For a Hermeneutics of Incompleteness: Ricoeur and Jervolino in Dialogue

Abstract

The essay deals with two texts within Jervolino's wide scientific production consecrated to Ricoeur's work. The first one, Ricoeur. L’amore difficile (1994), reflecting on the results of Ricœur's work Soi-même comme un autre looks for a philosophical hermeneutics of the biblical faith as fulfilment of ricoeurian project. In his Preface to this book Ricoeur acknowledges such hermeneutics as lacking. The second one, an article published in 2004 in the review «Archives de Philosophie», point out the topic of translation as a possible paradigm of ricoeurian thinking looking at his last main book, La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli. In this article Jervolino seems to accept the openness of life and therefore the incompleteness at the end of Ricoeur's work. In the last paragraph of the essay these topics are connected to Ricoeur's idea of phenomenology of religion in which translation as paradigm plays an important role and its link to forgiveness is cleared.