Publications

Publication details [#9220]

Ricoeur, Paul. 1981. The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 384 pp.
Publication type
Book – monograph
Publication language
English
ISBN
0802064477

Abstract

Ricoeur published this in 1971. He uses Anglo-American philosophy of language extensively. I particularly enjoyed his ability to blend work in aesthetics beginning with Aristotle's 'Poetics' down to some living philosophers who I did not know had published in that area. For instance, he locates in Nelson Goodman's reliance on "expression" in art (what we'd usually call 'style') a transcendent dimension (a 'more' than the sum of the elements in a work of art) as parallel with what in discourse might be called intention (I forget the exact word he used). But again, discourse then has its version of a transcendent dimension that communicates as the sense of the whole - if a thinker manages to pull that off. What was new to me (in addition to the recent scholarship on classical sources he used) was his thought. My impulse is to compare him unfavorably with Heidegger, by belittling Ricoeur's academic philosophy to Heidegger's existential declaration of the human condition. But he's just as good, in his own way. And while I could complain about his predisposition to work from within the respectable tradition of our western Judeo-Christian civilization (hence he remains 'God's' spokesman), he does not denigrate but uses the outstanding accomplishments of those for whom that tradition has become alien (Amazon.com Customer Review)