Ricouer and Interpretive Sociology

8/3/2019 Ricouer and Interpretive Sociology

1/23

Interpretive Sociology and Paul RicoeurAuthor(s): Steven McGuireReviewed work(s):Source: Human Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1981), pp. 179-200Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20008800 .

Accessed: 08/11/2011 16:04

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Springeris collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toHuman Studies.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springerhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20008800?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20008800?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer


2/23

HUMAN STUDIES 4, 179-200 (1981)

Interpretive Sociology andPaul RicoeurSteven McGuire

Olivet CollegeOlivet, Michigan

INTRODUCTIONConsider that human behavior is meaningful. Consider also that this

meaningfulness presents certain difficulities for those who would engage in itsscientific study. Within the social sciences, a tradition of Blumer, Cicourel,and a number of others stemming back beyond Weber has insisted on thecentrality of meaning in human interaction. At the same time, this traditionhas met with continual difficulities when it comes to calibrating the emphasison meaning with the aims of a rigorous science. Two sorts of difficulties inparticular deserve mention?those pertaining to historicity and those relatingto Verstehen.

"Historicity" is a shorthand for the long-recognized problem ofauthentically extracting generalities from unique and transient events. Eachhuman interaction is a unique moment in history, so that generalizationsacross a number of interactions distort them or fail to preserve the uniquenessof each event. Blumer (1969) and others have linked up this emphasis on thechanging, processual aspect of human interaction with the thesis that socialinteraction is fundamentally a process of interpreting meanings. The point forBlumer then becomes to develop a methodology ("the methodology ofsymbolic interactionism") that taps this process rather than ignoring itsfundamental feature. This highlighting of uniqueness, interpretation, andconcomitant methodological difficulties has been given a further twist in

writings commonly associated with ethnomethodology. Wilson (1970) saysthat within the interpretation process of social interaction different meaningsstand in a part/whole interrelation such that generalization becomes evenmore problematical. The extraction of meanings from their contexts becomesboth a phenomenon for study in its own right and amethodological problembesetting all generalizations (see also Cicourel, 1974; Coulter, 1971).A temporal dimension also contributes to and rounds out the overallproblem of historicity. Historical sociology in particular faces this problem: Ifan event is to be understood by reference to the epoch inwhich it occurred,

179


3/23

180 McGUIREhow can the historian, bridge the temporal gap from one era to another (cf.Rock, 1976)?

If social interaction is in some important sense conveyed through meaning,then the social scientific understanding of it can be expected to showdifferences from that of atoms, quarks, and other subject matters of thephysical sciences. The tradition of Weber and others has referred to thisunderstanding of meaningful social action as Verstehen and has grappledwith several problems in conjunction with it (see Natanson, 1963; Outhwaite,1975; Truzzi, 1974, for initial reference). For present purposes, questions haveoften arisen as to whether Verstehen involves a mystical union with theprivate thoughts or feelings of those studied; whether it constitutes aprivileged mode of verification; whether it entails or precludes scientific rigor;and what its relation is to deductive, lawlike explanation. Those discussingVerstehen in a favorable light have tended to hold that sociology should aimprimarily to understand social reality, in contradistinction to less favorablecommentators who argue that it should aim primarily to explain the subject

matter through lawlike generalizations. Thus, there has been a long line ofpolemic as to whether social science requires a special interpretiveunderstanding (Verstehen) or not, whether it is overly subjective, and indeedwhat its actual nature is.So far I have presented two clusters of problems facing interpretivesociology, those centering around the historical and contextual nature ofsocial action and those concerned with the interpretive understanding of theactions themselves. With this paper I present a body of writings by PaulRicoeur that bear on the subject. I then critically evaluate this work as itstands in its own right and as it addresses the foregoing problems.

An initial sense of the interest Paul Ricoeur may hold for interpretivesociology can be glimpsed through a brief sketching of his thinking on majorschools of thought. A contributor to Husserlian phenomenology, he drawsthe common distinction between an immediate, primoridal realm of livedexperience and the realm of objectified meaning characteristic of science. Butagainst Husserl, he finds that whereas science does presuppose a naiveterooted in the natural attitude of everyday life, phenomenology promotes anaivete of its own, one of transcendentalism. The transcendental subject tendsto posit itself within a circle of subjectivity. Moreover, Husserlianphenomenology has not remained faithful to the implications of universalintentionality that consciousness has its meaning beyond itself, rather thanhaving meaning unto itself (Ricoeur, 1975a). In other words, Husselianphenomenology descends into subjectivity and idealism.Ricouer says that to remain useful, the Husserlian project must besynthesized with a number of others, including hermeneutics. Hermeneutics,or the study of interpretation and understanding (Gadamer, 1975a; videPalmer, 1967), by its nature bears an affinity with interpretive sociology


4/23

INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGYAND PAUL RICOEUR 181

(Giddens, 1976) and figures especially prominently in Ricoeur's thought.Ricoeur holds that by focusing on intersubjective understanding,hermeneutics can remedy phenomenology's centeredne^s on consciousness. Italso denies the raising of consciousness to the status of an ultimate foundation(Ricoeur, 1975a). Furthermore, phenomenology needs what hermeneutics,Freud's psychoanalysis, and Habermas'critical theory presuppose?the ideathat the Cogito or consciousness is not transparent to itself. This use ofhermeneutics is tempered in turn by several accommodations to the criticaltheory of Habermas and Apel, accommodations that would mediate recentdebates between these two schools (Symposium, 1975).

Hermeneutics is portrayed such that an element of evaluation is built intothe structure of intersubjectivity and built into the praxis of the -socialphilosopher. In a nutshell, Ricoeur is working toward a hermeneuticalphilosophy of science that incorporates Habermas' notions of the ideal speechsituation and emancipation.

Ricoeur has long sought to escape further from phenomenology's "primacyof subjectivity" by way of structuralism, especially that of de Saussure andLevi-Strauss. He conceives of structuralism as a science and not a philosophy,in that it avoids historicity and the personal reference to interpreter and thoseinterpreted (Ricoeur, 1973a). Phenomenology must meet the challenge posedby the progress of structural linguistics if it is to survive. Itmust show thatstructuralist language systems are presupposed by and actualized in speech.

Merleau-Ponty, for example, comes too close to psychology by denying thecentrality that structuralist systems have in everyday language use (Ricoeur,1967; 1968).

A synthesis of phenomenology and ordinary language philosophy furtherdirects phenomenology from idealism and toward a dialogue with socialscience. Phenomenology's "essences" of lived experience are expressable andtherefore public structures (Ricoeur, 1975b; 1977a). The suggestion is thatthese essential features of lived experience are identical with those featuresreferred to by conceptual analysis in analytical philosophy.

Finally, regarding* the relation of phenomenology and social science,phenomenology is not an alternative method of investigation. Its task is togive sociology a foundation, to ground and delimit the objectivity particularlyappropriate to it. Kant and several theses from Husserl's CartesianMeditations provide a foundation and a parallel for the sociology of socialaction and social institutions set down by Marx Weber in the beginning ofEconomy and Society (Ricoeur, 1977a).In this manner Ricoeur's work ranges over a number of schools ofrelevance to interpretive sociology. This sketch leaves the larger portion ofthis oeuvre untouched, including materials on religion, the sociology ofknowledge, and political practice, as does the exposition that follows. Myinterest lies in his work on the issues of historicity and Verstehen and the way


5/23

182 McGUIREit actualizes the previously mentioned concerns. As wide-ranging as they are,his writings continually tie back to a core body of ideas. In the present case,the core body revolves around the notion of a "text paradigm."

In the next section I present the paradigm unto itself before developing acritical evaluation in the final section of the paper. In these two sections Ipropose that the work encompasses several valuable features, yet exhibitsweaknesses and lacunae that deserve consideration. Ricoeur presents anoriginal and intelligent model of meaning to address the problem ofhistoricity. He invokes Husserl, ordinary language philosophy, and LeviStraussian structuralism in order to remedy problems associated withethnomethodology and the philosophy of history. In brief, he says that thereare a number of important, related parallels between the interpretation oftexts and that of social action (as portrayed byWeber), parallels that facilitatethe objectification of social action.1 I argue that this model of meaningthematizes largely the wrong distinctions and invites reification.

Second, Ricoeur's model of interpretive understanding (Verstehen) standsas a potentially major advance over most extant models?either thosepresumed by positivism or those promoted by interpretive sociology. But Isuggest that the concept needs to be more fully elaborated in order to beextended from the authentic reading of written texts to the study ofWeberiansocial action.

Third, the value of several points Ricoeur makes abour rigor, validation,and the like is overridden by amisguided reliance on a structuralist model ofexplanation. This reliance on a Levi-Straussian algebra and a structuralistobjectivism is particularly in need of revision, in that it pervades and unitesthe entire text paradigm. Each of these difficulties bespeaks a problem ofapplying the paradigm of text interpretation to sociology.

Finally, I argue that Ricoeur's attempt to address the difficult areas ofsocial science epistemology appears tomake its gains contingent upon severelimitations. It channels social science away from the understanding of face-toface interaction and away from the understanding of historical events as theyoccurred. The following section now directs attention to the text paradigmitself.

RICOEUR'S TEXT PARADIGMThe key to the text paradigm lies inRicoeur's dual conception o?meaning.

In comparing Husserl and Wittgenstein on language, he proposes a theory ofmeaning composed of two dimensions. In the first dimension?semiotic

Ricoeur follows a movement within hermeneutics in which the referent of text is radicallyenlarged from an individually written text to any object interpretation. To him, history becomesa "text."


6/23


dimension?meaning is a "term within a system of inner dependences [1^69,p. 216]." This dimension of meaning in terms of a system of signs abstractedfrom lived experience is presupposed by the second dimension?semanticdimension?that is, meaning as use, language as a "form of life." A

Wittgensteinian dimension of language as use, as a multiplicity of languagegames, is acknowledged but made dependent on a structuralist dimension oflanguage as a system of signs.Four tenets fill out this structuralist treatment of language as a system ofsigns: (1) A synchronie, atemporal approach must precede any diachronic,historical one; (2) the paradigmatic case for a structuralist approach is that ofa finite set of discrete entities amenable to quasialgebraic combinations (e.g.,phonology); (3) each entity exists and has meaning solely by its relation to theother units of its system; (4) language is a world of its own, a closed system;each item refers only to other items within the system (1976a, p. 5).

Natural language (and meaning), as treated by the latterWittgenstein andby sociology in general, is relegated inRicoeur's project to one dimension, thesemantic, and then made dependent on the atemporal, structural dimension.

The event of spoken discourse and then, by extension, Weberian social action("action") designates instances of usage in everyday social interaction."Meaning" is now given a more technical sense, with a structuralistconnotation?it refers only to a closed, atemporal system like that ofphonology. The dimension of use or activity is subordinated into anabstracted, autonomous meaning-structure. Experienced events are"surpassed in" or "overcome by" meaning as atemporal structure; process issubordinated jto structure.

Writing figures heavily in this subordination of use into structuralmeaning, thereby clarifying the latter concept. It contributes severalimportant kinds of distance in terms of which an event is subordinated into"meaning." The meaning of written

text stands at a distance from (1) thelimited audience the author might have been writing to; (2) themeaning of thetext to the author; and (3) the epoch in which the author wrote. Ricoeurmakes the argument that the meaning of an action stands at a similar distancefrom those to whom itwas first directed, from the meaning it had for theagent, and from its original context. That is, he makes a key analogy betweenthe way in which written meaning and structuralist meaning alike stand at adistance from the experienced speech event, thereby objectivating it.In a number of different places Ricoeur develops the idea that an event ofspoken discourse or of social interaction is survived by its structural meaning.

The historicity of an event embodies an "epistemological weakness [ 1976a, p.9] in contrast to the scientific status that has been attained by languagestructures. Events vanish while systems remain. He makes the argument interms of several different contexts, but the type of argument is largely thesame in each case. In each instance, what he is doing is pointing out senses in


7/23

184 McGUIREwhich discourse (and action) yield a kind of structure that is less psychologicaland more easily dehistoricized than is the original experience itself. Forexample, he says that themeaning a speaker intends when he or she verbalizesa sentence is subjective in the sense that the meaning itself requires referenceto the person of the speaker. Fortunately, there exist the grammatical devicesof self-reference (such as personal pronouns), which furnish a"nonpsychological, because purely semantic" speaker's meaning inwhich "nomental entity need.be hypothesized or hypostasized [1976a, p. 13]." The

meaning of the utterance can then in a sense be treated as referring back to thespeaker but in a structural, impersonal way.Literary codes and genres are given as a similar ifmore ambitious example.Borrowing from Chomsky and others, Ricoeur says that phonological,lexical, and syntactical codes provide the speaker with a set of discrete unitiesand combinatory rules with which he or she produces meaningful sentences.Literary genres function like this generative grammar in that they do notmerely classify but also "produce" by furnishing a body of rules for producing

literary works ( 1973c, pp. 135-136). A literary genre carries a genetic functionlike Chomsky's generative grammar in that it furnishes a basis for generatingunique products (events) out of rules constitutive of literary structure (1976a,p. 32; 1968). There isa particular affinity between writing and linguistic codes;each fixates or freezes speech into a manageable form (1977b). No claim is

made that they do the same for social interaction; a different set of concepts isgiven this role, as is shown presently.The problem of vanishing historical events is handled in tandem with thatof the subjectiveness of an author's or agent's intention. The event endures ina kind of meaning that is not merely structural, but logical. "An act ofdiscourse is not merely transitory.... It may be identified as the same so thatwe may say it again or in other words [1976a, p. 9]." Just as an historical eventin a sense eventuates in an atemporal meaning, the private meaning of an

agent's intention feeds into a corresponding public meaning. That which isuniquely experienced in one person's stream of consciousness cannot betransferred as such to another person's consciousness. But something doespass from one to another; not private experience but its corresponding publicmeaning. Here Ricoeur appropriates Husserl and Frege. Meaning is not a"psychic content" in someone's mind but an "ideal object," which can beidentified and reidentified by different individuals at different times as beingone and the same (1976a, p. 90). Husserl established that every psychic act ischaracterized by intentionality?the property of intending a meaning that iscapable of being identified?so that although psychic life cannot be reached,one can "grasp what it intended, the objective and identical correlate inwhichpsychic life transcended itself"(Ricoeur, 1973b, p. 118). These noematic or, ina sense, objective objects are irreducible to the psychic aspects ofthe acts fromwhich they come. A text has an "inner connection" giving it the capacity to be


8/23

INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY AND PAUL RICOEUR 185

understood by another person and fixed in writing. Meaning in terms ofVerstehen loses historicity and gains a transcendental or logical aspect. Bothprivate and temporal aspects are cancelled and then retained in Aufhebungof language (1976a, p. 12).To give content to this idealized dimension of meaning and make itapplicable to sociology's subject matter?action?Ricoeur extends some ofthe work by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969, 1972) on speech acts. Certainkinds of speech acts involve an "illocutionary force," which involves doingthings by speaking (e.g., saying "I do" at a wedding). Moreover, speech actshave been shown to embody constitutive rules that in a sense produce actions.

Constitutive rules (as opposed to norms) do not regulate but create or definenew forms of behavior (see Giddens, 1976). "The rules of football... createthe possibility of or define that activity. The activity of playing football isconstituted in accordance with these rules... [Searle, 1972, p. 138]." Meaningis treated as a production and a fully social accomplishment. The speaker'sintention incorporates into itself the commitment to produce in the listenerthe means of identifying and recognizing the speaker's intention. Meaning issocial rather than private. Speech acts also imply a close connection betweensaying and doing, which would strengthen the application of texts to thedomain of social action. Social scientists are given a handle (the rules) bywhich authentically to typify actions: the historicity of social interaction isovercome.

To further shore up the application to social action, Ricoeur suggests thatan action has a content (propositional content) that can be identified andreidentified as the same ( 1971 a, pp. 537-539). He asserts that "verbs of action"contribute to a structure of action, as do the complements of these actionverbs. This propositional content gives social action a noematic structure that

may be fixed and extracted from the process of interaction as an object ofinterpretation. According to Ricoeur (1971a) the constitutive rules:

... allow the construction of "ideal models" similar to the Ideal-types of Max Weber. Forexample, to understand what a promise is, we have to understand what the "essentialcondition" is according to which is given action "counts as" a promise. Searle's "essentialcondition" is not far from what Husserl called Sinngehalt, which covers both the "matter"(propositional content) and the "quality" (the illocutionary force) [p. 540].2

Thus speech and social action by extension become preserved in structureand hence amenable to scientific study. Texts and writing particularlyexemplify this preservation, as can be seen by looking at the way the overallpoint applies to the distance between the meaning on the one hand and the

2Ricoeur suggests that these constitutive rules with their implicit "essential condition" mayrefer to "essential structures" of lived experience whose features are uncovered by ordinarylanguage analysis (1975b, p. 184; 1977a, pp. 147-148).


9/23

186 McGUIREagent and original audience on the other. As noted previously, there is adistance between an agent's intention and the public meaning of his or herutterance. What a speaker means and what his or her discourse means arealmost, but not quite, the same thing. This distance is especially amplified by

writing. The meaning of a text does not overlap somuch with what the authormeans; the text takes on a meaning of its own. Ricoeur proposes that themeaning of an interactional event becomes similarly detached from itsagent(s). That is, ameaning independent ofthe actor's intentions comes intobeing. Ricoeur's warrant for this thesis is threefold: (1) actions haveunintended effects; (2) the individual agency of a collective action is difficultto attribute; and (3) the meaning no longer overlaps with the agent's intentionin the case of complex actions, as they do, he holds, with simple ones (1971a,p. 541).

The objectivating distance between themeaning of an event and its originalaudience is likewise amplified by writing. Events of spoken discourse or ofaction are addressed to a limited audience?those present at the moment. Byits nature, writing gives discourse a potentially unlimited audience even whenit is intended for a narrower one. Analogously, structuralist language systems

have no limitations of audience because they are not addressed to an audienceat all (1971a, p. 536). By extension, the meanings of actions are open to apotentially infinite audience. Actions are open to fresh interpretations thatdecide their meaning in current praxis. Importantly, the interpretation madeof those originally present has "no particular privilege [1971a, p. 545]."To complete the extension of texts from speech to action, history itself isnone other than the "writing" of human action. Actions leave traces that aresedimented into patterns (i.e., social institutions), the sum total of which ishistory as we know it. And a "meaningful action" is one the importance ofwhich goes beyond its relevance to the original situation. "The meaning of animportant event exceeds, overcomes, transcends, the social conditions of itsproduction and may be reenacted in new social contexts [1971a, p. 543]."Actions have nonsituational referents similar to those of written texts. Hence,social scientists can look towriting and to structuralist language systems for asense in which transitory events are appropriately dehistoricized.

So far I have presented several theses Ricoeur makes in order to legitimatehis model ofthe relationship between an event and its structural meaning. Atthis point he begins tomove toward a conception of Verstehen and with it, asense of rigor and methodology.

Perhaps themost pertinent point about writing is that, whereas face-to-facespeech points toward a situated reality common to interactants, writing"shatters" this reference. Reference to the everyday, experienced world isabolished and replaced by a more fundamental realm of references "whichreaches the world... at the level Husserl designated by the expressionLebenswelt and Heidegger by 'being-in-the-world'{1973c, p. 140]."


10/23


The first important implication is that this realm can be closer to theessence of social reality than is the realm of everyday speech. Most briefly,Ricoeur suggests that metaphors and scientific models (as described by MaryHesse) alike function as heuristic devices; they are themeans by which we canreconceive and redescribe reality. Scientific and poetic language bothtranscend everyday speech to "aim at a reality more real thanappearances? The eclipse of the objective, manipulable world thus makesway for the revelation of a new dimension of reality and truth [1976a, pp. 6768]." He is saying that there is a realm of writing, metaphor, and symbolismwhich is particularly suited for furnishing

more truthful interpretations of theworld.The second, related point is that regarding the act of interpretation, writingfacilitates an escape away from emphasis on the "pathetic investigation of

submerged subjectivities" toward an emphasis on the more objective worldreferenced by text interpretation. By developing the notion of a "world"opened up by writing, Ricoeur contests subjective or psychological versionsof Verstehen, replacing them with a continental model derived fromHeidegger and Gadamer.The initial contours of this model have been hinted at already. Literatureand metaphor do not simply copy reality but redescribe it, introducing a novelelement that reorients us in theworld, that opens up for us new possibilities ofbeing in the world. The upshot is that when we interpret a text we do notmerely search for the author's psychological intentions.Rather, to interpret isto explicate a possible world. For instance, we interpret a text on the "world"of ancient Greece not to designate the situation for those who experienced itbut instead to point toward nonsituational references outliving them, whichare offered us as possible modes of being (1971a, p. 536). Writing has adistinct reference, the world opened up by a text. In turn, the act ofinterpreting the text is not amatter of simply representing it, but more one ofexplicating possible modes being unfolded by this world designated by thetext.

A less psychological more fundamental notion of interpretation isrequired. Verstehen must be treated less as a method, which psychologizes itby focusing on accuracy in interpreting the agent. Here Verstehen treatedepistemologically is subordinated to a more ontological treatment.The subject/object relationship characteristic of all acts of knowingpresupposes and takes place within a more fundamental tie to reality. The"mood" or the "situation" precedes knowledge by situating us first ( 1973 b, pp.120-125). The first function of understanding is to orient us within thissituation. Therefore, understanding is addressed not to grasping a fact but tothe apprehension of a possibility and our utmost potentialities. The

methodological lesson is that to understand a text is not to find an inertmeaning contained therein, but rather to unfold the possibility of being that is


11/23

188 McGUIREindicated by the text. In writing (if not in the face-to-face situation), what we

understand first is not another person, but a project, an outline of a newbeing-in-the-world.The immediate problem with this model of Verstehen is that ofthe criticalfunction: the ontological presuppositions "transcend in principle the idea ofrigor [1973b, p. 125]." The only clue for a return to epistemological concernsis Heidegger's suggestion that in this circle of subject and object, we letourselves be guided by the things themselves rather than popular conceptions.Here an element of critical distance is build into Verstehen. The ontologicalstructure of understanding always contains not only an element ofparticipation but also one of distance (1978c). To put Ricoeur's point infieldwork terms, the interpreter is neither a full participant nor a pure,detached observer; elements from each pole are always involved. The relationbetween the two is never merely given but rather a movement between them.The possibility of a critical distance is always present in understanding.3Authentic precomprehension requires a critical sorting betweenprecomprehension and prejudice (1971b; 1975a; 1977a). "Bias," "prejudice,"and "ideology" often mislead in that understanding always involves apreunderstanding.

The nature of this critical distance is important because the whole rigorous,methodological aspect ofthe text paradigm lies rooted within it. Importantly,rigor, validation, and objectivity are tied to the notion of a "genuine" orauthentic" understanding.

Authentic interpretation requires being open to the world of text. Eventhough he builds the element of distance into the structure of everyunderstanding, Ricoeur appears to make crigical authentic understanding acontingent possibility, but he does not discuss the ramifications thatinauthentic understanding woruld have for the paradigm. I first present hisidea of interpretation (authentic)

and then the methodological element ofexplanatory procedures implied within it.

Interpretation in the form of reading is an act of assimilation achievedinsofar as the reader's interpretation actualizes themeaning ofthe text for thereader. This actualization is the fully existential act of appropriation (1976a,p. 91). Genuine interpretation?to make one's own what was at first other orforeign?ends in some form of appropriation (1974, p. 107). The object to beappropriated is "the meaning of the text itself, conceived in a dynamic way asthe direction of thought opened up by the text [1976a, p. 92]."To interpret isto follow the movement from what the text says to what it is about. What isappropriated is the capacity of disclosing a world that the text refers to. Thegenuine referential power of the text is then the disclosure of a possible way oflooking at things. The text is not closed in on itself but rather opens out in the

3In this way Ricoeur incorporates Habermas's emancipatory interest.


12/23


act of reading. In this sense, we can understand an author better than heunderstood himself; the work means more than the author intended.

Ricoeur anticipates these difficulties. First, interpretation no longer is acircle between two subjectivities (agent and interpreter). Nor has it anythingto do with empathy. Rather, appropriation takes the form of Gadamer's(1975a) "fusion of horizons."The world horizon of the reader is fused with theworld horizon of the text. The referent of the text does not "lie behind" itbut"in front of it; the meaning is not something hidden, but somethingdisclosed. "Beyond my situation as a reader... Ioffer myself possible modesof being

in the world that the text opens and discloses to me [1978, p. 144]."Second, the interpretation need not conform to that made by the text'soriginal addressee; writing has already been shown to be open to newinterpretations by a potentially universal audience.

Third, interpretation is not limited by the capacity of the reader, such that itwould be a projection of the subjectivity of the reader into the text. Ricoeur

insists that appropriation, even though it ends subjectively, in the interpreter,is not correctly described as projection. There is a sense in which it is aresponding to the object of the text (1975a, pp. 94-95); emphasis in theoriginal).

The reader "understands himself before, in front of the world of the text,letting itsworld "enlarge the horizon of my self-understanding [ 1974, p. 107]. "Moreover:

Far from saying that a subject already mastering his own way of being in the worldprojects the a priori of his self-understanding on the text and reads it into the text, I saythat interpretation is the process by which disclosure of new modes of being?or if youprefer Wittgenstein to Heidegger, of new forms of life?gives to the subject a new capacityfor knowing himself. ..The reader... is enlarged in his capacity of self projection byreceiving a new mode of being from the text itself [1976a, p. 94],

Authentic understanding constitutes at the same time a genuine new selfunderstanding. The self is distanced from itself in the process. "I exchange theme, master of myself, for the self, disciple of the text [1975a, p. 95; emphasis inoriginal]." Appropriation is not fully a taking hold of things but ratherimplies a moment of "dispossession of the egoistic and narcissistic ego."

Arguing at this point against Husserlian phenomenology, Ricoeur assumesthat the self is not transparent to itself but must look outward to the world(i.e., the text in its broadest sense) in order to attain genuine selfunderstanding. He develops this idea that interpretive understanding mustincorporate critical distance and minimize subjectivity by asserting thatgenuine interpretations are mediated by a necessary stage of "explanatoryprocedures."In invoking the long polemic between understanding and explanation,Ricoeur reconceives not only understanding but explanation as well. Heargues that Carl Hempel's (1952) covering law model of explanation does not


13/23

190 McGUIREapply to the practice of historians, and that explanation must be seen insteadas a bond of logical continuity within a given historical narrative. Theunderstanding of a historical event is given priority; explanation is the generallawlike structure that the historian often uses to clarify his or her spontaneousunderstanding. Yet, as will be seen, explanation isgiven a more particularistictreatment, in order to tie itmore compatibly with Verstehen and in order tohelp extend the whole text interpretation model toWeberian social action.The explanation and understanding of speech (and action) are in dialecticalinterplay, first as a movement from understanding to explanation.

Understanding is first a guess, a judgment of an individual totality. Aconstruing is necessary for several reasons. There is apart/whole interplay inwhich the parts are of varying importance to the whole; judgment ofimportance is a guess. And different aspects of the whole give itsreconstruction a necessary perspectivist character. Also, procedures ofvalidation partake of a "logic of subjective probability" such that we can onlyshow an understanding to be most probable rather than "true" (1971a, p.549).

Here Ricoeur moves the philosophy of the social sciences away frompositivism, toward hermeneutics and critical theory. This "validation" is afully argumentative discipline very similar to both juridical procedures oflegal interpretation and procedures of literary criticism (1971a, pp. 550-553).Verstehen escapes the danger of self-confirmation because the proceduresof validating an interpretation are paired with procedures of invalidationsimilar to Popper's (1958) criteria of falsifiability. Validation isfundamentally polemical?the conflict of interpretations functions in a wayto falsify by making some interpretations more probable than others.4Ricoeur holds that the essentials of this model of validation are applicableto that of social action. Not only are actions open to several interpretations,but there is a basis on which we can impute the meaning of an action withincertain limits and argue on that basis. What can and must be construed inhuman action is the motivational basis of an action, which is a set of"desirability-characters." We can make sense of wants and beliefs "as a resultof the apparent good which is the correlate of their desirabilitycharacter.. .On the basis of these desirability-characters and the apparentgood which corresponds to them, it is possible to argue about themeaning ofan action [1971a, p. 551; emphasis in original]." The understanding andexplanation of action in terms of its motivational basis gives an action alimited field for conflicting interpretations of it. Furthermore, what seems tolegitimate this extension from guessing the meaning of a text to guessing the

4Discussing emergent metaphor. Ricoeur says that the most probable interpretation is onethat accounts for the greatest number of facts, offers the best convergence of the structuresexplicated in the text, and at the same time enlarges a way of being (1974, pp. 100-105).


14/23


meaning of an action is that "in arguing about the meaning of an action I putmy wants and beliefs at a distance and submit them to a concrete dialectic ofconfrontation with opposite points of view [1971a, p. 552]."The dialectic of authentic interpretation also involves a movement fromexplanation to understanding. The different structuralist schools of literarycriticism have shown that it is legitimate to treat a text in suspension, as aworldless, authorless system of signs in order to explain it by means of itsstructure of internal relations. The method of structural linguistics can bevalidly extended to literary texts on the key assumption that the larger unitiesof language-as-text are organized in away similar to that of the smaller unitiesof linguistics (e.g., phonemes).

Treatments of folklore narratives and analyses of myth serve as models forthe extension of structural linguistics to written texts and to sociology ingeneral. Levi-Strauss (1963) abstracts "mythemes," which are similar tophonemes and morphemes and treated according to the same rules. Amytheme is "an oppositive value attached to several individual sentencesforming...a 'bundle of relations'" (1971b, p. 141). The combination orarrangement of these bundles is the myth's structure. In analyzing folklorenarratives, Propp, Barthes, and Greimas extract unities of action whichcorrespond to formalized roles irrespective of psychological subjects or traits.The structuralists extract "action kernels" from the narrative sequence into alogic of combinations, giving the narrative its structural meaning, its"symphonic structure" (1971b, p. 143). This structuralist algebra comprisesthe heart of "explanation" for Ricoeur, and he develops Levi-Strauss'sanalysis of the Oedipus myth as exemplary in this respect (1976a, pp. 83-84).This explanation, however, requires understanding; the structuralism ofLevi-Strauss requires hermeneutics. Explaining the inner suspended world ofthe text presupposes and takes place within the semantic realm ofunderstanding. Furthermore, the element of meaning in the existential ratherthan structuralist sense is in no way neutralized when sentences of thenarrative are placed in combinations of bundles. And structural analysiswould be a "sterile game, a divisive algebra" if the system of oppositions didnot mediate "meaningful" oppositions or existential tensions along the orderof "birth and death, blindness and lucidity, sexuality and truth [1971a, p.556]." Structural analysis merely suppresses that which it actuallypresupposes?the hermeneutic moment of understanding meaningfulbehavior.

In this manner, explanation and understanding are harmoniously boundtogether rather than set in opposition. Moreover, each refers to the samesphere of subject matter (signs) rather than one to culture and one to nature(as has often been implied previously in the debate). The binding together isthen cemented in the idea of authentic interpretation as a movement goingfrom understanding as a guess through structrual explanation into the act'ofappropriation discussed previously.


15/23

192 McGUIREThis unity of explanation and understanding completes the earlier thesisthat interpretation is not a projection ofthe subjectivity ofthe interpreter into

the text. Surface understandings or guesses mediated by structuralexplanation become a kind of depth-interpretation or depth-semantics. Weinterpret not the vivid experience of the agent but the world opened up by thetext. Authentic interpretation, necessarily mediated by structuralexplanation, has nothing to do with an "immediate grasping of a foreignpsychic life or with an emotional identification with a mentalintention_[1971a, p. 561; emphasis in original]."The interpretation is notsomething "felt"; it is the dynamic of disclosing aworld. This depth semanticsis "less a subjective operation than an objective process; less an act on the text,than an act ofthe text... interpretation is the act ofthe text, before being anact of exegesis; it is like an arrow borne by the text itself, indicating thedirection for the exegetical work [197lb, pp. 148-149; emphasis in original]."

In filling out this last point, Ricoeur appears to be developing a conceptionof the historical method and its object?history?drawn from Gadamer, onethat would amount to significant revision of most current conceptions ofhistorical sociology. Gadamer has argued that in historical interpretation,temporal distance is not a chasm to be bridged but rather "a livingcontinuity," a tradition. The metaphor is not one of a gap but of an unbrokenchain through which the past is given to the historian. In the act of historicalinterpretation (e.g., of a document), the personal opinions ofthe sender are ofsecondary import to the thing itself, the immanent meaning beingcommunicated. The interpreter anticipates that the text makes a claimregarding the things to which it refers. The very meaning and structure ofhistorical interpretation are not some psychic state but the "thing" beingdelivered by historical tradition. That which is interpreted is the unity oftheinterpreter's preunderstanding with the thing interpreted; historical reality isconstituted through their relationship. Hence, the problem of a temporal gapis illusory, and the truth content of that which is interpreted takes primacyover the subjectivity of either interpreter or agent.

Ricoeur picks up on both of these points regarding the act of historicalinterpretation, again giving them a structuralist cast (1971b). The key point,however, is that interpretation exists as a kind of chain, inwhich the firstinterpreters serve as a tradition for later ones. Each in a sense subordinateshim/ herself to the movement of the text itself, to the thing itself, which in itsown way guides the dialogue between interpreters (1971b, p. 150; 1973b, p.128). This interpretation attains an objective status in that itmakes use of

explanatory procedures and in that it is part of an intersubjective dialogueguided by the object itself.How can this model of interpretation be connected to sociology? First, thestructural model of explanation may be extended beyond textual entities toall social phenomena because the semiotic or symbolic function is the "very


16/23


foundation" of social life; social reality is fundamentally semiotic. Thestructural model can be generalized insofar as social phenomena have thetypical relations of structuralist systems (1971a, p. 559). Explanation thenreflects not the classical model of causation as a regular sequence ofantecedents and consequents having "no inner logical connection," but astructural model of correlative rather than sequential relations (1971a, pp.559-560; 1978b).

Second, the search for correlations between social phenomena "would loseimportance and interest" if it would not yield something like a depthsemantics. Just as linguistic games are Wittgensteinian forms of life, "socialstructures are also attempts to cope with existential perplexities, humanpredicaments and deep-rooted conflicts [1971a, p. 560]." In this sense socialstructures refer to the existential dimension of Levi-Straussian myths and aprojected "world." Social science, too, proceeds from preliminary surfaceinterpretation through structural analysis to the depth interpretation thatgives the whole process a meaning.

CONCLUSIONSSuch is the text paradigm. It should be evident how Ricoeur offers it tosocial science as a model for appropriately objectivating unique events andfor a nonsubjective Verstehen. We can also see how the text paradigm can

play a role in connection with transcendental phenomenology and recentcritical theory. The autonomy of the text and the nature of text interpretationwould preclude transcendental phenomenology's primacy of subjectivity. Atthe same time, the critical, emancipating aspect of Habermasian criticaltheory is both implied in and premised upon the model of authentic textinterpretation.I think the work presents a large number of suggestive ideas for aninterpretive social science. Ricoeur has pointed out and sought to develop anumber of important similarities between text interpretation and that ofsocial interaction. I do not enumerate each of these but attempt to point outthe important ones while suggesting four issues that the paradigm needs toaddress if it is to reach its goal of applicability to sociology.1. I argue that the conception of meaning, which is central to the whole

work, is potentially helpful but requires qualification. Ricoeur merges severalkinds of meaning together into a single pair, one of which eventuates in theother. There are intended meanings and unintended ones. Then there are themeanings of complex actions, which are qualitatively distinct from those ofmore simple ones. There are experienced meanings, and then there are theimportant ones that are reenacted, such as those of great works of culture.

Finally, there is the existential "meaningfulness" exemplified by LeviStrauss's myths. In order to say that actions give off autonomous meanings,


17/23

194 McGUIRERicoeur makes some dubious comments. He implies that the meaning ofasimple action, as opposed to a complex one, is equivalent or almostequivalent to the actor's intention. He also implies that were it not for theexistence of unintended effects of an action, itsmeaning would often, if notalways, be identical with the actor's intention. He further implies that the

meaning of an action would be more amatter ofthe actor's intention, exceptthat the actor's contribution is hard to sort out from that of the others.Finally, he says that important actions are those that are reenacted and,hence, their meanings are independent of the social conditions of theirproduction.I submit that these implications are misleading and that the distinctionslargely obscure the issue. Ricoeur thematizes the difference between privateand public meanings, mixing disparate types of each, when he should alsothematize the distinction between an autonomous, social meaning of an eventand that of the analyst/observer. He conflates the meaning for the socialscientist alternately with the subjective meaning of the actor and an

autonomous social meaning. His continual de-emphasis of the agent'sintention as the object of study is symptomatic in this regard. The implicationis that the social dimension of meaning isnearly, if not fully, identical with theinterpreter's, but that a deep chasm separates the interpreter from theintentions ofthe agent. In contrast, I argue that a social or nonprivate aspectof the actor's intentions can be studied, irrespective ofthe complexity oftheaction, irrespective of the degree to which the action has unintendedconsequences, and irrespective of its existential meaningfulness. By the sametoken,'it needs to be spelled out that in every instance of social action, the

meaning of the event varies at least partially with each observer/ participantand then over time.

I think problems ensue when Ricoeur tries to give empirical meaningssimilar characteristics or typify them. The need for rethinking the differentsenses of meaning and for thematizing the difference between "the meaning"of an event and the meaning for the social scientist becomes crucial when weconsider the idea that an action can be identified according to its constitutiverules.

The autonomous meaning was given both empirical and logical aspects. Anoriginal empirical event leaves traces in history, which are sedimented intopatterns (i.e., social institutions). These empirical events also take on a"logicity," becoming an ideal object that can be identified and typified as thesame by reference to the structure/constitutive rules of the given type ofaction.

I think that much depends on the use towhich this idea isput or the way it iselaborated. The Austin and Searle model of speech acts appears to be amorepromising treatment than many current models. Yet the reference to Weber's


18/23

INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGYAND PAUL RICOEUR 195ideal types occasions the sort of reification that has long accompanied suchattempts at typifying historical events.

One might use the structures or constitutive rules to identify actionsaccording to type, in a mechanical way. Ricoeur's treatments of personalpronouns, linguistic codes, and literary genres suggest that he may be headingthis way. Searle (1972) appears to have taken up such a strategy, and theresults are instructive for present concerns. Searle has continual difficultyavoiding a tautology, and he acknowledges this, attributing the difficulty tothe nature of constitutive rules. He also finds it a normal occurrence that therules are not absolutely strict. As a consequence, he is forced to exclude allsorts of borderline cases from analysis.

I think that these and related difficulties inhere in this overall strategy. Asetting down and mechanical usage of such structures will progress littlebeyond a definitional exercise; the account given will stop short of any deepunderstanding of the subject matter. Here the danger of conflating anautonomous meaning with that of the interpreter is exacerbated. Theinterpreter conflating the two will miss the important role of his or her owninterpretive work in making and using identifications (cf. Cicourel, 1964;

Heap, 1977). Just what counts as the rule or structure is itself problematic, sothat the rules themselves should be treated more as the situatedaccomplishments of those studied and of the interpreter (insofar as the issue isauthentic typification of action) (cf. Turner, 1974;Weider, 1974). The morevaluable work will usually be that which goes far beyond typifying an action,toward describing and/or analyzing it more fully. If this point can bedeveloped from Ricoeur's treatment of emergent metaphor and of theunderstanding of possible worlds, then it needs to be clarified by reference tothe constitutive rules per se.

2. I find much of value in the preceding model of Verstehen, but Ifind thatqualifications and further specifications are needed. It implies a moresophisticated treatment of bias and ideology than is often promoted. MoreImportant, the main thrust of treating Verstehen more ontologically and lessas a special sociological method is, I think, a significant advance along theright track. The Gadamer model of the "fusion of horizons" substantiallyimproves upon prominent Anglo-Saxon models such as those of Abel (1974)

arid begins to fill the breach left by much interpretive sociology. A?evddjpta?nt of this concept could clarify our imagery of historicalinterpretation arid participant observation, and indeed all sociological workand its epistemological status.

However, Ricoeur slides by one of the main problems facing both thismodel and previous ones. He does not fully address the issue of an interpreterprojecting him/ herself into the text/ subject matter, in that he addresses onlyauthentic interpretation. In this connection he has clarified sociological


19/23

196 McGUIREpraxis, but he has not dealt sufficiently with inauthentic interpretations. It isas though the problem is defined away through a specification of what goodinterpretive understanding should be. This illuminates good interpretationsand their status as knowledge, but it relegates the issue at hand to poorerinterpretations and in that way leaves the problem largely untouched.The point is to extend text interpretation to that of social action, butRicoeur limits (rightly so) some ofthe main features of his Verstehen model tothe former. Interpretation is de-psychologized in that it understands firstanother project in the world rather than a person, but this point is alwaysmade in connection with the interpretation of writing alone. Thus, the thesiswould apply to the interpretation of questionnaire responses but not to theobservation of social interaction, for example. More needs to be said if this setof ideas is to contribute substantially to sociology's use of Verstehen.

3. Although much of the methodological aspect of the paradigm isvaluable, there are unnecessary and inappropriate elements. The paralleldrawn between scientific and literary realms illiminates, as does thehighlighting of the role of argument in "validation." The tentative characterattributed to understanding is well noted, in light of its polemical history. Ipropose, however, that the extension of the model to social action by way of"desirability-characters" is unnecessarily limited. It should be noted thatRicoeur has broached this general area of intentions, motives, and causes inother ways (1978b), but the same criticism still applies. We can argue aboutthe best interpretation of an action on the basis of any and all intersubjectiveevidence without limitation to desirability-characters or similar concepts.

The heart of the methodological element is the structuralist model ofexplanation, which coheres with the model of meaning. If the model were towork, it would give sociology a needed dose of existential power, in that itbrings in the more fundamental aspects of social reality. The main issue,however, is the fit ofthe application ofthe structuralist algebra of explanation(of "action kernesl") to social action as conceived by Weber. I submit thatsocial action does not fruitfully yield abstracted units analogous tomythemesand phonemes. Moreover, the structuralist explanation along the order ofthat of Oedipus constitutes a minimal advance over the Hempel covering lawmodel, if that. A number of more valuable models of explanation areavailable.

The notions of action kernels, explanation, and meaning are instances ofaparticular kind of abstraction discussed by Zimmerman (1974, p. 20) whichdistinguish observable particulars of behavior from an abstract constructionwhich is thought to lie behind and generate the features of observed behavior.Whole classes of data are suppressed, such that "it is always appropriate toask whether or not the conception thus advanced (and the 'purification' ofdata that is its inevitable consequence) compromises the claims advanced fora particular analysis" (Zimmerman, 1974, p. 20). By this standard, the escape


20/23


from historicity and subjectivity offered above are inappropriate. Thestructuralist purifications are not incidental to the advances that would bemade?the purifications are severe ones and without them the advances

would be nil. Although there is always a close tie between methodologicalpractices and the resulting knowledge product, this is an instance inwhich theproduct becomes largely an artifact of the procedures used.

Thus, social reality is indeed fundamentally symbolic, if not semiotic, asRicoeur holds. It does not warrant the extension of structural explanation tosocial action. To radicalize the point Ricoeur makes against Levi-Strauss,such structural analyses do suppress a "realm" that they pre-suppose, that ofinterpretation or hermeneutics. This attempted reconcilation and union oftwo types of work has not proven fertile for the study of social action. Thelong tradition of interpretive sociology and its affiliates has had difficulty

developing a sense of critical distance and methodological rigor tomatch itssubject matter, but there exist a number of more direct paths toward this goal.This shortcoming does not negate all the individual contributionspresented, but it does deny the fitness ofthat which makes the substantive andepistemological facets of the text paradigm cohere?the structuralist theme.To the extent this element is an inappropriate idealization, the rather elegantharmony between subject matter and methodology becomes nonrelevant.Overall, the point is that the tie to social action?sociology's subjectmatter?is weak. Like the model of meaning and that of Verstehen, thestructuralist model of explanation falters when it is extended from otherdomains to that of action.

4. The final issue makes explicit a problem already hinted at. Ricoeur'spresentation channels us away from two important and legitimate sorts ofphenomena. I think he is largely correct in showing us limits within which wecan proceed in connection with interpretive understanding and in connectionwith history. Each of these areas can be treated more positively than they havebeen in the past, along some of the lines sketched previously. With the former,we are admittedly limited to the public side of the experience of those westudy. However, events of social interaction are available to study, inwaysnot provided for above. As suggested regarding Verstehen, more needs to besaid regarding the interpretive understanding that obtains when the socialscientist and those studied are closer to a face-to-face situation than a readertext situation. More generally, I submit that the thoughts, feelings, andmotivations of actors are legitimate phenomena for study, across the board. Itis neither fitting nor necessary to shy away from these areas and/ or restricttheir range of application, as done previously. Such matters do providedifficulties for investigators, but they also yield intersubjective evidence.

Likewise, the general model of historical interpretation marks a realimprovement over conventional conceptions. We can but come from withinour own preunderstanding; the questions we ask, the categories we use, and


21/23

198 McGUIREthe sense we give to the data come out of our own historical nexus. A fullreturn to the past is not available. By the same token, there is no chasmbetween past and present but rather a tradition being continuallyreconstituted. An action is indeed continually open to new interpretations,and in a sense, the interpretation made by those originally present carries "noparticular privilege" (it can be treated as faulty or epiphenomenal).

Even so, our interest in the past is not satisfied by its ability to open uppossible dimensions of being, although it does do that. The paradigm directsus toward the interpretation of a possible world when we are often interestedin an historical actuality. For certain purposes of study, we are interested in

what happened, or inwhat people thought at the time. We want to constitutethe historical past (cf. Goldstein, 1976), although it is not available in anobjective sense. We have no "direct touchstone" of the past with which tojudge interpretations, and historical facts too are situated accomplishments.We can and do, however, legitimately attempt to constitute history inwaysthat the text paradigm needs to provide for more fully.In sum: Ricoeur grapples with Verstehen and the historicity of social actionin a highly original and promising way. Steering between a number ofacademic traditions, he nicely avoids many of their endemic weaknesses andbrings forth several major ideas of note. As always, the ideas display theirgaps, weaknesses, and areas for clarification and elaboration. Fortunately,there is no need to treat them as a finished product in need of an epitaph, forthey provide valuable materials to further transcend.

REFERENCESAbel, T. The operation called verstehen. In M. Truzzi (Ed.), Verstehen: Subjective

understanding in the social sciences. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1974.Austin, J. How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.Blumer, H. Symbolic Interactionism. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969.Cicourel, A. Method and measurement in sociology. New York: The Free Press, 1964.Cicourel, A. Cognitive sociology. New York: The Free Press, 1974.Coulter, J. Decontextualized meanings. Sociological Review, 1971,5, 301-323.Gadamer, H. G Truth and method. G. Barden & J. Cummings, trans. New York: Seabury,1975. (a)Gadamer, H. G. The problem of historical consciousness. J. L. Close, trans. Graduate Faculty

Philosophy Journal, 1975,5,(1), 8-52. (b)Giddens, A. New rules of sociological method. New York: Basic Books, 1976.Goldstein, L. J. Historical knowing. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976.Habermas, J. Theory and practice. J. Viertel, trans. Boston: Beacon, 1973.Heap, J. L. Verstehen, language and warrants. The Sociological Quarterly, 1977,18, 177-184.Heidegger, M. Being and time. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, trans. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,

1967.Hempel, C. Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science.

Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1952.


22/23

INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY AND PAUL RICOEUR 199Hesse, M.B. Models and analysis in science. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,

1966.Kirkland, T. M. Gadamer and Ricoeur: The paradigm of the text. Graduate Faculty Philosophy

Journal, 1977,0, 131-144.L?vi-Strauss, C. Structural anthropology. C. Jacobson& B. G. Schoepf, trans. New York: Basic

Books, 1963.Outhwaite, W. Understanding social life. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1975.Palmer, R. Hermeneutics. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967.Pellauer, D. The significance of the text inPaul Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory. InC. E. Reagan

(Ed.), Studies in the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Athens: University of Ohio Press, 1979.Popper, K. The logic of scientific discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1958.Ricoeur, P. History and truth. C. A. Kelbley, trans. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1965.Ricoeur, P. New developments in phenomenology in France: The phenomenology of language.

P. G. Goodman, trans. Social Research, 1967, 34, 1-30.Ricoeur, P. Structure-word-event. R. D. Sweeney, trans. Philosophy Today, 1968, 77,(2),

114-129.Ricoeur, P. Husserl and Wittgenstein on language. In E. N. Lee & M. Mandelbaum (Eds.),

Phenomenology and existentialism. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969.Ricoeur, P. The Model of the text. Social Research, 1971, 38, 529-55. (a)Ricoeur, P. What is a text? Explanation and interpretation. In D. M. Rasmussen, Mythic

symbolic language and philosophical anthropology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971. (b)Ricoeur, P. From existentialism to the philosophy of language. D. Pellauer, trans. Philosophy

Today, 1973, 17(2), 88-96. (a)Ricoeur, P. The task of hermeneutics. D. Pellauer, trans. Philosophy Today, 1973, 17(2),

112-128. (b)Ricoeur, P. The hermeneutical function of distanciation. D. Pellauer, trans. Philosophy Today,1973, 17(2) 129-141. (c)Ricoeur, P. Ethics and culture. D. Pellauer, trans. Philosophy Today, 1973, 77(2), 153-165. (d)Ricoeur, P. Human sciences and hermeneutical method. In D. Carr & E. S. Casey (Eds.),

Explorations in phenomenology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973. (e)Ricoeur, P. Metaphor and the main problem of hermeneutics. New Literary History, 1974,6( 1 ,

95-110.Ricoeur, P. Phenomenology and hermeneutics. R. B. deFord, trans. Nous, 1975, 9,85-102. (a)Ricoeur, P. Phenomenology of freedom. In E. Pivcevic (Ed.), Phenomenology andPhilosophical Understanding. Cambridge, MA.: Cambridge University Press, 1975. (b)Ricoeur, P. Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. Fort Worth, Texas:

The Texas Christian University Press, 1976. (a)Ricoeur, P. History and hermeneutics. D. Pellauer, trans. The Journal of Philosophy, Nov. 4,

1976, 73 (19), 683-695. (b)Ricoeur, V,. Phenomenology and the social sciences. The Annals of Phenomenological

Sociology, 1977, 2, 145-159. (a)Ricoeur, P. Writing as a problem for literary hermeneutics. Philosophic Exchange, 1977, 2,

3-15. (b)Ricoeur, P. The philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, C. E. Reagan & D. Stewart (Eds.). Boston, MA.:Beacon Press, 1978. (a)Ricoeur, P. Explanation and understanding. C. E. Reagan and D. Stewart, trans. In Ricoeur,P., The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, C. E. Reagan & D. Stewart (Eds.), Boston, MA: Beacon,1978. (b)Ricoeur, P. Can there be a scientific concept of ideology? In J. Bien (Ed.), Phenomenology andthe social sciences: A dialogue. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978. (c)


23/23

200 McGUIRE

Rock, R. Some problems of interpretations historiography. The British Journal of Sociology,1976, 27(3), 353-36?.

Searle, J. Speech acts. London: Cambridge, 1969.Searle, J. What is a speech act? In P. P. Giglioli (Ed.), Language and social context. Baltimore,

Md.: Penguin, 1972.Symposium. Hermeneutics and critical theory. Cultural Hermeneutics, 1975, 2(4) 307-390.Turner, R. Words, utterances and activities. In R. Turner (Ed.), Ethnomethodology. Baltimore,

Md.: Penguin, 1974.Weider, D. L. Language and social reality. The Hague: Mouton, 1974.Zimmerman, D. H. Preface. In D. L. Weider, Language and social reality. The Hague: Mouton,

1974.

Ricouer and Interpretive Sociology

Documents

Transcript of Ricouer and Interpretive Sociology