Distantiation, Post-Critique, and Realism. Reconsidering the Relation of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics in Ricœur

Recent developments in literary theory and philosophy, specifically regarding the role of critique, that inspire the turn to post-critique and realism, respectively, indicate a renewed sensitivity for concerns characteristic of hermeneutic phenomenology. This essay argues that crucial aspects of Ricœur’s articulation of phenomenology and hermeneutics may help to understand and support post-critique and realism and that, in turn, the latter two invite hermeneutics to return to its phenomenological condition. To this end, Ricœur’s understanding of the hermeneutical condition of phenomenology, both in the form of Husserl’s idealist phenomenology and the phenomenology of religion, is revisited; Ricœur’s account of distantiation is critically assessed; and, finally, the interplay of trust and distrust at stake in hermeneutic phenomenology is contrasted with the modern insistence on hyperbolic doubt.