Ricoeur and his counterpoint between phenomenology and hermeneutics in memory

Abstract

The article follows the reasoning of Memory, History, Forgetting, to reconstruct the dialogue presented by Ricoeur between Heidegger and Husserl. It is suggested that, though this work was published almost 25 years after “Phenomenology and Hermeneutics”, it establishes the premises regarding the kind of link that there should be between hermeneutics and phenomenology: on the one hand, phenomenology is the foundation of hermeneutics; on the other, phenomenology cannot constitute itself without a hermeneutical basis. It is also argued that, though in Memory, History, Forgetting, phenomenology is related to the ontic level and hermeneutics to the ontological one; the objections to Husserlian phenomenology are based on Heidegger’s proposals and the category with which he aims to overcome Heideggerian ontology, flesh, was originally developed by Husserl.