts"("cr6erdes concepts") by which Deleuze and Guattaridefine the genuinevocation of philosophy[11].This mannerof thinkingandof livingis mostfullyarticulatedn thesummaryworkof 1990, Ricoeur's masterpiece, Soi-meme comme un autre (Oneself as Another).Painstakingly,Ricoeurdevelopsconceptionsof the self derivingfrom both theEnglish(analytic)and the German(ontological) traditionsbefore recoveringthe "narrative"self, the self as someoneaboutwhomapastand futurecanbe recountedandprojected.This in turnpermitshim to engage in an ethical discourseof self as agent in history.Retreat nitiates,but cannotcomplete,an inquirybroughtaboutby doubtsconcerningthe"mysteries"Marcel)of identityandrelationship.Thebook's wonderful itle isolatesin its threeEnglishwordsthe chieftargetsof doubtandsourcesof faiththathaveorientedRicoeur's interactions rom the beginning.Radical doubt has always been associatedwith a concern aboutthe very existence and then the intelligibilityor accessibilityof"another." Later, turned on "oneself," skepticism grew into the enterprise ofpsychoanalysis.Finally,deconstructionhasdismantled heseemingtransparencef therelationbetween self andother,the innocent"comme" "as") hatstandsfor language,whose stabilityandauthority annot be taken for granted.Oneself as Another stitches a brilliantnew patternfrom the unravelingcloth ofontologyandepistemology.Onceagain, heinextinguishableorce of imagination omesto rescue freedomfrom the dissolution of the human,this time by encouragingus toclaim a certain dentity(via the privilegedterm"attestation")ven if ourbodies havemutated and our circumstances,beliefs, and friendshave changed.We narratesuchchangesand become the characterof our own story,andwe do so in a field of otherswith whom we literallyshare the plot of history.And so Ricoeur'sphilosophy,which



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floats on the shifting seas of interpretation, finds its harbor not in ontology orepistemology,but rather n aesthetics and ethics, modes of behaviorthat we exerciseeveryday andcircumstantially.As he enters the new millennium,writing--ever writing-Ricoeur must find itappropriate o salute history and its twin mechanisms,memory and forgetting [Lamemoire,l'histoire, I'oubli].Forgettingbelongs to his recent meditations on justice,particularlyn regardto internationaland interracialviolence. Forgettingallies itselfwith forgiving so as to permita beginningwhich acknowledgesthe past but whichselectively applies the burden of heritageto the present.At the level of the person,Ricoeur's Oneselfas Another took its title from Georges Bernanos'scountry priest,who wrote in his journal:"Gracemeansforgettingoneself";it means "lovingoneselfhumbly,as one wouldanyof thesufferingmembersof JesusChrist" OneselfasAnother24]. Of course as soon as one chooses a particular"sufferingmember" o love (oneself,for example),obsessionsmayfollow, so that one recordseverymovementof the heartin a journal (Bernanos)or develops thousands of pages of philosophyto honor andunderstandwhat one loves, even humbly(Ricoeur).This is hardlyforgettingoneself.Ricoeur s, therefore,armoredevoted omemory Breuil].WhereHeidegger efinedhis senses and his speculativepowers to orienthimself in a world into which he feltthrown, Ricoeur seems to have been born reading traces of meaning in a worldoverflowingwith meaning.Thereis perhapsmore Platonism n Ricoeur than has everbeen noted; for Plato, the soul recovers itself by rememberinga primordial ruthtowhich t stands nnatelyattached;orRicoeur, hepersonbecomes"itself'inre-cognizinga heritage given circumstantiallyat birth.History is the double movement first ofunderstandinghatheritage by interrogatingts traces and second of moving forwardfromthisparticulartance oa future hataffectsa worldmadeupof one'scontemporariesand successors. History (personal and collective memory, assiduously uncovered,interpreted, nddebated)providesa limited numberof plateausfromwhichgroupsofpersons(one'sfamily,socialcircle,nation)canbecome orientedso as to move towardahorizon.All thistakesplacein a climate of conflict,foraccessto thepastand a vision ofthefuturearestrictlyperspectival.Andperspectivesclash as we determine he existenceof thepast(whatis maintainedn the collective memoryand whatis forgotten),debatethe meaningof thatpast, andnegotiatea future hatmightmaintainor breakfrom thepast.Butif one treatsoneself as another,f one is opento metaphorsand narratives hatshift perspectives, such clashes contribute to the ever-struggling community ofunderstanding.La mimoire, l'histoire,I'oubliappropriatelyrowns these interlockingspeculations bout herepresentationf thepast.Whatmustsurelybehisultimateprojectstandsat once as aprofessional pistemologicaldisquisitionabout he nature f historicalknowledge,aratherphenomenologicalmeditationon agingandmemory,andapaternalreflection on the civic responsibilities at work in commemoration,forgiving andforgetting.Dosse writes a triumphalbiography n chroniclingRicoeur'srise to what seems anultimateplateauof wisdom. Consecratedas the "philosophede la Cite,"Ricoeurhasachieved therightand theresponsibility o declaimmagisteriallyon topicsas immenseas justice and history.Characteristically, owever, he refuses to adoptthe confidentposturehe mightbe thoughtto haveearned.He has turned o the topic of memorynotonly because he now carrieswithin him so manydecades of his own memories,norbecause he rues the inevitable erosion of this facultyas he ages, but becausememorycan be seen as thepreconditionandthemechanismof bothidentityandhistory,alwayshis majorconcerns.The"remorse" e recentlyexpressedathavingneglectedBergsonall theseyearsissymptomaticof a full-fledged self-critique:Ricoeurbelieves he too quicklylinkedtime

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to narrative ndnarrative ohistory,creatinga "short-circuit"f discourse hatbypassedthe"life"of identityaltogether.Beneathall thepropositionsanddeclarations f narrativeandhistorystands the glue of identity,"theprimary astening,which is memory,"andwhich involves the lyrical,non-narrative enres thatexpress "theself-constitutionofmemory in passive syntheses"[Ricoeur,Azouvi, and Launay91-92]. Ricoeur musthave in mind somethinglike GabrielMarcel's wonderfulremarkson the integrityofmelody, which he takes straightfrom Bergson's arguments n Matter and Memory[Marcel, "Bergsonismand Music"].A melody (or a poem, in Augustine's classicalformulationof the sameproblem n OnChristianDoctrine)exists only as a whole eventhoughit is given one soundat a time. Andso, what of the integrityof the listener whointuitsthe whole thanks to the mechanism of primarymemory,which holds togetherelements thatgo together?By extensionthe listener ntuitshis or her own "coherenceofexistence."This occurs, Ricoeur now intimates,as a precondition or the "narrativeidentity" hathe mayhavebeen too hastyto lay as the cornerstone f the "self."Behindnarrative dentity lie micromechanismsof memory.And from these grow the roots,trunks,branches,and flowers of ourpersonalandsocial histories.In recognizing the dependence of culture on what are effectively neurologicalprocesses,Ricoeurmayhaveputhimselfin dialoguewiththe brainscientists ike Jean-Pierre Changeux [see Changeux and Ricoeur], but more enticing is the potentialrendezvouswithBergsonandDeleuze.For Ricoeurneedsmemory oplaya role similarto Geist in Husserl,that which links intentionalityandthe hyleof affect andsensation,and thisbringshimclose to the entireBergsonianproblematic.Those,like myself, whohave followed Ricoeur'speregrinations ver fourdecades,redirecting hemwheneverpossibletoward he arts(in my case, thecinema)mustrejoice.

Deleuze, Ricoeur;and theImageof CinemaFromstructuralism ndpsychoanalysis o theories of metaphor,narrative,andhistory,Ricoeur'stiminghaspreternaturally nticipated he concernsof film theory.Yethe hashadnothing o sayabout his,the art ormof thecentury.Now, however,havingbroachedthe obtusenessof the traceandzeroed n on the mechanismof memory,Ricoeur's houghtmust at last traverse,or be conscripted o help organize,the field of the cinematic. Forthe cinema is preciselyan apparatus f memory,safeguardingas well as manipulatingtracesof thepast.Itis alsothemostpotentnarrationalorce of ourtime andunparalleledin the formationof identities,those of stars and of spectators.Ricoeurmay ignorethecinema,buthis close readersshould not.In a chapterentitled"Figuration"n Concepts n Film Theory[Andrew168-69], IrecruitedRicoeur'sdynamicview of "metaphore ive"to counter he moremechanicalstudyof cinematictropesfound in ChristianMetz's ImaginarySignifier.I argued hatfiguration-the tracingoroutliningof new contoursof meaning-could occur atanyofwhatI still take to be the threekey stagesof cinematicsignification: a) thecongealingof sensory stimuli into representations,b) the organizationof representationsnto arepresentedworld (narrative,descriptive,formal), and (c) the rhetoricalor fictionalargument mpliedbythatworld. Givenhis ownhabits,Ricoeuroughttoratify he notionof stages in cinematicsignification (particularlyhe idea that there should be three ofthem).The "art" f cinemahe wouldsurely lodge in the metaphoric igurationpossibleat eachstagebutgenerallyconcentratedn one, dependingon themodeorgenreatplay.That was the extentof my use of Ricoeurin 1984.Today, hroughhimI would insteadadvance herole of memoryfrom firstto lastinthe full areof theexperienceof cinema.Foronly something ike"theprimaryastening"



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allowsphotogramso cohere into shotsin the firstplace,andshots to impresson us "inpassive syntheses"their nearly ineluctable coherence. Next, memory maintains therepresentedelements in mind as their narrativeor descriptive patternemerges, and,finally,it allows us to compare hatpattern o otherstructures f intelligibility,whethercommonlyavailableones (genre,auteur)or those whose sourceis mysteriousor brand-new and must be sought out. In short, a phenomenology might describe thetransformation, ia memory,of sensationsof sight and sound producedby projectedfilm into time andnarrative.These would then serve as a preludeto the fictions andhistorieson the screen,which Ricoeurcould undoubtedlyaddress n his characteristichermeneuticmode.

At a higherlevel of abstraction ilms provideexperimentalsolutions to the twoproblemsof philosophyRicoeur deems fundamental: he one andthe multiple,the selfand the other."The one and the multiple" s endemic to a mediumcaughtbetween theaura of originalityand the mechanismsof reproduction,a medium where the work'sindividuality s establishedagainstthe backgroundof genre,a mediumthroughwhicheachspectator ensesa tensionbetween self andother n the semi-darkness f themovietheater.As forthe second fundamentalproblem,self is thematized n everyfiction filmvia processesof identificationandby strategiesof the gaze, while the opacity of theindex-the photographicrace-stands asother,particularlyhatmost unavoidable ndexof alterity, he human ace in close-up on the screen.The particular emphasis of each cinematic "experiment,"the stage where itsfigurationexpandsinto new territory-in short,the difference t aims to makeandthesameness it perpetuates-suggests a typologyof modes,periods, genres,andstyles. Itwas to parsethis rich field of cinematicexperimentationhat Deleuze elaborated hebaroquenetworkof categoriesthatcompriseshis two-volumestudyof the medium.Inhis spirit,we mightventure thatclassical films develop equilibriumbetween the oneand the multiple(throughrhyming,redundancy, ndrepetition)andbetween self andother.Postmodern ilms, as ahistoricalamalgamsof styles, maydissolve the questionof identity throughdigitalizationand often conflate the self and the otherin an orgyofcitationandsimulation,whether nthekey of nostalgiaor of parody.Ricoeur eels mostat home between these extremes, respondingto artworksproducedin the mode ofmodernism.And it is modernistcinema that fills the corpusDeleuze examinesin hissecondvolume,beginningwithItalianneorealism,where thedisequilibrium f self andother is resolved most often in favor of the other,the trace thatdramaticallyderailsevery effortto appropriatet. WhereRicoeur sanctions the work of the imagination nboth fiction andhistoryas it struggleswith and againstthe tracesof a brokenworld,Deleuzecelebrates hefertilityof a cinema freedfromthe anchorof a falseequivalencebetween the actualand the mental. The time-imagegrows out of the inabilityof thesubject ocome intophasewithapost-Holocaust,post-atomic-bomb ocialandphysicallandscape.And it grows willy-nilly in a cinemascapewherethe virtual and the actualare,to use the famous term he took fromLeibniz,"incompossible"Flaxman5-7].But Deleuze's exciting formulationrisksdroppingoff the discursivetableon theextremeedge of which it characteristicallyeeters.So concernedwith the utterlynew,with the"incompossible,"ehastemptedhis followerstotreathistorycavalierly,merelyto engenderany difference whatever.This at least is the dangerthat makes me turn oRicoeur'sputativeproject n film studiesand,takinga cue from his method,holdopenboth the mediationof his essentiallyhermeneuticmediationand Deleuze's insistenceon radicalcreativity.Between thesepolesfilmsmaybe mostfertilelyviewed andvalued.To turnRicoeur'smediation ntoanextrememayseemcontraryuntil one listens tothe messianic openness of his program.He would vivify the futureby revivifyingrepresentationsstrong ilms,inourexample) hathavegivenus our sense of thepresent.

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At the antipodeof Deleuze's "Powersof theFalse,"then,standsRicoeur's "PowersoftheTrace."Thesetwo comprisethefundamentalpropertiesof thecinematic.If Deleuzehas emphasized"fabulation"and "virtual,"Ricoeur is known as "le fidele avec samemoire."Sincefidelityandmemoryshould attendan art ormbasedon "TheOntologyof the

Photographic mage"(the title of the great essay with which Andre Bazin launchedmodem film theoryin 1945), one can imagine,in the place of Ricoeur,Bazin offeringDeleuze encouragement and caution. Encouragement would come from Bazin'sfascinationwithgeology,botany,andothernaturalprocesseswhose traceson film canlead to effects he was readyto call "surrealist" nd "fantastic."Well before Deleuze,Bazin understood inematic fabulation o profitfrom its partly nhumansource. But hearguedthat it shouldremain trueto thatsource,and so would surelyhave cautionedDeleuzians ntoxicatedby thenonorganicnfinityof thedigital.Whenthevirtualattainsparitywith the actual,cinemawrites off its debt to the trace;then,floatingunanchoredin a sea of imagesof its owndevising,cinemawill have abandonedts historical mpulse.Heretofore,all films have documentedreality;as Godard aid,echoingBazin,themostfantastical iction registersthe faces of actorsliterallytracedon celluloid at such andsuch a time. Cinema,the artof the modem erabest theorizedby Bazin, yokes historyandfiction.Similarly,Ricoeurbrilliantlyarguedn 1985 that he debtfeltby the historian(to traces left in the archive)corresponds o the debt felt by the fabulator to the ideawhose insistence,if not whosetruth,disciplinestheprocessof creationand causes suchagonywhentheresults are"justnotright") Timeand Narrative3: 192].Thecinema isthe site par excellence both of such debts and of their commingling. The postwarmodernityof the artform, agree Giorgio de Vincenti [11-24] and DominiquePaini,arises from its simultaneous gains in photographicrealism (naturallight, locationshooting,andso forth)andfictionalexperimentationunreliable arrators,ndiscernibilityof dreamsandflashbacks).Deleuze's tastes and notionsrespond o thesespecialpowersof the mediumandtheparticular owerof filmsjust emerging n thewakeof WorldWar I,those that ntroduced"bifurcatedime."In his second volume, Deleuze proclaimed he absolutenovelty ofRenoir's Le regle dujeu, of Welles'sLady rom Shanghai,of Neorealismand the NewWave.Suchfilmsopenontoeverything nterestingn the modem cinema. Deleuze drewon Bazin's presciencein this, for it was Bazin who, we have alreadynoted, first tookWelles seriously,Bazinwho broughtRossellini to Parisforthe astoundingpremiereofPaisa, Bazin who consecrated his final years to a magnificent study of Renoir,andBazinwho fathered he New Wave. In sum,he was intimatewith thetime-image n theverycourse of its appearing.Thusthe onset of Deleuze's dual careeras philosopherandcinephilein the 1940sand'50s coincideswith theoriginof the time-imagehe would later celebrate.Deleuzewent seriouslyto the movies during he eraof auteurismat Cahiersdu cinema,and theCahierslegacy is apparentn his attention o directors, o theirstyle andimportance,and n hisgenuinelyfantasticalaspirationsor cinema.IntheAnglo-Americanacademiccommunity,Deleuze's filmbookshavebeen treatedasaningenious,obsessive,maniacalsystem of images with little apparent ocial relevance. His advocates,it is true,oftenextendhisbrilliant xplorationsof the audiovisual extureof films,denigratingnarrativeandreference;seldom do Deleuzians attend o the historical nterplayof films, save forestablishing adjacent ilms fromwhich the one underconsiderationbreaks free in thepure powerof its spontaneouscreation.It is here thatRicoeur,under the anachronistic utelageof Bazin, might enter as"philosophede la Cit6 du cinema." For FrangoisDosse's encompassingbiographyinspiresme to retainRicoeuras a model of responsibility o thefilms of thepast,to the



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tracesof a moredistantpastfilms are ableso powerfullyto register,andto the workoffilmmakerswhorefigure hosetracesso asto build the sortof cinematicspherewe nowinhabit,andthe social spherewe legitimatelydreamof.

WORKS CITEDAndrew,Dudley.Concepts n Film Theory.New York:Oxford,1984.Bazin,Andre."TheOntologyof thePhotographic mage."What s Cinema?Berkeley:U of CaliforniaP, 1967.Bergson,Henri.Les deuxsourcesde la morale et de la religion.Paris:Alcan, 1932.--. MatterandMemory.New York:ZoneBooks, 1988.Breuil, Yves,dir.Lafiddleet sa memoire:Entretienavec Paul Ricoeur.Paris:PresenceProtestante,1998. 30-min.television emission on Antenne 2.Changeux,Jean-Pierre, ndPaul Ricoeur.Cequi nousfaitpenser: La natureet la regle.

Paris:OdileJacob,1998.De Vincenti,Giorgio.Il concettodi moderniti nel cinema. Parma:PraticheEditrice,1993.Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema1: TheMovement-Image. rans.HughTomlinsonand Barbara

Habberjam.Minneapolis:U of MinnesotaP, 1986.--. Cinema 2: TheTime-Image.Trans.HughTomlinson and BarbaraHabberjam.Minneapolis:U of MinnesotaP, 1988.- . "Mediators." one6 (1992): Incorporations6: 277-89.Deleuze, Gilles, andFelix Guattari.Qu'est-ceque laphilosophie?Paris:Minuit,1991.Dosse, Francois.History of Structuralism.Minneapolis:U o

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Andrew Tracing Ricoeur