2010/12/01 by Alexis Deodato S. Itao · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity
paper · pdf · doi:10.25138/4.2.a.1
openalex publication_date 2010/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
ritical theory, which started in Germany through the members of the Frankfurt School 1 in the early 1920's, has inspired a number of non-German philosophical schools and philosophers to establish their own unique critical theories. Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005), who is one of the most celebrated contemporary philosophers in France, is one of those who fashioned a "unique version of critical theory." 2 David Kaplan reveals that Ricoeur is even "committed to a conception of philosophy as critical theory resulting in personal and social transformation and progressive politics." 3 However, Ricoeur's philosophy as a whole has mainly been considered hermeneutical, that is, one concerned mostly with questions involving interpretation. Emerita Quito ascertains, for instance, that "Ricoeur's entire philosophy finally centered on hermeneutics." 4 Likewise, Don Ihde confirms how hermeneutics eventually became the "guiding thread which unites" all of Ricoeur's diverse interests. 5 Indeed, Ricoeur devoted much of his writings in 1 Douglas Kellner relates that "the term 'Frankfurt School' refers to the work of the members of the Institut fr Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research) which was established in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1923 as the first Marxist-oriented research centre affiliated with a major German university. Under its director, Carl Grnberg, the institute's work in the 1920s tended to be empirical, historical, and oriented towards problems of the European working-class movement." "From the mid-1930s," Kellner continues, "the institute referred to its work as the 'critical theory of society' [an] attempt to found a radical interdisciplinary social theory rooted in Hegelian-Marxian dialectics, historical materialism, and the critique of political economy and revolution theory." See