Identifying Selfhood: Imagination, Narrative, and Hermeneutics in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur (Suny Series, McGill Studies in the History of Religions) [Paperback]

Henry Isaac Venema (Author)

Book Description

Series: Suny Series, McGill Studies in the History of Religions | Publication Date: September 2000

Traces the decentered formulation of self at the heart of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy from his earliest works to his most recent.

Identifying Selfhood provides the first sustained treatment of the development of Paul Ricoeur's decentered formulation of selfhood from his earliest works to his most recent. For Henry Venema, Ricoeur's affirmation that consciousness is always rooted in the signs, symbols, and texts that precede the hermeneutical project of self-recovery and discovery provides the thread that links all of Ricoeur's philosophical inquiries together. However, as Venema argues, Ricoeur's hermeneutic is caught up in the semantics of identity to such an extent that selfhood is confused and often equated with the textuality of the reflective process and is never dealt with on the intimate level of the reflexive structure of selfhood in relation to otherness. In the end, Ricoeur's formulation of alterity identifies the other within the circle of the self-same.

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About the Author

Henry Isaac Venema is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Messiah College.

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791446743
• ISBN-13: 978-0791446744
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,055,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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