Ricœur’s Conflict of Interpretations in the Making. Symbols, Reflection and the War of Hermeneutics

Abstract

The aim of this article is to situate the problem of the conflict of interpretations in Paul Ricœur by placing it in the context of Ricœur’s anthropological reflections on the questions of fallibility and evil. The article invokes the distinction between fallibility and evil and analyses the symbolic language of evil as a reason for the hermeneutic turn of Ricœur’s thought. The implications of this topic for the philosophical analyses of language and consciousness are then put in relief. The article explains the inner workings of the logic of the conflict of interpretations, showing its perspectival trait, and claims that this notion remains pertinent given that its method can today be applied to conflicts of interpretations other than those Ricœur dealt with.