(Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs) James Carter-Ricoeur on Moral Religion-Oxford University Press (2014)

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1Ricoeur on MoralReligion

A Hermeneutics of EthicalLife

JAMESCARTER

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Preface

This book argues that a reconstruction of Paul Ricoeurs hermeneu-tics of ethical life will show his significant contribution to contem-porary philosophy of religion. The present reconstruction aims to elucidate Ricoeurs moral religion: a deliberately broad and inclu-sive conception of a common or civil religion that binds humans together universally on the basis of what they share as capable beings. To facilitate this overall aim, Iwill demonstrate that a selective read-ing of Ricoeurs philosophy brings to light the pivotal role of what Ricoeur himself calls his little ethics,1 which appears in the crucial trio of chapters towards the end of his masterpiece from the end of the 1980s, Oneself as Another, and which, Iwill argue, bridges his later and earlier works.2 Iwill claim that the concept of the capable human (lhomme capable), which is explicitly presented in Ricoeurs think-ing at the end of the 1990s (and at least implicitly in his little ethics) emerges in his later writings as the guiding ontological basis for his moral religion. Ricoeurs capable subject is best understood in rela-tion to both his little ethics and what Iwill describe as, in Kantian terms, his architectonic of moral religion.

To support my argument, Iwill engage with Ricoeurs later writings in order to understand his philosophy as a whole. What will emerge from this retrospective reading of Ricoeur is a hitherto unforeseen thread concerning ethical life, pulled through his own readings of three major figures in the history of Western philosophy: Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. This crucial thread can be traced from Ricoeurs early philosophy of the will to his final essays and interviews.

Elucidating the aim (telos) of ethical life and the norm (law) of moral religion within Ricoeurs little ethics points to the significant roles of Aristotle and Kant in his architectonic. Ricoeur employs architectonic in a Kantian sense as a critical framework of core con-cepts. To Aristotles conception of a human telos and Kants concep-tion of a moral norm, Ricoeur adds an appropriation of Spinozas crucial metaphysical conception of a rational striving (conatus) for

1 Ricoeurs choice of title deliberately recalls Theodor Adornos Minima Moralia.2 See OA 169296.

vi Preface

life in its fullness. The contention is that core concepts taken from Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant give a significant structure to my recon-struction of Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life. Interpreting ethical life in the contexts of Spinozas metaphysics, of Aristotles anthropol-ogy, and of Kants moral philosophy also generates three dimensions of Ricoeurs architectonic of moral religion.

Note that my reading of Ricoeurs architectonic begins with Spinozas metaphysics, before returning to Aristotles anthropology and then moving to Kants moral philosophy. Ricoeur stresses the strong rationalist dimension to each of these philosophers metaphys-ical, anthropological, and moral conceptions of life. Crucially, reason as it is employed by all three of these philosophers is not understood merely as some transcendent faculty. Instead, following Ricoeurs conclusions concerning moral religion, Iwill treat reason as a practi-cal capability shared by every human being. The later Ricoeur main-tains that to be human is to be fundamentally capable, and that the rational nature of capability enables human subjects to increase in understanding, ultimately aiming at the joyful recognition of them-selves as part of the wider whole oflife.

It must be stressed that the concept life, as it is presented here, will be interpreted both on the level of lived human experience and on the level of reality taken in the broadest sense of life; that is, the whole of which we are all a part. This whole encompasses all of life. Yet, for the later Ricoeur, it is the life of capable human beings which binds together particular experiences as part of the whole of reality. In other words, our individual lives are bound together by human capability. My contention is that Ricoeurs vision of human capability requires recognition of the shared status of human subjects as components and expressions of metaphysical, anthropological, and morallife.

In this light, Iaim to demonstrate that, if following Ricoeur, moral religion is grounded in the life which connects Spinozas metaphysics, Aristotles anthropology, and Kants morality; but it is the demand-ing nature of the Kantian law which renders religion moral. This reli-gion assumes that the good life is the goal (telos) of human striving. This is a religion of human reason, premised on the capable subject as a rational and political animal. Human conduct with and for oth-ers is governed by a moral norm to which each of us subjects our-selves and through which we interpret our striving for the good life. In this context, Ricoeur draws crucially on Spinozas conatus (or the effort and desire to be) and Aristotles telos (or aim of the good life) to

Preface vii

modify Kants rationalism, giving significant new, conative, and tele-ological relations to the moral norm. This modification produces an acute understanding of human subjects not simply as autonomous rational agents, but also as vulnerable acting and suffering selves who depend upon others in exactly the same manner that others depend uponthem.

In addition, the unifying vision of ethical life which sup-ports Ricoeurs religion is informed by a reflexive hermeneutics. Recognizing the role of reflexivity helps us to grasp the embeddedness of each and every human being in the complexities of life. Ricoeurs reflexive account of selfhood assumes, if not contends, that each self is inextricably embedded in relations with those around her. This embeddedness is a constitutive aspect of human being. Moreover, this study will demonstrate that what Ricoeur himself refers to as the arrow of the religious (la flche du religieux) motivates the capable subject to embrace life with and for others in just institutions. This image of the arrow represents human striving in the pursuit of the good life as shot through by the religious. The human is conceived not as the passive recipient of a gift of life, but rather in Spinozist terms as the active agent of increasing understanding. The culmination of this agents activity is the joyful recognition of oneself as inextricably bound up in the whole oflife.

Before proceeding further, a brief word on my use of the term religion, and its function in relation to my broader reading of Ricoeurs corpus, is required. In the spirit of Ricoeurs own philo-sophical project, this study will operate with a conceptual frame-work that deliberately uses thin concepts when it comes to the religious or the theological. Religion is one such concept:it should be understood as a thin rather than thick concept precisely because it is not embedded in one particular system of beliefs or set of practices.3 It is therefore to be contrasted with a thick concept such as Christianity. The reason for this is clear. As an exercise in the philosophy of religion, and in the spirit of Ricoeurs own feelings about the discipline of philosophy, this study assumes that philoso-phy of religion can and should operate independently of the rami-fied beliefs of any particular religious tradition. Iwill maintain that operating within a religious tradition, with its ramified beliefs, and

3 For a full articulation of the distinction between thick and thin concepts, see Williams 1985:140151.

viii Preface

with a particular set of thick concepts, is the work of systematic the-ology, not philosophy of religion. This is not to say that theological concepts (largely of an ethical or moral nature) will not be engaged and interrogated philosophically. Indeed, as the study progresses, theological concepts will play an increasingly significant role in Ricoeurs architectonic, especially in the aim of Ricoeurs later her-meneutics of ethical life which, Iwill argue, remains consistent with his Kantianism. The aim is the establishment of moral religion as universal and thus shareable across religious traditions, and so, this concept of religion must remainthin.

It is also for the reason of its universality that moral religion, as pre-sented here, ties religion to the moral:together, the terms religion and moral structure human capability as the religious core that binds human beings together, and ethical life as the manifestation of a met-aphysical, anthropological, and moral existence. Isee Ricoeurs moral religion as a civil or common religion close to the visions of Rousseau and especially Kant. As James Dicenso has commented in a recent study of Kant, religion, as both personal and cultural, is profoundly connected with the ethical and political possibilities of human beings (Dicenso 2011: 1). This is closely tied in with the deliberate use of a thin concept of religion which, Imaintain, characterizes Ricoeurs hermeneutic enterprise. For Ricoeur, like Kant, the inclusive category of religion . . . facilitates a method of interpretation and questioning with the potential to engage multiple religions in relation to ethical and political concerns (Dicenso 2011:3). The little ethics in Oneself as Another forms the crucial pivot of this study, precisely because we find there the moral concerns that guide all of Ricoeurs philosophi-cal engagement with religion; in these three chapters of Oneself as Another, Ricoeur gives to his later work the most systematic and deci-sive treatment of his architectonic of moral religion.

I therefore write with the conviction that Ricoeurs interest in reli-gion not only goes hand in hand with his hermeneutics of ethical life, but is in fact driven by it. An orphan of war, a captive of World War Two, and a witness to all the atrocities of the twentieth century, Ricoeurs preoccupation with the problem of evil is evident through all of his writings, and he was driven by a moral imperative (from Kant), as well as a metaphysical and anthropological grounding (in Spinoza and Aristotle, respectively) to address and safeguard that imperative. For Ricoeur, then, any religion would be moral in form insofar as it adheres to that universal imperative.

Preface ix

Three interrelated tasks are implicit in the exegetical, restorative, and critical aims of this book. First, the exegesis teases out Ricoeurs appropriations of Spinozas conatus for his metaphysical concept of capability, of Aristotles account of human vulnerability for his anthro-pology of human capacities, and of Kants categorical imperative for the moral norm which governs the human pursuit of the goodlife.

Second, the restorative aim of the study builds a substantial archi-tectonic from the exegesis concerning life as the crucial thread in Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. What Ihave proposed as an architec-tonic of moral religion is held together by Ricoeurs implicit arrow of the religious as metaphysical life in Spinoza, as anthropological life in Aristotle, and as moral life in Kant. This architectonic constitutes the very structure of Ricoeurs preoccupation, not with one philosopher, but with crucial concepts drawn from three great texts: Spinozas Ethics, Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, and Kants Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Admittedly, Ricoeur himself does not make these sources readily explicit. Instead, he leaves the further hermeneu-tical work to his readersor so Iaim to demonstrate. What emerges is a hermeneutics and an architectonic which, respectively, elucidate and develop his concern with ethical life and with moral religion.

Third, the critical aim of this book is to assess the coherence of a Ricoeurian architectonic. This critical assessment will raise substan-tive questions concerning the consistency of the core concepts which will have been elucidated in Ricoeurs own hermeneutical appro-priation of the three major philosophers of life: Spinoza, Aristotle, andKant.

The three interrelated aims of exegesis, restoration, and critique inform three explicit claims. The first claim is that Ricoeurs rational-ist architectonic enables readers to interpret his philosophy as a moral religion. The critical framework of metaphysical, anthropological, and moral life supports the three dimensions of Ricoeurs moral religion.

The second claim is that this architectonic is rendered religious by Ricoeurs reflexive conception of autonomy. It will become appar-ent that a conviction concerning self-reflexivity, or what I will call reflexivity-conviction, underpins Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life. Remarkably, a reflexive self is traceable throughout Ricoeurs entire philosophical corpus. Here, reflexivity implies a conviction that being oneself inasmuch as other (soi-mme comme un autre) involves both acting and suffering. The result is a reflexive account of the self as inextricably embedded both among others and within the whole. This

x Preface

embeddedness of the human being provides the necessary grounding for Ricoeurs architectonic.

The third claim is that Ricoeurs moral religion offers a bold and timely vision for contemporary philosophy of religion. It blends a Kantian conception of an ethical commonwealth rooted in respect for the lives of each rational being as ends-in-themselves with both a Spinozist conception of an ethical desire to increase in every human activity as inextricable and irreplaceable parts of the whole of life, and an Aristotelian conception of the good life as a sharedtelos.

The evidence supporting the claims of this reconstruction of Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life accumulates as Iunpack aspects of Spinozas metaphysics, Aristotles anthropology, and Kants moral philosophy; in turn, these dimensions of life inform Ricoeurs architec-tonic of moral religion. This reconstruction will also enable a detailed discussion of Ricoeurs conception of reflexive autonomy as that which interrelates core concepts from Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. In the end, this reconstruction creates a vision for Ricoeurs moral religion.

Chapter1 introduces the key concepts and components of Ricoeurs architectonic of moral religion. Ioffer some background to the devel-opment of the concept of human capability in Ricoeurs later work, its relation to his earlier writings, and some preliminary remarks about the hermeneutic method that will enable Ricoeur (if success-ful) to hold Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant together within a coherent architectonic.

Chapter 2 develops Ricoeurs engagement with the immanent metaphysics in Spinozas Ethics. The chapter examines in particular how Spinozas concept of conatus shapes Ricoeurs concept of human capability, and how Spinozas presentation of God or Nature as a sin-gle substance in which everything inheres, informs the presentation of Life which Iattribute to Ricoeur. Despite the growing interest in Spinozas thought, this reading of Spinoza in Ricoeurs texts remains controversial. In particular, it raises critical questions concerning how far Spinozas determinist account of freedom and his denial of the qualitative distinctness of individuals can be combined with Ricoeurs defence of Kants compatibilism and, in particular, of individual autonomy. The chapter will consider these critical concerns, argu-ing that the textual evidence for a Spinozist influence on Ricoeurs concept of capability is compelling, and that Ricoeurs hermeneutic method enables him to incorporate Spinozist concepts into his archi-tectonic while preserving his Kantian commitments.

Preface xi

Chapter 3 explores the anthropological framework which Ricoeur derives from Aristotle in order to explore human capaci-ties or abilities. Capacities are particular or specific manifestations, on the anthropological plane, of the generic or ontological quality of human capability. The chapter examines how capacities in par-ticular are vulnerable to factors beyond the agents control, and how human life in general must be understood as structurally fragile. Nothing illustrates this better than Ricoeurs Aristotelian account of friendship. Ricoeur presents friendship as both a fundamental human need and as something that renders us deeply vulnerable to factors beyond our control. While this emphasis on human vul-nerability appears prima facie to challenge Kantian autonomy, Iwill argue that Ricoeur deliberately appropriates Aristotle to develop a modified conception of autonomy which accounts for the fact that the autonomous agent is always-already vulnerable to those with and among whom she interacts. In other words, Ricoeur preserves Kantian autonomy while incorporating elements of Aristotles account of anthropologicallife.

It is in response to this inescapable vulnerability and fragility that Ricoeur introduces a moral norm into his conception of ethical life. Chapter4 explores Ricoeurs appropriation of this norm from Kants moral philosophy. The chapter also assesses two features of Kants own moral religion which inform Ricoeurs architectonic. These are:i) Kants ideal of a distinctly democratic, shared moral perspective which is social, universal, and bound up with autonomy and ration-ality; and ii) Kants rationally responsible attempt to recover a fun-damental human goodness overshadowedbut never destroyedby the corrupting influence of society. The critical issue here is how Kant, and Ricoeur after him, can preserve this conception of fundamental goodness or original innocence while maintaining that a radical pro-pensity to evil or, in Ricoeurs terms, fallibility, infects human will-ing. Iwill argue that Kants often overlooked account of virtue as a constant struggle to adhere to the good in the face of heteronomous inclinations which can become corrupted by society allows Ricoeur to reconcile our propensity to err with a goodness or capability which is always more fundamental. The propensity to evil need not and should not be taken to imply a fundamentally corrupt human nature. Instead, it simply underscores the necessity of a moral norm with which individuals can regulate their pursuits of the good life, in order to safeguard against the instrumental treatment of others. Humans

xii Preface

remain fundamentally capable of a return to the good from which theyerr.

Chapter5 contains the pivotal argument of this study. The chap-ter undertakes a detailed discussion of Ricoeurs reflexive concep-tion of autonomy, explaining how a reflexive method enables Ricoeur to interrelate Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. Critical questions raised intermittently in the preceding three chapters, concerning the com-patibility of these three philosophers, and the plausibility of the architectonic, will be considered in light of a detailed assessment of Ricoeurs post-Hegelian Kantian account of autonomy. Specifically, I will consider whether Ricoeurs post-Hegelian appropriations of Spinoza and Aristotle modify his reading of Kantian autonomy to such an extent that it no longer makes sense to speak of Ricoeur meaningfully as a Kantian. In response, Iwill argue that the account of autonomy criticizedand radically modifiedby Ricoeur should be attributed, not to Kant, but to the formalist readings of Kant so prominent in Anglo-American ethics in the 1980s, during which time Ricoeur was working on Oneself as Another. Furthermore, it will be claimed that despite the inclusion of Spinoza and Aristotle within the architectonic, Ricoeurs Kantian commitments remain clear, not least in his defence of a fundamental human capability, and his develop-ment of a Kantian moral norm with which to combat the human pro-pensity toevil.

Chapter 6 undertakes a retrospective assessment of Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life. This includes a critical summary of his attempt, via his appropriation of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant, to unveil the core of moral religion, that is, three dimensions of lifemetaphysical, anthropological, and moralwhich are shared by all human beings in their, however distinctive, pursuits of the good. Iwill claim that, by employing Ricoeurs architectonic as an interpre-tative framework, the reader can trace moral religion, as presented here, as a constant theme in Ricoeurs writings as far back as the phi-losophy of the will. The chapter then situates Ricoeurs moral religion in relation to the fields of contemporary Ricoeur studies and recent developments in the philosophy of religion respectively.

The study then culminates with some brief, concluding remarks about the way the concept life operates within Ricoeurs architec-tonic of moral religion.

A final word on potential interlocutors for this study. There will be many, particularly those who tend to read Ricoeur in more strictly

Preface xiii

theological terms, who may disagree with both my reading of Ricoeur and my methodology in reading Ricoeur. And yet Ihope that the fol-lowing pages will persuade readers who may not share my conclu-sions that mine is a framework that can at least provide a starting point for interpreting Ricoeur; from this starting point readers can develop their own ideas and conclusions. This possibility is illustrated by the significant parallels, that Ishall discuss in the concluding pages, between this reading of Ricoeur and Richard Kearneys most recent studies.4 Kearney is a philosopher of religion who draws on Ricoeurs work in a way that is entirely compatible with this study, but subse-quently develops his own ideas from his reading of Ricoeur to reach a very different conclusion. Similarly, Iwould therefore hope that read-ers of this study, whether they are Christian theologians or Marxist political theorists, can apply the interpretative framework offered in these pages to develop their own distinctive ideas beyond the reading of Ricoeur offeredhere.

Almost ten years have now passed since Ricoeurs death, and yet the interest in his work shows no sign of ebbing (witness the flurry of dedicatory symposia and journal editions that erupted during the centenary of his birth in 2013fittingly, the same year that marked the bicentenary of the birth of that other great hermeneutical icon, Kierkegaard). The canon may have closed, but it is somewhat fit-ting that it remains subject to endless (conflicts of) interpretation. Ricoeur, of course, would have had it no other way. That may beg the question as to whether another attempt to offer a systematic read-ing of Ricoeurs philosophy is what we really need! But Ihope that the following pages will offer fellow readers of Ricoeur (both those familiar with and new to his work) some tools with which to address both Ricoeurs corpus and the broader questions he raises about the philosophy of religion, ethics, hermeneutics, and the history of phi-losophy (although he would of course have resisted any attempt to classify them within separate categories).

4 See Kearney 2010a,2010b.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the University of Oxford, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Joan Crewsdon Fund for providing the financial support and resources that enabled me to undertake the research presented here. I would also like to thank the Centre for Philosophy of Religion at Heythrop College, University of London, for providing an ideal working environment during my time there as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

David Jasper, George Pattison, and Daniel Whistler all read and commented on the text at various stages in its development, and their support, interest, and criticism have been invaluable. Iam grateful to Diarmaid MacCulloch for his invitation to contribute to this series; to Tom Perridge, Alex Johnson, Karen Raith, and everyone at OUP for their assistance; and to conference and workshop participants at the Universities of Cambridge, Chicago, Iowa, Kent, Liverpool Hope, London, Oxford, and Toronto, for their conversation and comments on various sections and arguments contained within thesepages.

I have been supported in very different ways by various fam-ily, friends, and colleagues while writing this book: Pia Carter, Jane and Christopher Carter, Beverley Clack, Julian Dobson, Peter Thistlethwaite, Guy Williams, and my colleagues in the Philosophy and Religion department at Wellington College.

Most of all I owe special thanks to Pamela Sue Anderson, who first taught me philosophy as an undergraduate, and who introduced me to Ricoeurs work. Icould not have wished for a more inspiring teacher and friend. Her guidance, encouragement, patience, and wis-dom made this project possible.

Contents

Abbreviations and References xxi

1. Ricoeurs Architectonic of Moral Religion 1 1. Ricoeurs Hermeneutics of Ethical Life 1

1.1 Opening Remarks 11.2 The Aims of the Book 41.3 The Claims of the Book 5

2. The Later Ricoeurs Religion of Human Capability 72.1 The Later Ricoeur 72.2 The Capable Human 92.3 Human Capacities 102.4 The Ground of Being 102.5 Ricoeurs philosophical theology 12

3. Ricoeurs Architectonic 153.1 Spinoza, Aristotle, Kant 153.2 Hermeneutics of Ethical Life 183.3 Moral Religion 19

2. Reading Religion as Metaphysical Life in Spinoza 21 1. Introduction 21 2. Core Concepts for Religion as Metaphysical Life 23

2.1 Substance orGod 232.2 God or Nature 27

3. Conatus and Ethical Life 303.1 Rational Striving 313.2 Understanding Life 333.3 Ethical Life 35

4. Spinoza in the Later Ricoeur 37 5. Spinoza and Kant 40

5.1 Freedom 405.2 The Individual 435.3 Ethology 44

6. Coda:Reading Philosophy 46

3. Reading Religion as Anthropological Life in Aristotle 49 1. Aristotles Anthropology 50

xviii Contents

2. The Pursuit of the Good Life in Aristotle 542.1 Eudaimonia:The Good Life 542.2 Orexis:(Rational) Desire 56

3. The Good Life in Aristotle 573.1 The Good Life and Human Capacities 573.2 The Fragility of the Good Life and the Vulnerability

ofHuman Capacities 59 4. Friendship in Aristotle and Ricoeur 64

4.1 Friendship, Ethics, and the Good Life 644.2 Friendship and the Vulnerable Human in Aristotle

and Ricoeur 70

4. Reading Religion as Moral Life in Kant 74 1. The Categorical Imperative 77 2. Radical Evil 80

2.1 The Human Will 802.2 The Propensity to Evil 81

3. Kantian Virtue 82 4. Kants Humanity 86

4.1 The Strenuous Way of Virtue 864.2 Original Innocence 884.3 Kant and Rousseau:Unsociable Sociability 90

5. Kants Moral Religion 955.1 The Moral Law Within 955.2 Historical Religions and Moral Religion 955.3 Hope in the Common Rational Pursuit of the

Good Life 98 6. Kants Place in Ricoeurs Architectonic 99

6.1 Spinoza and Kant 996.2 Aristotle and Kant 101

5. The Reflexive Autonomy of Ricoeur 103 1. Introduction 103

1.1 Reflexive Autonomy:Ricoeurs ethical vision of the world 105

1.2 From Reflexive Philosophy to Moral Religion:ASketch 107

2. Ricoeurs Hermeneutics of Selfhood 1092.1 The Detour of Reflection by Way of a

HermeneuticalAnalysis 1092.2 The Dialectic of idem and ipse 110

Contents xix

2.3 Attesting to Oneself Inasmuch as Other 1112.4 Capability, Self-Esteem, and Solicitude:

ATripartiteDialectic 113 3. Ricoeurs Post-Hegelian Kantian Hermeneutics 116

3.1 Hermeneutics and Metaphysics 1163.2 Ricoeurs post-Hegelian Return to Kant 1203.3 Ricoeurs Hermeneutics:post-Hegelian or

post-Kantian? 122 4. Autonomy and the Reflexive Self 126

4.1 Ricoeurs Autonomous Agent 1264.2 Reflexive Autonomy 128

5. Reflexive Autonomy and Ethical Life 1295.1 Reflexive Autonomy in Ricoeurs little ethics 1295.2 Reflexive Autonomy in the Later Ricoeur 131

6. Reflexive Autonomy and Moral Religion 1326.1 Ethics and Metaphysics 1326.2 Reflexive Autonomy and Ricoeurs Architectonic of

Moral Religion 133

6. A Hermeneutics of Ethical Life 135 1. Opening Remarks:The Aims and Claims of the Book 135 2. The Key Features of Ricoeurs Moral Religion 138 3. Hermeneutics 140

3.1 A Critical Method 1403.2 A Kantian Structure 142

4. The Ethical Aim of Ricoeurs Moral Religion 144 5. Situating Ricoeurs Moral Religion 145

5.1 Ricoeur Studies 1455.2 Contemporary Philosophy of Religion 150

Concluding Remarks:Living up to Death 152

Bibliography 157Works by Ricoeur:Writings and Interviews 157Other Works 159

Index 167

Abbreviations and References

Ricoeur Unless otherwise stated, all citations will be to English translations of Ricoeur. Where an English translation is unavailable, the translation is my own. In addition, certain works of Ricoeurs will be referred to using the following abbreviations:FN Freedom and Nature:The Voluntary and the

InvoluntaryFM FallibleManSE The Symbolism ofEvilFP Freud and Philosophy:An Essay on

InterpretationTN Time and Narrative (Volumes I, II, orIII)OA Oneself as AnotherMHF Memory, History, ForgettingRJ Reflections on TheJustAV Autonomy and Vulnerability

Spinoza Unless otherwise stated, all citations of Spinoza are to Edwin Curleys translation of the Ethics (1996). Iuse the following abbreviations for the Ethics: Ip33s2 names Part I, Prop.33, Schol.2, and so forth; IId1 names Part II, Definition 1, and so forth. Ia1 names Part I, Axiom 1, and soforth.

Aristotle All unaccompanied citations of Aristotle are to Christopher Rowes (2002) translation of the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). References are to lines in the Greektext.

Kant All citations will be to English translations of Kants work. However, page references will be to the German Akademie edition, except in the case of the Critique of Pure Reason, where they will be to the Aand B editions. In addition, the following abbreviations will be used when referring to Kantsworks.C1 Critique of PureReasonC2 Critique of PracticalReason

xxii Abbreviations and References

C3 Critique of the Power of JudgmentG Groundwork for the Metaphysics ofMoralsR Religion within the Boundaries of MereReasonDV The Doctrine ofVirtueAnth. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point ofView

For full bibliographical details of all the above references, see the bibliography.

1Ricoeurs Architectonic of Moral Religion

Cest en mon dsir dtre, dans mon pouvoir dexister, que la flche du religieux vient matteindre.

(It is in my desire to be, in my effort to exist, that Iam struck by the arrow of the religious. Ricoeur 2000a:2078)1

1. RICOEURS HERMENEUTICS OF ETHICALLIFE

1.1 Opening RemarksThe past decade has seen an enormous growth of interest in the later writings of Paul Ricoeur, an interest that has only increased since his death in 2005, and positively surged since the official opening in 2009 of the Fonds Ricoeur in Paris, where his complete archives are now stored.2 This book is an attempt to derive a systematic coherence from these writings. It argues that Ricoeurs later philosophical writings provide a highly instructive interpretative key with which to assess his broader philosophical project. What follows is a critical but sym-pathetic reconstruction of Ricoeurs project as a religion centred on the fundamental conviction of human capability. What will emerge from this reconstruction is a hermeneutics of ethical life which aims

1 My translation. For a recent alternative translation of this piece, see Treanor and Venema (eds.) 2010:2740.

2 Many of these archives, including bibliographies, major themes, and unpublished essays, lectures and notes, can be accessed online at (accessed 9 January2014).

2 Ricoeur on Moral Religion

to establish a moral religion that binds humans together universally on the basis of what they share as capable beings.

As such, my interest lies with the religious significance of Ricoeurs philosophical writings. I do not engage with Ricoeurs theologi-cal writings, which I take to constitute a separate, distinct body of work.3 It is for this reason that, as will be seen, Ishall reject claims that the later Ricoeurs expressed interest in religion marks an explicitly Christian, theological turn.4 Ricoeur has produced a number of texts that deal with explicitly Christian themes, to which Idirect readers who wish to explore Ricoeurs contribution to Christian theology.5 By contrast, Ricoeurs philosophical writings bracketall questions of bib-lical faith. Even if, as Iwill suggest, the later Ricoeur is more prepared than he was in the past to confront religious questions, he will explore those questions philosophically. Ricoeur is not a theologian, but a phi-losopher of religion interested in philosophically exploring universal questions of religious significancean interest that culminates in his embrace of a moral religion.

In what follows, then, Iwish to demonstrate that a significant and consistent reading of Ricoeur can be achieved by scrutinizing his philosophical corpus in light of a moral religion. This reading will be significant for two reasons. First, it will bring to light a hitherto unforeseen thread in Ricoeurs writings that lends his project as a whole a remarkable consistency. A thread concerning (ethical) life will be found in the often implicit, but nevertheless formative influ-ences of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant that can be traced from the early philosophy of the will to his final essays and interviews.6

Second, elucidating those core ideas from Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant which shape Ricoeurs moral religion marks a major departure from recent Ricoeur scholarship. There have been notable attempts to identify Aristotelian,7 Kantian,8 and, more recently, Spinozist9 themes in

3 This interpretative strategy is also adopted in Boyd Blundells and Dan Stivers recent studies of Ricoeur, although these studies differ significantly from the present one in other respects, as we shall discover. See Blundell 2010 and Stiver2012.

4 See section 2.5 of this chapter.5 See, for example, Ricoeur1980.6 See note 18 of this chapter.7 See, for example, Kemp1989.8 See, for example, Anderson1993.9 See, for example, Kearney 2010a, who remarks upon the presence of Spinoza

in Ricoeurs final writings. For similarities and differences between this study and Kearneys writings on Ricoeur, see chapter6, section5.2.

Ricoeurs Architectonic of Moral Religion 3

Ricoeurs work. This book follows previous critical reconstructions of Ricoeurs philosophical project which argue that his thought remainsright up to his deathbroadly Kantian, both in its structure and its aim.10 But Iaim to move beyond these interpretations by engaging with the later Ricoeur in order to draw from his broader corpus retrospec-tively a threefold architectonic informed by Spinoza, Aristotle, andKant.

Before proceeding further, architectonic merits explanation. This term appears most famously in Kants philosophy, where it desig-nates a system which progresses from the most formal to the most concrete. Ricoeurs architectonic, therefore, refers to the structure of the framework which will be drawn out from his readings of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. This framework consequently brings the three philosophers together, beginning at the level of metaphys-ics (Spinoza), proceeding to anthropology (Aristotle), and finally to morality (Kant). Additionally, the term also serves to locate Ricoeur in the tradition of a more rationalist and systematic kind of philoso-phy than that practised by many of his contemporaries, particularly in the English-speaking world.11 Ricoeur belongs to a long tradition of French philosophers educated to read philosophy historically, and to approach particular philosophical problems in terms of their his-torical development.12 It is therefore quite likely that Ricoeur under-stood contemporary deliberations on ethical life and religion to be shaped by historical predecessors among whom the rationalist tradi-tion includes Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. This historical influence is most evident in the rationalist nature of Ricoeurs hermeneutics which, as we shall discover, is governed first and foremost by a sense of both the power and the limits of human reason, but also by the overall systematic sense of Ricoeurs thinking. This rationalism dis-tinguishes Ricoeurs philosophical method from the more existential philosophies of many of his contemporaries, including Sartre, Marcel, and Merleau-Ponty.13

10 For a critical reconstruction of Ricoeur along Kantian lines, see Anderson1993.11 Despite being written over thirty years ago, Alan Montefiores cautious assess-

ment of the fundamental differences between French and Anglo-Saxon philosophy remains timely. See Montefiore 1983:viixxvi.

12 For a survey of mainstream French philosophy from the inter-war years to the 1980s, see Descombes1981.

13 Obviously Sartre, Marcel, and Merleau-Ponty are three philosophers who in many respects have very little in common. Indeed, to associate all three of them with a term as contestable as existentialist is not in itself uncontroversial. What they do share, which Itake to be distinct from Ricoeurs rationalist approach, is a sustained


At this stage, a crucial distinction must also be established. Ishall refer throughout this study to both Ricoeurs architectonic and his hermeneutics. These two terms must not be confused. Architectonic refers to the structure of Ricoeurs philosophical framework, as pre-sented here; hermeneutics refers to his philosophical method. 14 Yet equally, the two terms are intimately connected. Ricoeurs hermeneu-tic approach to philosophical problems and philosophical texts leads him to establish an architectonic informed by Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. Conversely, the architectonic subsequently guides Ricoeurs hermeneutic engagement with particular philosophical themes in order to establish a moral religion.

1.2 The Aims of theBookMy reconstruction of Ricoeurs hermeneutical project as an architec-tonic of moral religion is guided by three implicit, interrelated aimsexegetical, restorative, and critical. The exegetical aim is to elucidate those aspects of Ricoeurs thought which reflect Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant, by examining the separate dialogues Ricoeur holds with each of these philosophers. The restorative aim is to derive a substan-tial architectonic from this exegesis. This architectonic holds Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant together in Ricoeurs writings, lending his project as a whole a remarkable consistency. The critical aim is to assess the plausibility of this architectonic. This assessment will raise critical questions concerning the consistency and coherence of Ricoeurs hermeneutical method in light of his attempt to render compatible

focus on felt, subjective experience that precludes any broader, systematic architec-tonic like that which this study attributes to Ricoeur. Subjective experience is clearly of interest to Ricoeur too, as Freedom and Natures phenomenological account of human willing demonstrates (see FN). And to the degree that there are some overlaps between Ricoeur and these existentialists, they can be traced to a shared interest in the legacy of Husserlian phenomenology. However, Ricoeur departs from these existentialists in his attempt to situate his studies of felt, subjective experience within a broader philo-sophical account of life which includes objective structures of consciousness.

14 It is not easy to offer a precise definition of Ricoeurs hermeneutics. Ricoeurs works written since The Symbolism of Evil have addressed themselves to numerous aspects of hermeneutics, so a definition which is too specific would not do justice to these various works (Anderson 1993:3n12; cf. SE). However, Ricoeurs essay On Interpretation usefully presents his own reflection back upon the progression of his thought, including his hermeneutical phenomenology and his shift from interpret-ing written texts only to actions (Ricoeur 1991; Anderson 1993:3n12).


Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kants seemingly disparate accounts of ethical life. Notwithstanding the question of the compatibility of Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant on ethical life, additional questions arise con-cerning:i) Ricoeurs own (however implicit) Kantian commitments, and the compatibility of these commitments with his reading Spinoza and Aristotle; and (ii) the overall coherence of Ricoeurs architectonic. Other, more general questions, concerning the nature of hermeneutic philosophy, will also arise in the chapters that follow.

1.3 The Claims of theBookThe three interrelated aims inform three explicit claims. The first claim is that Ricoeurs rationalist architectonic enables readers to interpret his philosophy as a moral religion. The second claim is that this architec-tonic is rendered religious by a reflexive understanding of autonomy, or reflexivity-conviction, which underpins Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethi-cal life, and which can be traced through his entire philosophical corpus. The third claim is that Ricoeurs moral religion offers a bold and timely vision for contemporary philosophy of religion. It blends a Kantian con-ception of an ethical commonwealth (R 6:97)rooted in respect for the lives of individuals as rational ends-in-themselves, with a Spinozist con-ception of an ethical desire to increase in ones activity as an inextrica-ble and irreplaceable part of a wider whole of which all human beings are a part (cf. Ricoeur 1999:4446).15 The result is a vision of capable human beings actively embracing life, both among one another and in thewhole.

It will quickly become clear that this presentation and analysis of Ricoeurs moral religion departs from the standard debates which domi-nate analytic philosophy of religion.16 The continued prominence of these debates, particularly concerning the logical analysis of theological concepts, has been especially evident recently in the remarkable exten-sion of the movement to analytic theology, which seeks to apply the methodological tools of analytic philosophy of religion to Christian

15 Referring back to the quotation at the beginning of this chapter, it is clear that Ricoeurs desire to be and effort to exist have both Spinozist overtones and Kantian undertones. The significance of this particular quotation will be made clear in section 2.1 in this chapter.

16 See Wainwright (2005), Crisp and Rea (eds.) (2009), Rea (ed.) (2009).


theology.17 In contrast to the claims and debates central to analytic the-ology in particular, and analytic philosophy of religion generally, this reading of Ricoeur grounds philosophy of religion not exclusively in the analysis of concepts (valuable though that is), but in a hermeneutic analysis of ethical life that shapes a moral religion.

And crucially, the term life as it appears in the later Ricoeur is deliberately open. Indeed, the concepts God, Nature, and Life might seem to be interchangeable in referring to the broad structure of real-ity, or the wider whole of which we are a part. Aclose connection of God or Nature to Life will emerge as a crucial dimension of Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life; and as the argument unfolds, the empha-sis will be placed increasingly on Life:both life, with a lower case, which designates lived human experience, and Life, with an upper case, which designates the wider whole of which we are all a part, and which encompasses lived human experience. For Ricoeur, it is this Life which binds us together as capable human beings. This vision requires recognition of the shared status of human subjects as com-ponents and expressions of Life, in its metaphysical, anthropological, and moral dimensions.

This first section has given a preliminary sketch of the overall argu-ment presented in the chapters that will follow. The remainder of the chapter introduces the key concepts and specific arguments for Ricoeurs moral religion. The second section outlines the distinctive features of the later Ricoeurs thought, explaining their significance for the present study as a whole. The third section then unpicks the salient aspects of Ricoeurs architectonic, uncovering the aspects of metaphysical, anthropological, and moral life for his hermeneutics of ethicallife.

17 For a summary of recent literature in analytic theology, see William Wood (2009). The rise of analytic theology raises significant questions about the relation-ship between philosophy of religion, on the one hand, and theology or philosophical theology on the other. For the writers who identify themselves as analytic theologians are overwhelmingly trained in analytic philosophy of religion, with little or no formal background or training in Christian doctrine or systematic theology. And yet, in writ-ing about analytic theology, they claim to be practising what they call philosophical theology, and thereby identify themselves as analytic theologians in addition to their longstanding identifications as analytic philosophers of religion. This of course raises the further question as to how one defines philosophical theology to beginwith.


2. THE LATER RICOEURS RELIGION OF HUMAN CAPABILIT Y

2.1 The Later RicoeurIn many ways, the later Ricoeur is a misleading term. There is no distinct body of work comparable to, say, the philosophy of will,18 that constitutes a final or later phase in Ricoeurs authorship which can be neatly distinguished from the work that precedes it. While Ricoeur certainly engaged with an astonishingly diverse range of subjects throughout his long career, Iwill argue that there always remains a central coherence or unity to his work as a whole. Ricoeurs explicit objects of enquiry may have changed, but at no stage is there a delib-erate break with the body of work that precedes a particular study. So while Freud and Philosophy, for example, may initially appear to mark a radical departure from the two-part engagement with the possibil-ity and experience of evil found in Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil, a closer inspection reveals that Ricoeurs hermeneutic engage-ment with Freud picks up on themes that had already been laid out in the closing pages of The Symbolism of Evil (FP 524531; cf. SE 347357, FM xliixlix). The later Ricoeur should therefore not be under-stood along the same lines as, say, the later Wittgenstein.

I therefore take the later Ricoeur to represent the handful of writ-ings and interviews in which he renders explicit themes which can be traced implicitly throughout his philosophical corpus as a whole, and which are central to interpreting his philosophical project as a moral religion. These publications appeared in the years following Ricoeurs 1986 Gifford Lectures,19 and while the themes they address are them-selves multifaceted, they are united by an expressed interest in the concept of lhomme capable or the capable human.20

18 Ricoeurs philosophy of the will consists of two volumes. The first volume, Le Voluntaire et linvoluntaire (translated into English as Freedom and Nature) is a phenomenological analysis of the reciprocity between the voluntary and the invol-untary which structures human freedom. The second volume, Finitude et culpabilit (translated into two separate English books as Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil) explores, in turn, the conditions of possibility for human evil, and the symbolic expressions of human evil. Ricoeur initially projected a third volume, a Poetics of the Will, but this was never published (see FN, FM,SE).

19 Originally published in 1990 as Soi-mme comme un autre, and in English trans-lation in 1992 as Oneself as Another.

20 See the bibliography for a complete list of these publications. They include Ricoeur 1999, 2000a, 2002, 2004a, MHF, 2004c, AV, 2007b, 2007c,2009.


This interest in the capable human is accompanied by two further features which lend these final writings and interviews a unity. First, Ricoeur attempts to correlate the concept of capability to a partic-ular ontological tradition in the history of metaphysics which con-ceives of being dynamic rather than substantial (Ricoeur 2002:282). Ricoeur seeks to ground human capability in a deeper metaphysi-cal exploration of what he calls the ground of being (OA 308). Second, this growing interest in metaphysics/ontology accompanies a well-documented shift in Ricoeurs thought, where he begins to bridge the methodological gap he had previously resolutely main-tained between his philosophical and theological writings (Ricoeur 2004a:166169; Treanor and Venema 2010:121; Kearney 2010b). It will be argued that, in bridging this gap, Ricoeur uncovers a dynamic tradition within the history of metaphysics, developing a contempo-rary and original conception of being struck by the religious.21 The arrow of the religious strikes the capable human in her desire to be and effort to exist. Ricoeurs image of the arrow represents the human desire for life as religious. The human is conceived, not as the passive recipient of the gift of life, but rather in Spinozist terms as a capa-ble subject increasing in activity; and this activity culminates in the joyful recognition of oneself as inextricably bound up in the whole. As capable human beings, we are predisposed to strive for that joy in the whole, propelled by the arrow of the religious in our desires and our efforts (Ricoeur 2000a:207208). Understood thus, Ricoeurs religion of human capability emerges, not as submission to a personal (Christian) God,22 but rather as a primary affirmation (FM xlvii. Emphasis added), an attestation or a conviction23 in God, Nature, or Life as the whole of which we are all a part (cf. Spinoza Ip14C1; Ip40S1).

21 Recalling the quote which opened this chapter, Cest en mon dsir dtre, dans mon pouvoir dexister, que la flche du religieux vient matteindre (Ricoeur 2000a:207208).

22 For a contrasting view that sees this shift in Ricoeurs thought as an expression of an avowedly Christian conviction, see Treanor and Venema 2010:121. Idiscuss Treanor and Venemas interpretation of Ricoeur in section 2.5 of this chapter.

23 Crucially, for Ricoeur, attestation and conviction depend on belief in (la croy-ance), which is to be distinguished from belief that (la certitude). While belief that corresponds to foundational, Cartesian knowledge, belief in is more like trust in a testimony, as in the word of a witness in which one believes. See OA 21. Attestation is discussed in greater depth in Chapter5, section2.3.


2.2 The CapableHumanThe capable human is a metaphysical and ontological conception that is equally a conviction. To be human, for Ricoeur, is to be capable. Human capability is a constant, foundational theme in Ricoeurs later writings, underlying his engagement with each of Spinoza, Aristotle, andKant.

The concept of human capability derives from Ricoeurs convic-tion, appropriated from the French philosopher Jean Nabert, that a fundamental desire to be and effort to exist lies behind all human actions (FP 46). The struggle for life or, as William Schweiker puts it, the pitch of human wants and desires for fulfilment against the onslaught of age, death, and suffering, testifies to a Wille zur Leben, a will to life, in human existence (Schweiker 2008:90). The desire to be, the sense that it is good to be, is a primitive datum of human exist-ence linked to the struggle to live (91). Ricoeur roots this desire and effort in Spinozas concept of conatus, understood as the fundamental striving to persist in being that is at the same time the very essence of human being (OA 316; Spinoza IIIp7; cf. FP 46). To be human is to strive to be, and that striving underlies all human actions. Ricoeur appropriates the conatus as a capability:the desire to be and effort to exist constitute the conative striving of a human being who is funda-mentally capable.

As the following chapters will reveal, capability is a concept deriv-ing from the rationalist philosophies of both Spinoza and Kant. With Spinoza, Ricoeur presents human capability as our rational striving to be fully human. With Kant, Ricoeur presents capability as tantamount to an original or fundamental goodness that is ante-rior to the emergence of moral evil which, however inevitable it may seem, is always contingent. We remain forever capable, despite fall-ing short, of overcoming moral evil and restoring our fundamental goodness. This fusion of Spinozist and Kantian concepts also marks the later Ricoeurs return to themes originally confronted during his early philosophy of the will. Specifically, Ricoeur revives his Kantian conviction that human capability presupposes an originary good-ness of the human being, prior to the emergence of evil (Ricoeur 2002:284; cf. FM 145). Or, in Ricoeurs Kantian terms:As radical as evil may be, it will never be more originary than goodness . . . [which is] rooted in the ontological structure of the human being (Ricoeur 2002:284).


So while the later Ricoeur exhibits an increased focus on Spinozas metaphysics, he also returns to state explicitly his Kantian convic-tion in fundamental human goodness, originally expressed as early as Fallible Man:However primordial badness may be, goodness is yet more primordial (FM 145). Ricoeur moves from the Kantian frame-work of Fallible Man24 to appropriate Spinozas conatus, only to renew his Kantian conviction in original goodness enriched by Spinoza. This move is entirely in line with the reflexive nature of his philosophy, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter5.

2.3 Human CapacitiesRicoeurs final writings delineate a typology of basic capacities, for example of speech and action, which are particular manifestations, on the anthropological plane, of a fundamental human capability. Human capacities are the place of readability for a metaphysical quality of being a capable human (OA 308; Ricoeur 2005: 69, 91); they are basic powers which reveal the primary foundation of humanity (Ricoeur 2004c).

Ricoeur derives from Aristotle an anthropological framework for exploring human capacities. Aristotles anthropology of human virtue helps explain how the development of capacities is to a large degree a matter of fortune. What is manifested as a capacity could just as easily have been an incapacity, depending on a host of factors beyond the sub-jects control; whether it is ones physical attributes, for example, or ones social and cultural environment. Even if one is constitutionally and cir-cumstantially fortunate enough to develop certain capacities, they will remain vulnerable to damage, which can be inflicted by other subjects, or a change in ones physical or social environment, over the course of the subjects life. It is for this reason that Ricoeurs architectonic includes a substantial Kantian moral norm with which to regulate human living and to safeguard against our constitutional fragility and vulnerability.

2.4 The Ground ofBeingRicoeurs final essays and interviews attempt to ground human capa-bility in a dynamic metaphysics of being. Ricoeur identifies this

24 Anderson unequivocally describes Fallible Man as without a doubt Ricoeurs most overtly Kantian book (1993:10).


metaphysics with a particular ontological tradition, beginning with Aristotles Metaphysics . . . which may be followed through Leibniz and Spinoza down to Schelling, Dilthey, and . . . Paul Tillich (Ricoeur 2002:282). Crucially, this tradition departs from the convention of conceiving being in substantialist or mechanistic terms by appealing to the categories of possibility and actuality. As Ricoeur explains in a 2003 interview with Richard Kearney:

As Iget older Ihave been increasingly interested in exploring certain metaphysics of potency and act. In Oneself as Another, Ibroach this in my analysis of the capacity to speak, narrate, act. This phenomenology of the I can, in turn, brings me to Aristotles attempt in the Metaphysics E 2 to outline meta-categories of potentiality and actuality in line with his commitment to a plurality of meanings of being . . . But if Iam on the side of metaphysics here, it is, admittedly, in the somewhat minor-ity camp of those who prefer the categories of possibility and actu-ality to that of substance. If the mainstream and official tradition of Western metaphysics has been substantialist, this does not preclude other metaphysical paths, such as those leading from Aristotles duna-mis to Spinozas conatus and Schellings and Leibnizs notions of poten-tiality (puissance). Here we find a dynamic notion of being as potency and action . . . which contrasts sharply with the old substantialist mod-els of scholasticism or the mechanistic models of Descartes. (Ricoeur 2004a:166)

Ricoeur appropriates Aristotles attempt to conceive being as actual-ity (energeia) and potentiality (dunamis) (Metaphysics V.2; cf. Ricoeur 2002:282; OA 2021) through Spinozas conatus (as well as others). This provides a potentially significant ground for both Ricoeurs met-aphysics of human capability and his anthropology of human capaci-ties.25 Ricoeur claims that energeia-dunamis points toward a ground of being, at once potentiality and actuality against which human action stands out. In other words, he says, it appears equally important that human action be the place of readability par excellence of this accepta-tion of being as distinct from all others . . . and that being as actuality and potentiality have other fields of application than human action alone (OA 308. Emphasis added). For Ricoeur, human action, as a human capacity, functions as an interpretative key or place of read-ability for some greater whole of which it is a particularbut by no

25 See the final exploratory chapter of Oneself as Another, What Ontology in View? (OA 297356).


means the solecomponent, manifestation, and expression. This whole grounds human actions, and human capacities generally.

Ricoeurs fundamental human capability thus designates a defin-ing metaphysical characteristic of human being that, on the one hand, becomes manifested in particular anthropological capacities and that, on the other hand, is also rooted in a broader metaphysical understanding of the ground of being as the ultimate source of those capacities.

2.5 Ricoeurs philosophical theologyUntil recently, Ricoeurs entire philosophical project was character-ized by his determination to pursue an autonomous philosophical discourse. This was reflected in his attempt, in Oneself as Another, to assume the bracketing, conscious and resolute, of the convictions that bind me to biblical faith (OA 24).26 Oneself as Another therefore pursues an inquiry into the hermeneutics of selfhood that remains purely philosophical. This means that all questions pertaining to the self, including those of moral motivation and religious belief, can and will only be pursued philosophicallythat is, strictly within the limits of a philosophical inquiry that remains autonomous, immune to the claims of any religious conviction.27

It is therefore interesting to note how the later Ricoeur is less inclined to preserve this autonomous philosophical discourse. Instead, Ricoeurs final essays and interviews betray an urge to con-front and challenge the unstable and contestable line between phi-losophy and theology. As he admits to Kearney:

26 It will be observed that this asceticism of the argument, which marks, Ibelieve, all my philosophical work, leads to a type of philosophy from which the actual men-tion of God is absent and in which the question of God, as a philosophical question, itself remains in a suspension that could be called agnostic, as the final lines of the tenth study [What Ontology in View?] will attest. It is in an effort not to make an exception to this suspension that the sole extension given to the nine studies con-ducted within the dimension of a philosophical hermeneutics consists in an ontologi-cal investigation that involves no ontotheological amalgamations (OA24).

27 In the final lines of Oneself as Another, reflecting on the phenomenon of con-science, Ricoeur writes:Perhaps the philosopher has to admit that one does not know and cannot say whether this Other, the source of the injunction, is another person whom Ican look in the face or who can stare at me, or my ancestors for whom there is no representation, to so great an extent does my debt to them constitute my very self, or Godliving God, absent Godor an empty place. With this aporia of the Other, philosophical discourse comes to an end (OA355).


. . . my thought is not so removed from certain religious and biblical issues as my standard policy of conceptual asceticism might have been prepared to admit in the past . . . Ino longer consider such conceptual asceticism tenable. (Ricoeur 2004a:169)

Instead, Ricoeur explores the religious significance of his metaphysi-cal explorations of the ground of being in what can only be described as a sort of philosophical theology or theological philosophynot an easy task in a contemporary intellectual culture which still wants people to say whether they are philosophers or theologians and is uncomfortable with overlaps (Ricoeur 2004a:167).

Ricoeur claims that this shift in his thought arose upon realizing that his close readings of Old Testament texts in the 1990s (published with Andr Lacocque in 1998 as Thinking Biblically28) belonged to the same line of thought as his exploration of the grounds of a phil-osophical anthropology in ontology (Ricoeur 2002:283). Ricoeurs increased interest in the ground of being is not limited to the meta-physical tradition of energeia-dunamis in which he locates Aristotle and Spinoza. It also drives his engagement, in Thinking Biblically, with the ontological and eschatological implications of the I am who Iam episode in Exodus 3.14 (Lacocque and Ricoeur 1998: 331361).29 What fascinates Ricoeur about this passage is the conception of being which is utterly alien to Greek usage. In other words, Ricoeur draws on the Hebraic text to enrich his ontology, by including:

. . . new notions of being-with, being-faithful, being-in-accompaniment with ones community or people (which is precisely what Yahweh promises Moses when he says I am he who will be with you). (Ricoeur 2004a:166)

Ricoeur thus urges the enlargement of Greek ontology to accommo-date and respond to such other meanings as a means of bridging the traditional antagonism between Hellenic and Hebraic meanings of being, on the one hand, and between the philosophical and theologi-cal traditions, on the other (Ricoeur 2004a:167).

Some recent readings of the later Ricoeur have interpreted this development in his thought as an explicitly Christian, theological

28 Lacocque and Ricoeur1998.29 God said to Moses, I AM WHO IAM. He said further, Thus you shall say

to the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you (Exodus 3:14, New Revised Standard Version).


turn. Brian Treanor and Henry Isaac Venemas interpretation of Ricoeurs philosophy in light of these late essays speaks of a pro-foundly religious meaning at the heart of the concept of human capability attesting to the gift of the Christic symbol (Treanor and Venema 2010:2).30

While Iagree with Treanor and Venema that a religious conviction is undoubtedly at play in Ricoeurs (however incomplete) sketch of the capable human, Iam not convinced by their attempts to interpret this conviction in explicitly Christian theological terms. Ricoeurs late writings undoubtedly attempt to overcome this conceptual asceti-cism which, he concedes, characterized his previous attempts to keep philosophy and theology at arms length (Ricoeur 2004a:169). However, Imaintain that Ricoeur would have remained uncomfort-able with the deliberate inscription of theological or, more strongly, explicitly Christian terms into his philosophical account of religion. The later Ricoeur is not proposing some coded Christian philoso-phy: despite his well-documented Christian convictions,31 Ricoeur continued to carefully distance himself from the title Christian phi-losopher (Ricoeur 2009:6970). Instead, this book argues that the later Ricoeurs attempt to bridge the gap between his philosophical and theological writings expresses a thinner and broader religious reverence for Life as that which binds us all together as capable human beings, irrespective of particular religious traditions. This, it will be maintained, is how Ricoeur ought to be interpreted when he challenges the absolute irreconcilability between the God of the Bible and the God of Being (Ricoeur 2004a:169).

The claim that Ricoeur is not a Christian philosopher is supported by the admission that his later thought marks a deliberate turning away from an anti-metaphysical, Protestant tradition in Christian theology. This tradition posits an unassailable difference between human and divine in stressing the inherent finitude and fallenness of mortal life. As Ricoeur explains, I no longer subscribe to the typically anti-metaphysical Protestant lineage of Karl Barth (though it is true that in early works like The Symbolism of Evil Iwas still somewhat

30 Stiver has recently added that the value of Ricoeurs long-held division between theology and philosophy (his conceptual asceticism) is that it renders his philoso-phy open to a variety of appropriations in theology, across the spectrum from liberal to conservative (Stiver 2012:34). Such is the appropriation undertaken, Iargue, by Treanor and Venema.

31 See Reagan1996.


under this influence) (Ricoeur 2004a: 166).32 Ricoeurs expressed turn from the Protestant heritage of his formative years33 therefore marks a shift away from conceiving of life strictly in terms of a God who is infinitely Other. Instead, Ricoeur offers a Spinozist concep-tion of Life as a single, dynamic substance in which we all inhere, and which is inseparable from his insistence on the tacit potencies and acts of our lived existence which imply a fundamental human capability (Ricoeur 2004a:167). The later Ricoeurs religion of human capability is not theo-centric; rather, it begins with human life, driven by a conviction in both the capable human, and the source from which that capability springs.

What finally distinguishes Ricoeurs architectonic as a religion of human capability, then, is the conviction that ones capability, as pos-sibility, forever renders one qua capable human part of a dynamic whole. In Life, to be human is to participate in this whole of which one is an inextricable and irreplaceable component. Religion is what binds humans together in the joyful recognition of themselves as cor-porate, uniquely singular and yet inextricably embedded in the whole. In Ricoeurs own words:Ce que compte, cest le fait que nous sommes la parcelle dun grand tout. Le trajet de cette parcelle, que ne sait pas parcelle au dbut, mais qui ne se reconnat parcelle la fin (Ricoeur 1999:4445).34 These, then, are the distinguishing features of the later Ricoeurs religion of human capability. Iturn now to the main aspects of his architectonic of moral religion.

3. RICOEURS ARCHITECTONIC

3.1 Spinoza, Aristotle,and KantEach chapter of this book works to shape Ricoeurs architectonic of moral religion as Chapters24 gradually draw out salient elements

32 This would appear to question Boyd Blundells claim that Barth and Ricoeur make highly compatible dialogue partners between theology and philosophy (Blundell 2010:52; cf. Stiver 2012:87).

33 See Ricoeur 1998:56 on his Protestant upbringing.34 What counts is the fact that we are an individual part of a great whole. But this

individual does not recognize itself as a part at the beginning, but only at the end of its journey. NB Ihave modified this translation from the original French to render the passage coherent in philosophicalterms.


of metaphysics, anthropology, and morality. In contrast to a Barthian tradition of Christian theology from which he deliberately distances himself, Ricoeur attests that to be human is not to be flawed or fallen, but to be fundamentally capable.35 Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life is therefore grounded in a metaphysics of fundamental human capability, from which an anthropology of basic human capacities springs. In turn, this anthropology grounds an ethical pursuit of the good life, with and for others, in just institutions (OA 172). The good life emerges as the ultimate (ethical) aim of a moral religion. Ricoeur combines Spinozas metaphysics of human striving with Aristotles telos to explain how human desires are propelled by the religious towards an ethical life (cf. Ricoeur 2000a:207208). The ethical telos is, in turn, limited by a Kantian moral norm, placing the human desire to be within just institutions. Essentially, the moral norm regulates our conduct with and for others. This Kantian moral norm renders Ricoeurs architectonic a moral religion. This is a religion based on human reason, and on the human subject as a rational and political animal. The humans conduct with and for others is governed by a norm to which she subjects herself and through which she interprets her pursuit of the good life. Crucially, however, Ricoeur also draws on Spinoza and Aristotle to modify the Kantian rationalism supporting this moral norm. This modification produces an acute understanding of human subjects, not simply as autonomous rational actors, but also as vulnerable acting and suffering selves who depend upon others in exactly the same manner that others depend upon them. Ricoeurs architectonic thus operates at metaphysical, anthropological, and moral levels, which derive, whether explicitly or implicitly, from par-ticular readings of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. The architectonic forms a moral religion which is driven by the ideal of the good life, with and for others, in just institutions.

At this stage, two further features of Ricoeurs architectonic must be highlighted. First, the hermeneutic readings of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant can broadly be defined, using Ricoeurs self-description, as post-Hegelian Kantian.36 The reflexive method of Ricoeurs

35 Ricoeurs rationalist architectonic thus offers a radical alternative to a traditional approach in Christian philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, which has derived its doctrine from the philosophy and theology of Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, and Calvin. See, for example, Wolterstorff2009.

36 See Ricoeur 1998:83 for his discussion of this self-description.


hermeneutics is inherited from Hegel; however, Ricoeur does not accept the Hegelian system of absolute knowledge, and so returns from Hegel to the boundaries of human knowledge established by Kant. For Ricoeur, acknowledging the boundaries of human knowl-edge and action is necessary in order to properly grasp human exist-ence. And yet, Ricoeurs post-Hegelian Kantianism is more complex than a straightforward return to Kant after Hegel. For as will be discovered in subsequent chapters, Ricoeur modifies his reading of Kant with post-Hegelian readings of Spinoza and Aristotle.37 Ricoeur returns to Kant after Hegel, but in doing so his subsequent readings of Kant are shaped both by his appropriation of Spinoza and Aristotle and his encounter with post-Hegelian critiques of Kants critical phi-losophy.38 Moreover, the reflexive nature of Ricoeurs hermeneutics leads him to move back and forth between the philosophers appro-priated for his architectonic, so while his engagement with Spinoza and Aristotle may lead him to modify his reading of Kant, his under-standing of Kant will also lead him in turn to modify his readings of Spinoza and Aristotle. Whether or not this reflexive modification is deliberate, or simply Ricoeurs Kantian presuppositions informing his readings of Spinoza and Aristotle, is a critical question that must be kept in mind when assessing Ricoeurs hermeneutic appropriation of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant together, and the plausibility of the archi-tectonic informed by his engagement with these three philosophers. Whether Ricoeur can render Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant compatible, let alone whether this can be done while employing this particular hermeneutic strategy, is a concern that will be repeatedly raised and examined throughout the chapters that follow.

Second, the architectonic brings to light the strong rationalist thread running through Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant, in that order. It begins with Spinozas metaphysics, before traversing the levels of Aristotles anthropology and Kants morality. Crucially, reason as it is employed by all three philosophers is not to be understood as some transcendent faculty, but rather, with Ricoeur, as a practical capability shared among all humans as rational beings. If to be human is to be

37 On Spinoza, see Ricoeurs appropriation of Sylvain Zac (OA 315 ff.). On Aristotle, see his references to Gadamer and Charles Taylor (among others) in the seventh study of Oneself as Another (OA 177 ff; 179ff.).

38 For a useful survey of (post) Hegelian critiques and modifications of the Kantian critical project, see Pippin 2005:2753.


fundamentally capable, then that capability includes a fundamentally rational nature which enables human subjects to increase in under-standing, ultimately arriving at the joyful recognition of themselves as part of the wider whole calledLife.

3.2 Hermeneutics of EthicalLifeRicoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life is essential to grasping the way in which his architectonic enables a threefold reading of religion. The use of the term Life, to include both everyday lived experience (life) and reality or being in its broadest sense (Life), resonates with other attempts by contemporary philosophers of religion and philosophi-cal theologians to challenge more narrow theological readings of reli-gion and religious practices. David Tracy, for example, has recently employed terms such as the Infinite, the Incomprehensible, the Impassable, and even the Impossible in referring to objects of reli-gious reverence.39 Although Tracy might be questioned in his use of these terms, his deliberate avoidance of the word God in a recent paper, Western Hermeneutics and Inter-Religious Dialogue, chal-lenges philosophers of religion to scrutinize the assumptions that lie behind their use of theological concepts, including the concept of God. In this case, Tracy is arguing that a broader term than God is needed for those situated within the Abrahamic religions to open a constructive, inter-religious dialogue. Similarly, Iattribute Life to Ricoeurs project in the deliberately broad sense outlined above to denote that which is shared by all humans as beings which are given life, develop, come to fullness of life, and to the end of life. Life is to be understood, qua universal, as that which is attested to in binding us together as capable human beings; it therefore constitutes the religious dimension of Ricoeurs architectonic.40

Ricoeurs conception of ethical life is developed through his reflex-ive hermeneutics, which elucidates the embeddedness of each and every human being. That is, Ricoeurs reflexive, hermeneutic account of selfhood reveals each self to be inextricably embedded in relations with those around her. This embeddedness is a constitutive aspect of human beingto be human is both to depend upon others and to

39 Tracy2009.40 Religion is understood in this context in terms of its Latin root, religare, meaning

to bindfast.


have others depend upon oneself. It is for this reason that Ricoeur defines ethical life as aiming at the good life, with and for others, in just institutions (OA 172). The role of ethics in a Ricoeurian archi-tectonic is to ensure that each and every human being may flourish, or pursue uninhibited, to the greatest degree possible, her vision of her own good life. However, in order for this ethical aim to be fully realized, it must first meet the demands imposed upon it by the moral norm. For morality, as distinct from ethics, is a normative framework, willingly imposed upon our pursuit of the good life, as a means of ensuring that each individuals pursuit of their good does not come at the expense of those aroundthem.

Ricoeur appropriates this moral norm from his hermeneutic engagement with Kant. Yet it is significant that Kants own norma-tive framework is ultimately driven by an unerring conviction in a human predisposition to good which partly informs Ricoeurs own concept of human capability (cf. section 2.2 of this chapter). In line with the philosophical method behind it, then, we can understand the shape of Ricoeurs architectonic reflexively:41 it begins at the level of metaphysics, with a conviction in a fundamental human capability; it proceeds to the anthropological level with an account of vulnerable human capacities; it arrives at the moral level with the introduction of a moral norm to protect or sustain those vulnerable capacities; and that moral norm then returns us to the foundational level of meta-physicsfor the norm itself is driven and sustained by the metaphysi-cal conviction in fundamental human capability.

3.3 Moral ReligionRicoeurs architectonic aims to guide and regulate human living with and for others as a moral religion. The architectonic grounds moral religion by encompassing life in its metaphysical, anthropological, and moral dimensions, respectively. For religion is intimately con-nected to life as that which binds us together as capable human beings. This particular characteristic of the architectonic, combined with this particular understanding of religion, reveals the strongly Kantian dimension to the later Ricoeurs philosophical project. In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant famously sketches a

41 Ricoeurs reflexive method will be discussed in Chapter5. See Ricoeur 1991 for his own discussion of reflexivity.


framework for moral religion as an ethical commonwealth which binds all human beings together in respect for one another as rational ends-in-themselves (R 6:97). Ricoeurs architectonic certainly aims toward such a commonwealth; but Ricoeur differs from Kant in his understanding of what binds human beings together. It is not simply religion, understood as belief, within the boundaries of mere reason, but religion understood in terms of life within the boundaries of mere reason. Ricoeur modifies his architectonic by appropriating both Spinozas conatus and Aristotles anthropology of human vulnerabil-ity alongside Kants ethical commonwealth. Ricoeurs architectonic of moral religion reveals the three dimensions of lifemetaphysical, anthropological, and moralwhich provide an inalienable common bond for human beings.

The reflexive nature of Ricoeurs architectonic also grounds a moral religion. As Chapter5 will explain, Ricoeurs reflexive conceptions of the self and of autonomy necessitate selfhoods intimate connection to otherness. Self and other are bound together and sustained in what they share as reflexively autonomous agents. Ricoeurs conception of selfhood depends upon a reflexivity-conviction that being oneself inasmuch as other in acting and suffering is embedded in the rela-tional nature of human autonomy (OA 3). It is this embeddedness which gives a distinctly religious dimension to Ricoeurs hermeneu-tics of ethical life. For in coming to see ourselves as embeddedthat is, intimately connected to otherswe recognize that, in religious terms, we are bound to others by virtue of what we share. And what we share is not simply our embeddedness in relation to each other as (acting and suffering) autonomous agents, but also our embedded-ness as part of the whole we call Life (cf. Ricoeur1999).

2Reading Religion as Metaphysical Life inSpinoza

I have written very little on Spinoza, although he is always to be found in my meditation and my teaching. Ishare . . . the convic-tion that all Spinozist themes can be centered around the notion oflife.

Ricoeur, Oneself as Another

1. INTRODUCTION

Spinoza is not a name that features often in Ricoeur scholarship. Instead, one typically finds the likes of Aristotle and Kant, Husserl and Heidegger, even Jaspers and Marcel scattered throughout the many lengthy studies of Ricoeurs thought. This fact can be attributed in part to the relative lack of explicit references to Spinoza in Ricoeurs own writings. Granted, Spinoza does featurealbeit brieflyin some of Ricoeurs most significant works.1 But this presence pales in compari-son to the excruciating detail with which Ricoeur will often unpack salient aspects of the above philosophers thoughts in proceeding to his own constructive conclusions. Spinoza does not receive anything like the extensive exegetical treatment Ricoeur regularly devotes to Aristotle or Kant, for example.

1 See, for example, FM 137141; FP 4647, 454456; OA 315317; MHF357.


Be this as it may, two factors in particular indicate that Spinozas influence on Ricoeur is far more extensive than textual references alone suggest. First, when Spinoza does emerge in Ricoeurs texts, it is at moments of decisive importancea fact that is more suggestive of a particular philosophers influence on Ricoeur than hundreds of pages of scattered exegesis. Second, the central concepts that shape the later Ricoeurs thought all bear the mark of Spinozas metaphysics. As Ricoeur himself remarks, although I have written very little on Spinoza, he is always to be found in my meditation and my teaching (OA315).

The argument here is that Ricoeur finds in Spinoza a means of responding to the question that was to guide his philosophical thought from the closing pages of Oneself as Another until his death:the ques-tion of What Ontology in View?.2 As the previous chapter estab-lished, Ricoeurs later thought is marked by the attempt to seek an ontological foundation to the phenomenology of human capaci-ties which emerges from the hermeneutics of selfhood in Oneself as Another. The present chapter argues that Ricoeur finds in Spinoza a means of exploring the underlying substrata or power, the source of human capability, that enables him to respond to the question of What Ontology in View? with his ontology of the capable human being. It will be argued that this ontology derives from Spinozas con-ception of conatus.

What follows here is a critical assessment of particular concepts in Spinozas metaphysics which inform the later Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life. This assessment has two purposes. First, it teases out the concepts in Spinoza which contribute to Ricoeurs moral religion. Second, it scrutinizes these central features of Spinozas metaphysics in order to free moral religion from the presuppositions inherent in much contemporary philosophy of religion. Spinoza, it will be argued, enables Ricoeur to challenge analytic philosophers of religion to scru-tinize the assumptions that lie behind their use of theological con-cepts. Spinozas unique definition of concepts such as God, Nature, and Life challenges us to reconsider our use of these as theological concepts. Furthermore, the critical insights of Spinozas metaphys-ics also enable Ricoeur to bring new interpretations to bear on our

2 This question also forms the title of the final chapter (the 10th Study) of Oneself as Another (see OA 297356).

Reading Religion as Metaphysical Life in Spinoza 23

readings of other central figures in the history of moral philosophy, as will be demonstrated with Aristotle andKant.

The following section of this chapter begins with a discussion of Spinozas unique conception of substance as God or Nature (deus sive natura), and the crucial metaphysical grounding this provides both for Ricoeurs phenomenology of human capacities, and for his distinctive conception of moral religion. The third section examines Spinozas concept of conatus, which will emerge as vital for Ricoeurs own concept of human capability. The fourth section discusses the formative role that Spinozas metaphysical and ethical concepts play in the later Ricoeurs hermeneutics of ethical life. Finally, the fifth sec-tion raises critical questions concerning the relation between Spinoza and Kant within Ricoeurs architectonic. It will be argued that, despite potential points of conflict between the two that are not without real difficulty, a particular reading of Spinoza reveals ways in which he and Kant might be fruitfully combined. This combination yields potentially great benefits to Ricoeurs rationalist conception of moral religion.

2. CORE CONCEPTS FOR RELIGION AS METAPHYSICALLIFE

2.1 SubstanceorGodIt is impossible to make sense of Spinozas metaphysics apart from his unique theory of substance, from which the entire enterprise of his Ethics springs. Appearing in the wake of Descartes Cartesian revolu-tion, Spinozas initial definition of substance appears straightforward enough:By substance, he says, I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, that is, that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be f

Documents

(Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs) James Carter-Ricoeur on Moral Religion-Oxford University Press (2014)