Ricoeurs Hermeneutics Of Religion

In this important new book, Brian Gregor gives a comprehensive account of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy of religion, which focuses on the regeneration of human capability. Gregor documents the thinkers, movements, and themes that shaped Ricoeur's thought and gives a critical examination of Ricoeur's philosophical interpretation of religion.

In Ricoeur on Moral Religion, James Carter argues that Paul Ricoeur's later philosophical writings provide a highly instructive interpretive key with which to assess his philosophical project as a whole. This first systematic study of the "later Ricoeur" offers a critical yet sympathetic reconstruction of Ricoeur's hermeneutics of ethical life, which demonstrates his significant contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion and moral philosophy. What emerges is a clear and distinctive moral religion that binds humans together universally on the basis of the life they share as capable beings. Carter also uncovers a hitherto unforeseen thread in Ricoeur's writings concerning ethical life, pulled through his own readings of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. Ricoeur's hermeneutics is structured by a Kantian architectonic informed at different levels by these three philosophers, who ground a rich, holistic, and ultimately rationalist account of ethical life and religion that resists the trappings of both positivism and postmodernism.

In this important new book, Brian Gregor gives a comprehensive account of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of religion, which focuses on the regeneration of human capability. Gregor documents the thinkers, movements, and themes that shaped Ricoeur’s thought and gives a critical examination of Ricoeur’s philosophical interpretation of religion.

Paul Ricoeur (1913--2005) remains one of philosophy of religion's most distinctive voices. Ricoeur was a philosopher first, and while his religious reflections are very relevant to theology, Boyd Blundell argues that his philosophy is even more relevant. Using Ricoeur's own philosophical hermeneutics, Blundell shows that there is a way for explicitly Christian theology to maintain both its integrity and overall relevance. He demonstrates how the dominant pattern of detour and return found throughout Ricoeur's work provides a path to understanding the relationship between philosophy and theology. By putting Ricoeur in dialogue with current, fundamental, and longstanding debates about the role of philosophy in theology, Blundell offers a hermeneutically sensitive engagement with Ricoeur's thought from a theological perspective.

The thought of Paul Ricoeur continues its profound effect on theology, religious studies and biblical interpretation. The 28 papers contained in this volume constitute the most comprehensive overview of Ricoeur's writings in religion since 1970. Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation and his sensitivity to the mystery of religious language offer fresh insight to the transformative potential of sacred literature, including the Bible.

Paul Ricoeur (1913-) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Chicago and Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences at the University of Paris X, Nanterre. One of the foremost contemporary French philosophers, his work is influenced by Husserl, Marcel and Jaspers and is particularly concerned with symbolism, the creation of meaning and the interpretation of texts. The Conflict of Interpretations ranges across an astonishing diversity of fields: structuralism, linguistics, psychoanalysis, religion and faith. The essays it comprises are bound together by Ricoeur's customary concern for interpretation and language and all bear the stamp of the systematic and critical thinking which has become his hallmark in contemporary philosophy. Edited by Don Ihde>

In Ricoeur on Moral Religion, James Carter argues that Paul Ricoeur's later philosophical writings provide a highly instructive interpretive key with which to assess his philosophical project as a whole. This first systematic study of the 'later Ricoeur' offers a critical yet sympathetic reconstruction of Ricoeur's hermeneutics of ethical life, which demonstrates his significant contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion and moral philosophy. What emerges is a clear and distinctive moral religion that binds humans together universally on the basis of the life they share as capable beings. Carter also uncovers a hitherto unforeseen thread in Ricoeur's writings concerning ethical life, pulled through his own readings of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. Ricoeur's hermeneutics is structured by a Kantian architectonic informed at different levels by these three philosophers, who ground a rich, holistic, and ultimately rationalist account of ethical life and religion that resists the trappings of both positivism and postmodernism.

The past fifty years has seen the emergence of an energetic dialogue between religion and the natural sciences that has contributed to a growing desire for interdisciplinarity among many constructive theologians. However, some have also resisted this trend, in part because it seems that the price one must pay for such engagement is much too high. Interdisciplinary work appears overly abstract and methodologically restrictive, with little room for systematic theologians self-consciously operating within a particular historical tradition. In Interdisciplinary Interpretation: Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Theology and Science,Kenneth A. Reynhout seeks to address this concern by constructing an alternative understanding of interdisciplinary theology based on the hermeneutical thought of Paul Ricoeur, generally recognized as one of the most interdisciplinary philosophers of the twentieth century. Appealing to Ricoeur’s view of interpretation as the dialectical process of understanding through explanation, Reynhout argues that theology’s engagement with the natural sciences is fundamentally hermeneutical in character. As such, interdisciplinary theologians can faithfully borrow meaning from the sciences through a process of “interdisciplinary interpretation,” a process that can honestly attend to the legitimate challenges posed by the natural sciences without automatically requiring the evacuation of theological norms and convictions. Reynhout’s creative appropriation of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics succeeds in providing a novel interdisciplinary vision, not only for theology but also for interdisciplinary work in general.

The topic of revelation is fundamental to any account of religious experience, playing a special role in the Judeo-Christian tradition where the texts of Scripture are regarded as revealed. Yet, any reflection on the revealed status of a given message or text requires interpretation. Paul Ricœur, one of the most important hermeneutic philosophers of the twentieth century, provides crucial insights on how such interpretation might proceed and what it might mean for texts to be revealed. Edited by Christina M. Gschwandtner, Paul Ricoeur, Philosophical Hermeneutics, and the Question of Revelation brings together major scholars of Ricœur’s work on the topic of revelation, showing both the role it already plays in his work and how his thinking might be taken further. Several contributors trace the development of his thought in regard to the concept of revelation. Others discuss the revelatory dimensions of Ricœur’s hermeneutics of the self, especially for such issues as identity, trauma, and forgiveness. Several contributions also place his work in conversation with that of other seminal thinkers on the topic of revelation, such as Karl Barth and Paul Tillich.

Paul Ricoeur is one of the most influential philosophers alive today. This book draws primarily on his hermeneutic insights to address the fundamental question of how reference, truth, and meaning are related in the discourse of theology. Fodor defends the view that theological truth claims cannot be sustained without some appeal to the referential, or in Rocoeur's terminology "refigurative," potential intrinsic to our linguistic practices. By bringing the philosophical work of Ricoeur into mutually critical conversation with theology, particularly that of Hans Frei, the book underscores the importance of reference in assessing theological claims.