"She called in her soul to come and see":
The Identity of Zora Neale Hurston's Janie
as Interpreted through Paul Ricoeur
A THESIS
The Honors Program
College of St. Benedict/St. John's
University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Distinction "All
College Honors"
and the Degree Bachelor of Arts
In the Department of Philosophy
by
Jeanette Gruenes
May, 1995
PROJECT TITLE: "She called in her soul to come and
see": The Identity of Zora Neale Hurston's Janie as interpreted through
Paul Ricoeur
Approved
by:
____________________________________________________________
Associate
Professor of Philosophy
____________________________________________________________
Associate
Professor of Philosophy
____________________________________________________________
Associate
Professor of Philosophy
____________________________________________________________
Chair,
Department of Philosophy
____________________________________________________________
Director,
Honors Thesis Program
____________________________________________________________
Director,
Honors Program
Table of Contents
I. The Narrative.....................................................
.......................................4
Introduction...............................................................................6
II. The
Subject...............................................................................................8
III. The Foundation of Ricoeur's Human
Subject.............................................9
IV. The Complete Subject Found within the
Narrative..................................15
V. Resolution: Who is the Human Subject?...................................................19
A.
Configuration of the
Narrative........................................................20
B.
Responsibility of the
Subject..........................................................21
C.
Janie's
Self....................................................................................29
Appendix to the
Method...............................................................................31
A. The
Problem with the Method.........................................................34
B. The
Resolution of the
Problem........................................................37
I. The Narrative:
Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were
Watching God, is concerned with the struggle to live a happy life within a
world of uncertainty and unrest.
Uncertainty enters from the unknown perspective of God within her
life. The unrest follows from a life
that is on guard against "that strange being with the huge square toes who
lived way in the West"–death, that snatcher who dispels the story too
soon. When will God act upon us? When will God save us or doom us? Does God have any regard for human
happiness? Despite the uncertain role
that Fate will play in the main character's life, Janie Crawford acts against
the criticisms of the people in her life and attempts to actualize her dream of
a good life.
Janie Crawford enters a world where
the basic pattern has women being abused by men. Janie's mother and grandmother were
raped. And, as a result, her mother
began drinking and eventually ran off–leaving Janie in her grandmother's
care. Janie's shaky foundation
encourages her grandmother to establish the most secure footing she can
imagine–the marriage to Brother Logan Killicks.
Janie's first husband, Logan,
relates to her as though she is his hired-hand and tool used like a mule for
his purposes.
But one day, when the men are
standing around talking about the violence that they would inflict on a woman
who would dare to disrespect a man, Janie enters the conversation, informing
the men that:
Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and
talks His inside business. He told me
how surprised He was 'bout y'all turning out so smart after Him makin' yuh
different; and how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you
don't know half as much 'bout us as you think you do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty
when you ain't got nothin to strain against but women and chickens (70-71).
Joe
tells Janie that she has said too much, and the men begin a game of checkers as
though she hadn't said a word.
The honor that Joe had once showed Janie turns sour. In the face of Joe's own insecurities
concerning the shape that his body has come to, Joe desecrates Janie's body
image with an audience present. When Janie
was working in the store, she cut a piece of chewing tobacco uneven. In response, Joe yelled at Janie saying,
"I god amighty! A woman stay round
uh store till she get old as Methusalem and still can't cut a little thing like
a plug of tobacco! Don't stand dere
rollin' yo' pop eyes at me wid yo' rump hangin' nearly to yo' knees"
(74). It is at this point that Janie
stands-up for herself for the first time, bringing Joe down to the same level
of humiliation that he has placed her at in the past. Joe responds by striking Janie. He isn't able to live with this defilement of
character, and as a result, becomes deathly ill.
Joe needs a doctor, but he won't
listen to Janie even on his death bed.
He thinks Janie was the one poisoning his body to the end, when he
literally dies of humiliation. Joe's
death is followed by an elaborate funeral, but Janie's grief doesn't last long;
she relishes her freedom and abandons the robe of mourning.
The beautiful Janie, with a house
and store in her possession, attracts men within the community who are eager to
help her handle her finances as well as her life. At the age of forty, Janie meets Tea Cake, a
twenty-five year old man who lives with her the way that she has always wanted
to live; they are spontaneous together and act as children do, and for the
first time, she loves the man whom she is with.
Because of Tea Cake's age, the town suspects that he is only after
Janie's money. When Janie marries Tea
Cake and moves away from Eatonville, the community is convinced that Janie will
return in shambles with no money left in her pockets. Only Janie's friend, Phoeby, sees in Janie
what the other people in the community can't see; "Still and all, she's
her own woman" (106).
Janie and Tea Cake move to the
A hurricane blows through the
After living this short, yet
complete life with Tea Cake, she returns to her friend, Phoeby, in Eatonville
to tell her story.
Introduction:
My intention from the beginning is to use Zora Neale
Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and apply it to Paul
Ricoeur's work, Oneself as Another.
The narrative is a useful tool, for Ricoeur, since it is within the narrative
that a life can be viewed as a complete unity.
There we find a subject wrapped up and finished. There is a beginning and an end to life
within the narrative, and we are able to see the complete range without the
actual birth or death of the characters but rather with the first page and the
last page being turned. It is within
this complete narrative life that concordance and discordance is shown, within
the unity of a subject. Amid drastic
transformations in Janie's character, we begin to question who she is. A permanence
in time is sought after, if we are
to see her as the same subject, the same self.
In the intertwining of the narrative
and Ricoeur's work on identity, the human subject is more than just some
narrative unity. She is also one who is
responsible. And that responsibility is
the ethical aspect of her subject, of herself as maintaining some unity in all
this discordance. Ethically her subject
is established as aiming toward the good
life with and for others in just institutions. The human subject is aiming toward the good life
because life is both discordant and concordant as we are introduced to both
passive and active roles with others. Solicitude is the element in Janie's ethical life that
she is most concerned with; still, she is confronted with institutions of other
people. She must find the balance
between solicitude and the norms and
customs of institutions which along with solicitude
allows for just institutions.
As the constant witness of a life
that has been aiming toward the good life
with and for others in just institutions, one is called to take
responsibility for her life–to claim her actions. Attestation
is Ricoeur's term to describe
bearing witness for one's actions, to admit where one has diverted from
institutional norms (morality and custom) and where one has placed solicitude in a larger context to follow
the norm. In attestation we claim our
actions and give reason for where we stand in our ethico-moral pursuit. And so we question who Janie is as the
subject in Zora Neale Hurston's novel; we observe carefully her discordant and
concordant actions and inter-actions with others; we listen to the reasons for
her dissension from institutional morality.
And in the end, we find she and we have pieced her life together as a
unified narrative in which she attests to her ethical and narrative unity.
II. The Subject:
What does it mean for Janie to be a
subject in Zora Neale Hurston's novel?
Why do we call her Janie from page one to the end of the book? Why does Janie come forth as the main
subject? Janie is the woman with the
struggle; her life hasn't been easy, and yet for some reason we (as the
readers) still want to go through all of those challenges with her; we want to
make sure that her life turns out for the better, as though if we are there
with her, she will in some way be guarded from misfortune. Why do we identify with Janie? How do we remain intimate with a character
whose identity appears disconnected at so many points in her life?
She starts out in life with no
mother to model herself after; she plays with white children who offer her
nothing with which to identify.
Confused, she enters two marriages that both fail and destroy her dream
of finding love within marriage. And
still for some reason, she trusts yet another man and chooses to marry
him. She leaves her community and her
best friend Phoeby and begins a new life with Tea-Cake. There is no reason for her to believe that
Tea-Cake will treat her with respect in their future together. Given her grandmother's history, mother's
history, and her own history with men, one would think that Janie would abandon
her dream of love and that indeed she would be justified in doing so. But she doesn't.
Janie's character is strengthened as
she transforms from a girl into a woman.
She begins the story as a girl who obeys her grandmother. She disobeys Nanny once, and this changes her
life, but only in altering the direction of Janie's obedience. Her obedience is now directed toward a husband. The husband simply replaces Nanny in Janie's
life structure of dominance and submission.
Janie appears the same obedient self throughout her relationship with
Nanny and her first two husbands. Then,
her second husband dies and Janie enters a third marriage with Tea Cake, and
she is free. Tea Cake's goodness shines
through as Janie expresses the happiness that Tea Cake brings her:
Ah couldn't stand it if he wuz tuh quit me. Don't know whut Ah'd do. He kin take most
any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull. Then we lives offa dat happiness he made till some mo' happiness come along
(135).
Janie's
life structure of dominance and submission tumbles (for the most part). And she lives the life that she, as well as
others, dream of.
But then the hand of Death puts a plunder the
works and dreams of all people underneath–Janie's dreams included. A hurricane blows through Eatonville and
destroys the calm. Tea Cake develops a
sickness that controls his mind and in a fit of rage attempts to kill
Janie. In self-defense Janie kills Tea
Cake. She tells her story to a jury of
twelve men and is vindicated of the killing.
When Janie was with Joe, she generally wouldn't say what was on her
mind; she wouldn't voice her opinion or thoughts. Joe may have been intimidating, but so is a
jury of twelve white men. How is this
strong woman able to do what Janie wasn't able to do in the past?
Upon the death of Joe, Janie wore
black and put on her mourning face.
Everything looked just right for a grieving wife. But at Tea Cake's funeral Janie, "was
too busy feeling grief to dress like grief" (180). And she wears her overalls to his funeral. Is this the same Janie that we listened to
when Joe died, or when she left
From a literary perspective, as well as a
philosophical perspective, the problem that remains unresolved is developing
the identity of the subject amid an ever changing character. Ricoeur is struggling with a similar problem
of establishing identity within a human subject who exhibits both sameness and
discordance within the self.
III. The Foundation of Ricoeur's Human Subject:
In
the work, Oneself As Another, Paul Ricoeur is aiming toward a unified
yet comprehensive understanding of the human subject. Ricoeur is aware of the problems that have
confronted the search for identity in the past, scil., the emphasis on a
unified sameness in complete disregard for differences that are found within a
comprehensive study of the human subject.
His problem comes to the forefront in any narrative–in fiction or in
life–with the apparent conflict between one's sameness and one's
difference. The main subject, Janie, in
the narrative, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has a constancy about her,
but at the same time she shows unpredictability. What do we do with this conflict in our
search for identity? Should we–as Locke,
Hume, and Parfit have done–limit the possibility of subject to a comprehension
of sameness? Or should we acknowledge
the transformations in character that humans undertake? This question is the most pressing for
Ricoeur. He outlines the problem with
his work on ipse and idem- identity.
Ricoeur certainly does admit to the
transformations that humans undertake or that are passively forced on
them. The problem is that when Ricoeur
admits to changes within a given character, he must deal with the entry of
discordance and thus the seeming loss of subject identity and the consequent
loss of imputability. Within a coherent
framework of action we ordinarily ascribe action to an agent. When actions are discordant, is attestation
possible? Are we able to designate Janie
as responsible for actions that seem to divert from our expectations of her
character? Or will Janie bear witness
and attest to her actions even amid discordance? But first, an expansion on Ricoeur's use of
narrative in his search for identity is necessary.
The narrative is a mimesis [an imitation] of life, and at
the same time, life is mimetic of the narrative. For this reason, Ricoeur focuses primarily on
the narrative as a tool toward reaching the noema
[1]of identity.
In the "narrative" life of any human, Ricoeur discovers the
characteristics of discordance and concordance, as well as passivity and
activity and yet, overall, a self, a subject.
As Janie's story is told, the reader notices the cohesiveness that her
character may possess, the part of the character which reminds the reader that the
character is who she is; this is concordance.
But a talented writer also develops a character who acts in ways that
the reader may not have predicted. This
is the brilliance that intrigues us and excites our curiosity to the height of
finishing a long story or reading a good story repeatedly, and this is the
discordant element to a character's identity.
The problem is that with the entry of discord the reader inevitably
wonders if the character is still the same person whom she was at the beginning
of the story. And indeed, with the major
transformations that Janie undertakes, it is questionable that her identity is
the same at the end of the book as it is at the beginning.
Narrative identity is even further
confused by the entrance of both active and passive actions. Activity and passivity emerge with the
character's actions and the action's of others that are inflicted upon the
character. The character experiences the
passivity of actions done to her, becoming the patient of action. Actions performed through activity are
performed by the agent of the action.
Janie appears to be the patient through much of her life. She is born into a history of woman abused by
men, and she follows this same path as though her destiny were planned on the
date of her birth. Janie is treated as a
hired-hand by her first husband, Logan, and she is taught inactivity in the
form of silence from her second husband, Joe.
She continues this cycle until the age of forty. Within this passivity, Ricoeur's title begins
to make sense. The self, the subject is
not just this acting person, but it is the passive person who is, in part, a
witness to what is done to her. The
question is: Does Janie have accountability and responsibility for mistakes
made during this time in her life? Is
she responsible for her passive role during her first two marriages? Is Janie responsible for the abuse done to
her? Can this oneself, whom Ricoeur is attempting to locate, have responsibility
and accountability in the absence of activity and the presence of
passivity? If responsibility and
accountability cannot be assigned to Janie, we risk the loss of her
character.
The
notion of character within the narrative is what keeps idem [sameness] and ipse
[selfhood] bound together. Although they
are bound together, they are still in conflict with one another, since the
subject of identity is torn between reference to sameness or reference to
selfhood. And furthermore the reference
to selfhood will seemingly uproot the reference to sameness, since by
definition sameness over time does not occur.
Narrative concordance and discordance assimilate well with idem
and ipse -identity. In
terms of concordance and discordance, Janie's character appears to continue in
the same direction over the first forty years of her life. But then discordance enters Janie's life, and
one could question, just as she appears to, if she is the same person that she
was when she looked into the mirror as a child.
Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in
the looking glass. It had been a
long time since she had remembered.
Perhaps she'd better look. She
went over to the dresser and
looked hard at her skin and her features.
The young girl was gone, but
a handsome woman had taken her place.
She tore off the kerchief from her
head and let down her plentiful hair.
The weight, the length, the glory was there. She took careful stock of herself, then
combed her hair and tied it back up again (83).
Janie
expected a permanence in time when she returned to the mirror after the
many years had passed. But the young
girl was no longer there; a woman had taken her place. And this woman was not the same as the Janie
who appeared before the mirror years ago.
But the glory of the young
girl's hair remained there. And Janie tucked it back into her kerchief as
though she were preserving it. Within
this example of discordance and concordance, ipse and idem-identity
are shown. Ipse-identity is the identity–the self–faced with the discordance
with which Janie was confronted when she looked into the mirror and found
herself as an older woman. The Idem -identity is shown when Janie's
hair is revealed, and she still has the same hair with the same weight and the
same length. Logically it seems that
Janie cannot be both the same person that she has been in the past and still
different; we feel compelled to choose.
Initially, it is through the body
that we are allowed entry to the idem and ipse
. This is the case for Janie when she
looks into the mirror and notices how she has been transformed and yet remained
the same. Since the body is accessible
to description, it is a reasonable starting point for our discussion. The body of another is open to description
through direct observation while my body is felt directly by myself (38). The body, for Ricoeur, makes-up the
boundaries for the interplay between the dialectic of idem and that of ipse. In this way, the body is the fundamental core
within which all variations take place.
"Furthermore, in virtue of the mediating function of the body as
one's own in the structure of being in the world, the feature of selfhood
belonging to corporeality is extended to that of the world as it is inhabited
corporeally" (150). So far as our
selfhood belongs to corporeality and is "inhabited corporeally,"
selfhood is extended into the world—the world as body (150, cf 30).
It is within the character that the idem and the ipse are extended beyond the
body. The idem and the ipse overlap
within the character forming a foundation for a claim of a different kind of permanence in time. But since the ipse is not sameness, is it possible for ipse-identity to claim permanence
in time? One's character has a re
identification aspect that obviously includes sameness, but is selfhood a
distinct part of one's character? Since The
Voluntary and the Involuntary and Fallible Man, Ricoeur has placed
less emphasis on the immutability of character.
Ricoeur has progressed to think of character as a "lasting
disposition" (121). Referring to
character as a disposition allows us to consider habit as part of one's
character. Since habits are in the
process of being formed the ipse is
allowed its transformational impact. The
ipse is also granted permanence in time with the consideration of promises. It is when promises are made that
"selfhood frees itself from sameness" (119). It is through self-maintenance that one is
able to say, "Even if I change my mind, I will keep my word."
Janie's character is in the process of
formation, and still her character has a permanence
in time. However, Janie is not
compelled to keep her verbal promises.
But perhaps there is a deeper thread that runs through her life and
witnesses to the role of her future sketching out of her life. She disobeys Nanny with the kiss of Johnny
Taylor and abandons her wedding vows to
No mo' than Ah took befo' and no mo' than anybody else
takes when dey gits married. It always changes folks, and sometimes it
brings out dirt and meanness dat even de
person didn't know they had in 'em theyselves.
You know dat. Maybe Tea Cake might turn out lak
dat. Maybe not. Anyhow Ah'm ready and willin' tuh try 'im (108).
Janie's
description of marriage and her eagerness to attempt a marriage with Tea Cake
even amid the fairly good chance (given her past marriages) that the marriage
will change Tea Cake into a difficult person with whom to live indicates that
Janie does not take the promise of marriage as necessarily long lasting.
The idem represents the sameness of one's character over time. Permanence
in time is not an issue for idem-identity. The idem
can be thought of in several different respects. Ricoeur notes a distinction between a numerical
and a qualitative sameness (116).
Numerical sameness is represented when, day after day, the men engage in
mule talk, teasing Matt about his skinny mule.
They tease Matt about his mule in slightly different ways each day, but
each day he must be teased about his mule.
Qualitative sameness is best thought of with the example of identical
twins. It refers to instances and
entities that can be substituted (one for the other) without damage to or loss
of identity; they are the same–qualitatively identical. Qualitative sameness considered in a much
looser sense could be assigned to Janie's first two experiences with marriage.
Although her first two husbands both suppressed her in different ways, they
were both abusive to her. And in a
qualitative sense, the one was not better for Janie than the other.
Permanence
in time must be posited in order to preserve similitude and resemblance of
one's character. But the permanence in
time equals the permanence of the witness, the self. A threat to permanence in time is indeed a
threat to identity (116). Permanence in
time appears obviously to belong to idem-identy;
however, ipse-identity must be
observed more closely in order to establish permanence in time within its
identity. Ricoeur discovers two models
of permanence in time that are found within the ipse. Both character and "keeping one's word" in
the form of promises offer the ipse a stabilizing feature of identity (118). It is precisely these stabilizing features
that allow me to count on others. This
permanence in time for both the idem and the ipse
demonstrate the overlapping of the ipse by
the idem.
Ricoeur describes the overlapping of the ipse by the idem, " . . .my character is me, myself, ipse; but this ipse announces itself as idem"
(121).
The conflict between idem and ipse-identity is resolved, for the most part, with Ricoeur's work
on their mutual feature, permanence in
time as fundamentally characteristic of the ipse and only secondarily characteristic of the idem.
Still Ricoeur's search for identity within the narrative has just
begun. With our foundation in permanence in time, Ricoeur sets us in
the direction of "aiming at the
'good life' with and for others, in just institutions" (172).
IV. The Complete Subject Found within the Narrative:
Janie emerges from the very first
page of Hurston's novel as a strong woman.
Her name isn't mentioned, but we meet her as a woman who believes that,
"The dream is the truth." She
is shown to us on those first pages in overalls, and still, the men can't help
but turn their heads to grab a glimpse of her.
Even in overalls, Janie appears confident and in control of her
life. The overalls will offer itself as
a perfect weapon for the women who wish to debase Janie to their level. But Janie's kissin' -friend, Phoeby, listens to Janie's story with a supportive
ear.
This is also the Janie that we
encounter at the end of the book. In
fact, it is the very same Janie that we encounter at the end of the book. It is as though Hurston suspected that we
might not recognize Janie at the end of the book unless we were introduced to
who she would become early in the narrative.
Janie goes through a transformation that seems to belong to someone
else's life. Many of the turns she takes
don't show predictability, and with each of these turns we are in danger of
losing the unity of her character. But
unity is found in the way that Janie retrospectively looks at her life and in
the way she puts herself "there" in all the transformations. "Janie saw her life like a great tree in
leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches"
(8). Janie sees her life with this unity
only fully coherent at the end of her life when all of her experiences could be
looked back upon with coherence. She
sees the totality of her life within the single vision of the tree as though
her life is a unified horizon with all experiences merging together.
Janie
begins telling her story from the very beginning of her life. Janie recalls playing with white
children. Because all of the other
children were white, she didn't know that she was black until she was six years
old. She was called Alphabet by the
white children and their white parents because everyone had a different name
for Janie; they finally settled on Alphabet.
From the very beginning of her life she really didn't know who she was;
she didn't have an identity to claim.
How a strong woman evolves from this starting point is unforeseen.
Adulthood began with the kiss of
Johnny Taylor. As a character in
Hurston's novel, Johnny Taylor is not strongly developed. The spot light is certainly on Janie and the
impact that one disobedient kiss could have on her life. Janie thought to herself, "Oh to be a
pear tree–any tree in bloom" (11)!
She was sixteen and it was spring time, and just as importantly, Nanny
was sleeping. So she made her way
through the pollinated air away from her grandmother. But Nanny caught her, and this was the end of
Janie's childhood. Nanny's eyes
"diffused and melted Janie, the room and the world into one
comprehension" (12). Nanny began to
see her plan. Janie would soon become a
married woman. It all made perfect sense
to Nanny; this was the plan, and it all fit into the horizon that she saw when
her eyes "diffused and melted Janie."
But marriage wasn't exactly in Janie's plan; moreover, she had no
intention of marrying anyone whom she didn't love.
But Janie thought that if she
married
Her years of asking questions had
not yet ended. Janie repeated the
mistakes of last year, altering them only slightly. Janie began a new life with Joe when marrying
Joe. This time, she thought, maybe
marriage will treat me better. And her
life did seem better, but it still wasn't her life. Joe offered Janie everything she needed in
physical possession, but he was unable to give Janie her personal freedom–what
she needed in order to start answering questions rather than forever asking
them. Joe controlled Janie's life as
both Nanny and Logan had in the past.
The obedience that Janie learned from Nanny carried over to her
relationships with men, and she was not allowed to be "her own woman"
(106).
But slowly Janie does become
"her own woman." There were
times when she backed down and wasn't able to say what was on her mind. Janie was showing this struggle when men
within the community finished their mule talk and attacked the mule, leaving the
mule "panting and heaving" (53).
Janie had compassion for the mule; it too had been mistreated by its
master. She was fighting within herself,
in defense of the helpless mule, but she couldn't speak because she wasn't able
to handle disagreement and conflict from the men. Joe freed the helpless mule by buying it for
five dollars. Janie who had no money and
no power with the men, wouldn't have been able to do this. She witnessed firsthand that one must have
power to free things.
She made attempts to free herself
even when she was within the confines of Joe.
When she told the men that God speaks to women and comforts them by
telling them how little men really know about women and how small men are in
comparison to the strength of God. Joe
quickly quieted Janie, but this was still a movement forward toward the Janie
that we will see in the last pages of this novel. Janie's strength is furthered when she
stands-up for herself when Joe humiliated her in front of their customers at
the store. Janie spoke her mind and
retaliated with words that forced Joe into the background, suffering in
humiliation. Janie hasn't spontaneously
emerged to this point. She has been
developing from that girl who showed disobedience to Nanny with the kiss of
Johnny Taylor to this point of disloyalty
to Joe. In both cases Janie did what she
wanted to do.
And she continued to live the life
that she wanted to live when she married Tea Cake and moved to the
When Tea Cake and Janie moved to the
But
just when the reader thought that there was time for a happy ending
chaos entered. Tea Cake was swallowed up
by Death, and Janie was once again found in a role of submission to a higher
power. Janie appeared a stronger person
than she was in the beginning of her young adult years, but she was still held
within the whims of "that strange being with huge square toes who lived
way in the West."
The Janie that we are introduced to
in her first two marriages of discontent is evolving at a speed that allows us
to see the continuance of her character.
Her life changes from living a role of submission in constant
confrontation with dominance to living a life of equality with Tea Cake. In Janie's marriage with Joe she told us that
she resented Joe for placing her at a height
of untouchable honor; it was at this height
that she was unable to live a common life with the people in her
community. With Tea Cake, it was a life
in the meshes that she lived. Janie
found, "Here was peace. She pulled in
her horizon like a great fish-net.
Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her
shoulder. So much of life in its meshes!
She called in her soul to come and see" (184). There was a change in her character and her
life, but it seemed to fit together given the gradual speed, intermediary
lessons, and history of key struggles that Janie had endured with herself and
the other people in her life. And this
is the same Janie.
V. Resolution: Who is the Human
Subject?
Up to this point, we have
established a description of Janie at various stages of her life. During part one of Janie's life she was
primarily the patient of actions done to her.
She entered life into a pattern of women abused by men. She then proceeded to engage in two marriages
with men who would continue the cycle of abuse.
Part two of her life introduced a drastically different Janie. She enjoyed an intimate and playful
relationship with Tea Cake which allowed her to be an active player in her own
life. And part three, was the resolution
time for Janie, a time when she could look back and tell her story as well as
claim her actions.
A. Configuration of the
Narrative:
The narrative self is able to give
coherence to one's own life even amid transformations in character that
introduce discordance as well as concordance.
Janie configures all the disparate elements into her story: she creates
a narrative that coheres out of all these discordant elements. "It [identity] can be described in
dynamic terms by the competition between a demand for concordance and the
admission of discordances which, up to the close of the story, threaten this
identity" (141). Diversity is thus
reconciled with identity within the configuration of emplotment.[2] Poiesis, is the term that Ricoeur uses
to describe this configuration of discordance into a concordant unity. The narrative character attests to this
configuration, bringing one's life into a realm of connectedness in order to
claim identity. The life subject is
assumed to be able to do the same.
The configuration of narrative
concordance and discordance may not take place in actual human subjects to the
same degree and in the same way.
Ricoeur, contrary to MacIntyre, envisions several problems with reconnecting
narrative identity with life identity.
First, says Ricoeur, we must question who is the author, narrator, and
character in both the narrative and in life.
In the narrative, the author is Zora Neale Hurston, the narrator is
either Hurston or Janie, and the character is Janie. In life, I am the author of my life, though I
am also acted upon by others, but only I can make a coherence out of this
story. I may tell my own story or
someone else might tell my story, and I am the character. The author of the narrative has more active
control over the encounters of her character, but the author of my life
[myself] has a more passive involvement with the encounters in my life. As the author of my life, I have very little
control over many of the events that take place in my life–birth precedes me,
death follows me–but Hurston has almost complete control over the events that
take place in Janie's life. The
narrative also has a beginning and an end with a clear story line traveling
throughout the narrative. Our lives have
beginnings that we can't remember, that we depend on someone else's memory to
recount, and we live endings that we exit too soon to say anything about. And within this beginning and end, our story
line is often so crowded with irrelevant detail and forgotten segments that it
is impossible to piece together a story line for our lives. The reliability of our account of life versus
the reliability of the narrative account brings Ricoeur to the conclusion that
the narrative is a worthwhile metaphor to describe our search for
identity.
It is precisely because of the elusive character of real
life that we need the help of fiction
to organize life retrospectively, after the fact, prepared to take as
provisional and open to revision any
figure of emplotment borrowed from fiction or from history (162).
The
distinctions that Ricoeur makes between the narrative life and the human life
are important to consider, but Ricoeur will conclude that "literary
narratives and life histories, far from being mutually exclusive, are
complementary, despite, or even because of, their contrast" (163).
Selfhood, for both the narrative
subject and the life subject, is able to be in the midst of contradiction and
yet bring one's life together through the process of configuration. Selfhood mediates between discordance and
concordance and recognizes the unified life-thread. This life-thread remains even within
discordance and claims a permanence in
time . It is through attestation
that selfhood creates idem and thus
allows for permanence. One's self attests, as a martyr bears
witness, that this is where I stand and I will remain here over time. There is no certitude that I am right, indeed
at this level right and wrong do not enter; there is no substantial self that
remains ever unchanged and unchanging;
but this is still where I stand, even among discordance that challenges
my identity, this is where I find myself to be and remain.
B. Responsibility of the Subject:
Responsibility enters with the act
of attestation and it is further applied to the subject with Ricoeur's work on
ethics, morality, and just institutions. It is when we stand by our actions that we
are considered as responsible agents for our actions. It is when we say: This is where I stand, that
we are held accountable for our actions and considered worthy of praise or
blame, even when we are overwhelmed by coercion or passion. This is a movement from description to
prescription.[3] We are
compelled to go beyond a description of what Janie's life was, namely, a
combination of discordant and concordant events and actions and attest to
whether or not she led a good life. We question: Should Janie be assigned
accountability for the parts of her life that appeared discordant? Should she be held answerable for her life
even amid the years that she was inactive, living as the patient of actions
done to her? And if Janie's life-story
ended after the death of her second husband, Joe, would we consider her life to
be unified and complete? It seems that
we are struggling against both the loss of responsibility and the accusing extra finger that Lucille Clifton describes in it was a dream:
it was a dream
in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling
in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This.
This. This.
— Lucille Clifton
The
reflection found within
In choosing where one stands, should
ethics or morality take priority? For
Ricoeur, ethics with its Aristotelian heritage is a teleological pursuit after
the good which is the aim of ethical action, which creates the possibility of a
future. The ethical intention is aiming at the good life with and for others
in just institutions (cf 172).
Morality, in the Kantian sense, is the
"obligation [and duty] to respect the norm" (170).[4] This obligation
requires that we remain strictly obedient to the norm even amid conflicts
between the moral norm and one's ethical aim.
It is through selfhood that we choose what is the good life, and it is
through our sameness with the world-community we share that one is obligated to
look for some universal norms in order to live with others.
Based on Ricoeur's interpretation of Kant's morality,
it appears that Kant provides an answer to moral dilemmas that the idem-identity may confront; however,
Kant fails to speak to the ethico-moral struggles within the ipse-identity. In failing to speak to our ipse-identity, Kant has produced a
humanity which is merely a "multiplicity
of persons"–void of identity (223).
Ricoeur, however, considers the aim
of ethics to precede normative
morality. Kant's fixed duty view of
morality is reducible to a list of "does" and "don'ts."[5] This
normative list is removed from life as a lived experience. The ethical person for Ricoeur is not someone
who has in each instance "done the right thing," but instead the
ethical character is the one who is capable of aiming at the good life even
while deviating from moral norms of universality and consistency. Although morality, for Ricoeur, is limited,
it is still necessary for actualizing the ethical aim. It is in this sense that morality is
contained within ethics (170).
Ricoeur's aim at the good life may
appear relativistic to many people; however, it is important to remember that
the human subject as noesis is aiming at some content, noema, the content of which is born
along in the flux of consciousness; there is a noema, i.e. the aim of any intentional act, for each noesis,
intentional act. One's ethical life
could be lived only one way, and that way is, simply, with the intentional act
of noesis
aiming toward the noema. Ricoeur's aim
at the good life is also flexible to a diversity of life beginnings. Ethics, for Ricoeur, doesn't seem to
necessitate that each of us enter life with the same experiences or the same
potentials. Instead, we are simply asked
to struggle with our lives, to be driven toward the noema, as toward the good
and to live with others within just institutions using morality as a check and
norm for our actions.
Ricoeur also addresses a concern
that is typical of the hermeneutical circle when he questions what kind of
verification we can expect from an ethical view that is interested in the
ethical unity of a person rather than in the strict duty criterion suggested by
Kant. The opinion that other people may
have of one's ethical choice will be at best reduced to the conclusion that the
ethical agent is possibly right in her action since we are dealing with
experiential evidence. I chose to act
well in the estimation of living well; I stand there down the road of the
future, thus attestation is involved
(180). Attestation is a witnessing that is performed by the ethical person
who necessarily seeks the good life and who therefore stands by
the secondary choices which "nest" in her primary choice and is
capable of estimating what ought to be done.
The final choice is not free but allows for freedom. And the intermediate choices cannot be proven
correct; however, based on the phronimos
[person of practical wisdom] and her ability to engage in phronesis [practical wisdom] one decision may be more credible than
another. When the person of practical
wisdom makes a promise that reaches into the future, she takes hold of her
past, and she embraces the uncomfortable realization that "all is not
clear"–that in fact, "I could be wrong." But yet, "Here I stand."
In
his embracing of the idea of aiming at
the good life, Ricoeur agrees with Aristotle in that the end of an action
is not what validates the action since the end of an action may be out of our
control while the means by which we act are within our control (174). Thus none of us can avoid seeking the good or
the good life. However, on a more
practical plane Ricoeur holds that we ought to make present an end that is in
the future by standing by it, by directing our life towards it. At this point Ricoeur is referring to what we
do in practice. Ricoeur is suggesting that we apply a
"nesting of finalities" to ends that are found within the choices of practice (178).
Janie, for example, decides to abandon Eatonville and venture after her dreams, leaving her community rootless; since
it was her husband Joe, as Mayor, who formed the foundation of the town. If one only looks at the command that one
ought to have commitment to one's community, this appears to be the wrong
decision. But what do we do when our
community doesn't deserve respect and we have no reason to form a commitment to
it? Should Janie abandon her dreams and
remain in Eatonville for the sake of commitment to her community–a community
who will not help her further her ethical pursuit? Normative morality seems to prescribe such an
action. Ricoeur's "nesting of
finalities" considers Janie's ethical decision as intertwining what she
holds as her ethical aim , with a
configuration of who she is and who her community is. If she considers this example from a clear
duty perspective, she will consider it to be her duty to remain in Eatonville
for the rest of her life and remain a part of the community. However, the end that will result will be
disastrous if she remains in Eatonville.
Janie's departure from Eatonville frees her and allows her to pursue her
ethical aim toward a life of love. Her
ethical unity is able to remain intact with this decision. However with the decision that was purely
interested in the means, without any consideration of the end, Janie would have
had a limited life within a community which would indefinitely restrain her
from the secondary choices involved in her fundamental ethical pursuit after
the good life.
Still, if Janie is to pursue her ethical aim, she must engage in a life
with other people. The good life is
inevitably, descriptively, with
others. In order to bring the good life down from abstraction a life with others must
be present. This life is present for
Janie as her ethical aim is principally directed toward a healthy
inter-personal relationship with Tea Cake.
Through Ricoeur's use of the term solicitude,
one is able to see how Janie is able to aim
toward the good life with and for others.
As Janie understands, we need others in order to live a good life
and descriptively we are those others who are with us in the world. It is in needing others that we are taught
their irreplaceability, hence the
title Oneself As Another. And it is in their needing us that we
understand the call for mutuality involved in our relationships with
others.
According to Levinas the other is placed at a height beyond and above
oneself. In fact, Levinas reverses the
statement, "no other-than-self without a self" to read, "no self
without another who summons it to responsibility" (187). Ricoeur corrects what he sees as a weakness
in Levinas' thought; he claims that Levinas does not take account of the other as
passive, as a person from whom I must receive.
The passive person is present when deterioration sets in and the other-than-self is no longer capable of
caring for himself or when I am beset by the same passivity. When Tea Cake is suffering from the condition
in which the rabid dog had left him, he entered a passive state that called for
help. On the surface help could only
enter as an unequal act of kindness–an apparent lack of mutuality. If Levinas has indeed dismissed the necessity
of my passivity in accepting help from the other, then there can be no account
for service of the other to me. Service
done to others, which Levinas emphasizes, allows us to reach mutuality from
another angle. Mutuality enters into the
passive-active friendship through the benefits that one offering service
receives from the one accepting service and, in the same act, the reverse. Although Janie wasn't able to save Tea Cake
from his sickness, she was there with him.
She offered him care during a time when he offered her no support, and
in fact, he endangered her life. Still
Janie remained with Tea Cake even through the most difficult time in his
life.
For Ricoeur, solicitude must surpass
Kant's obligation to duty and become benevolent
spontaneity. For Levinas it is when
the other breaks into my thoughts (spontaneously) that I am called to
benevolence. The other is located, for
Levinas, at a height above oneself. It
is at the height of the other that the realm of ethics is located for
Levinas. In spite of this height and
sometimes because the other seems so far above me and so demanding, at times, I
am able to resist the call of the other or when the other enters into the realm
of love. Ricoeur agrees with Levinas to
this point, but adds that there are times when we act without the call of the
other. Levinas considers the primary
ethical call to come from the height of the other, in contrast to interpersonal
relationships based on mutuality.
Interpersonal relationships, although they do contain within them ethical
dilemmas, have their foundation in love, sexual attractions, past histories,
and many other forms of partial affection. For Ricoeur, partial affections are part of
who we are and are also included in ethics.
Ricoeur accepts that there is an ethical dimension to relating to
someone whom you have never met before and being compelled to help him live a
better life. But there is also an
ethical dimension, for Ricoeur, in being affected by the people who make-up our
inter-personal relationships, the people whom we experience face-to-face for
mutuality is itself a demand. The
problem with solicitude is that it can vary with feelings, such as
compassion or remorse or empathy. What
then is the ethical demand? Where does
the agent stand over time? Although the
feeling may or may not be present, the ethical demand will always be present.
For Ricoeur although there is an ethical demand
within solicitude especially in the
promise, the demand extends beyond our face-to-face experiences with others,
beyond oneself as the other I see before me.
The ethical demand reaches-out to those nameless faces that I don't see
but still hear. It is within just institutions that I hear those voices and respond to their
call. I hear their voices out of the
past and present of the customary morality.
I look to their future by trying to insure that the others will be safe
long beyond my death.
Within just institutions there is a mediation between solicitude and
institutional decisions which encrust
my ethical aim at the good life with and for all the others, those who are
faceless and those who are not.
Institutional decisions call for norms, customs, and rules of command
that resemble Kant's morality. Within just institutions rules of command
prescribed by the multitude of other people in the world are balanced with the
call to solicitude for another.
Just institutions call us to form a balance between rules of command
such as: Thou shall not kill (in any circumstance) and a world view that takes
into account a diversity of situations and people. This diversity allows for discordance and the
formation of ethics which will take account of a diversity of situations and
people.
In just institutions, the subject both finds
that she sees the aim of ethics taking on permanence but also finds the
universal norms. Like the surgeon, the
subject finds a ready-made series of demands built into the profession, but the
way she or he takes on these obligations attests to the presence of the other. In just
institutions we must claim our actions and attest to having done them. It
is within this act of attestation that responsibility for one's choice and
action is accounted for. Attestation
recaptures the permanence in time
within just institutions that is
founded in customs, norms, and rules of command. This permanence
in time is lost when discordance enters with the diversity of people and
situations that might alter one's ethical choice. Through attestation, the human subject
recaptures the lost permanence in time
when she assigns responsibility to herself and claims her actions. This is done when she tells her story and
explains her actions, or at least says, "I was there and I am still
there."
After
Janie killed Tea Cake she did not evade the repercussions of her action and
claim that she really didn't kill him. Hurston describes how Janie stood firm in the
role of attestation and explained her choice to kill Tea Cake in front of
twelve white men:
He had to die to get rid of the dog. But she hadn't wanted to kill him. A man is up against
a hard game when he must die to beat it.
She made them see how she couldn't
ever want to be rid of him. She didn't
plead to anybody. She just sat there and told and when she was through
she hushed (178).
She
was aware of what she had done and there was no reason to deny that she had
killed Tea Cake, but the story wouldn't be complete if we didn't know why she
killed Tea Cake, how much she loved him, and what a struggle it was for her to
kill him. And at the end, when she had
finished saying how and why Tea Cake was killed, she hushed and was prepared to take any punishment that the twelve men
would assign to her. The only thing that
she feared was being misunderstood. The
jury found that Janie was not guilty of committing a "cold blooded
murder" and she was free.
In Aiming toward the good life with and for others in just institutions we
engage in an ethics that is always an approximation of aiming toward a
good. This good is brought down from
abstraction through living with others in solicitous
inter-personal relationships. The inter-personal relationships are expanded
to just institutions where we are
called to mediate between the norms and customs of a society of nameless faces
and solicitous inter-personal relationships.
Upon the formation of aiming
toward a good life with and for others in just institutions the human
subject is called to bear witness for his actions and to stand firm in saying,
"This is where I stand within this just
institution."
C. Janie's Self:
The self of Janie is a configuration
of concordant and discordant events and actions. She enters life taught nothing but obedience
and submission to men, but transforms into a person who is "her own woman." There are times when she regresses to her
original state of submission, but overall, she is aiming toward a life that she
can call her own. She wants to share
this life with another person and makes her third attempt at marriage (which is
finally successful).
Janie is primarily aiming toward a
close inter-personal relationship with another.
She isn't concerned with the problems of the nameless faces, but she
focuses on those whom she encounters face-to-face. But when Tea Cake, the one whom Janie is most
devoted to, becomes insane and attempts to kill her, she enters the realm of just institutions. She is forced to consider the moral dimension
of her possible action; she is forced to consider the command that has been
upheld through-out time by the faceless masses: Thou shall not kill, aiming as they all are at the good life.
Should Janie choose to uphold her
ethical pursuit and preserve herself? If
Tea Cake was himself and realized what he was doing, Janie is certain that he
would prefer that she kill him rather than allow him to take her life. She is torn between the moral command
prohibiting her from killing anyone and her solicitous
relationship with Tea Cake which demands that she stop him before his
actions hurt her.
Janie's narrative unity remains intact
with this act. She remained devoted to
her ethical aim: finding love within marriage.
And in this case, the greatest love that she could have shown Tea Cake
is to take his life before he took hers. And she remains the strong woman that
Phoeby saw even before Janie left Eatonville.
Her choice places her outside the boundaries of the moral norm, but she
claims her actions and attests to her position within this just institution.
Appendix to the Method:
It is not imperative that the reader
understands each point in this appendix.
In fact, the thesis is complete without it. This appendix is meant to serve as background
material to Ricoeur's work on hermeneutics and phenomenology. Since hermeneutics and phenomenology in
combination form the method that Ricoeur uses in his work, they are relevant to
Ricoeur's work on identity. Still, my
thesis is not focused on the method, but rather on the practice of the method.
The method that Ricoeur uses to
reach the supremely ethical act employs the structure of intentionality, scil.,
the noesis reaching toward a noema is
accomplished through the combination of phenomenology and hermeneutics. The noesis
is the actual process of reaching-out toward a noema. There exists an
intuition where intentionality as noesis
reaches the fullness of content; it reaches the noema. This intentionality
is the noesis aiming toward some object as having meaning.
Hermeneutics and phenomenology are
interconnected and interdependent. While
the mission of hermeneutics is to obtain meaning, the role of phenomenology is
to describe the phenomena that are present in the world. Hermeneutics is constructed from the base of
phenomenology and in this sense "phenomenology
remains the unsurpassable presupposition of hermeneutics." Conversely, phenomenology is equally
dependent on hermeneutics; for phenomenology cannot establish itself without a
"hermeneutical presupposition"
(Ricoeur Hermeneutics 101).
Without phenomenology [description] there can be no practice of
hermeneutics, and at the same time, without hermeneutics [meaning]
phenomenology has no point. As
phenomenology attempts to complete its project, the role of Auslegung [explanation] is linked to
hermeneutical responsibility (101). The
two have a common goal: "founding" meaning.
The precise project of
Phenomenology, for Merleau-Ponty, is to define the essence of things
(vii). This process of defining the
essence of something is not through explanation or analysis, but rather, it is
accomplished through honest description.
This description is completed through an individual's "particular
point of view" (viii). However, the
subject matter is "not constructed or formed;" it is, strictly
speaking, described (x). In looking for
the world's essence we are looking at "what it is as a fact for us"
(xv). It is important to note that this
description, although it does include the individual's point of view, is not
constructing the world ex nihil – the
world is already there.
The major themes of phenomenology
for Husserl as well as for Merleau-Ponty are in the Lebenswelt [life world].[6] The world
itself has a bracketed existence (Merleau-Ponty vii), meaning that all
discussions on the actual existence of things described are inappropriate at
this particular time and would only lead us away from the assigned task. According to Merleau-Ponty's understanding of
Husserl, we must pass through "the fact of our existence to its nature, from
the Dasein to the Wesen" (xiv).
Merleau-Ponty's world under the
influence of phenomenology's bracketed existence avoids all questions of
existence. For Merleau-Ponty, "the
world is not what I think, but what I live through" (xvii). The eidetic method is a form of
phenomenological positivism; it "bases the possible on the real"
(Merleau-Ponty xvii). The world is not
simply what I think it is, but rather
the world is what it is. It is
impossible to completely release ourselves from our relationship to, and
dependence on, the world. In this sense,
we can never have a complete reduction (xiv), because the world remains present
when we put it in brackets.
Merleau-Ponty's following claim clarifies the dependence that we have on
the world, as our source of truth: "We are in the realm of truth and it is
'the experience of truth' which is self-evident" (xvi). Truth is found within the experience of our
'world as lived through'. From this
point of view not only is reduction impossible, but it is also unwanted. In fact, if the reduction would be complete,
truth would not be made self-evident through the experiences of the world.
Coherence is the test for
Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. Coherence
refers to the phenomena: when a story hangs together. The story may be absurd, but if it exhibits
unity then it is an example of coherence.
We all live in coherent worlds.
There are times when an individual's 'world as lived through' is crazy,
but it is real to the individual who is experiencing it, and while the
individual is experiencing his 'world as lived through' his world has
coherence. We all live in a Lebenswelt of coherence. Rationality, on the other hand, is not always
present in our Lebenswelt; in fact,
it rarely is. Rationality demands that
certain actions must logically achieve certain ends. A counter-example of rationality is found in
McCarthyism. Notice that in the
McCarthyism example, although it is not rational, it does cohere though the
example seems inane. Imagine the normal
daily routine: I turn off the alarm, toast a piece of bread, and role up the
newspaper on my way off to work, only to be stopped by government officials
declaring a warrant for my arrest. I
have just been accused of being a communist.
I have been living in this land of the free all of my life, but today I
am summoned to appear before public officials, who will accuse me of being
something that our nation hates. All of
this because I named my dog Sputnik.[7] During the
McCarthy era people were taught through propaganda to hate communism, so that
the American people could hate the Russians.
Men and women were pulled from their homes, places of employment and
accused of communism. These accusations
generally had no evidence to substantiate them—nothing that necessarily joined
the individual's lifestyle to a lifestyle of communism.
Another counter-example to
rationality and example of coherence is the life of a Japanese-American living
in
In both of the above examples,
people's lives were turned upside down, for no predictable reason. What they knew of reality in the past
wouldn't have prescribed the experiences that they were encountering in the
present. What they experienced didn't
make logical sense, and the experience was not rational. But both of the experiences showed
coherence. Coherence for both
Merleau-Ponty and Husserl emerges out of a horizon where perceptions fit
together. In order for coherence to take
place perceptions must confirm one another.
Coherence of perceptions is measured through the disclosure of
experience. Finally, when different
perspectives blend together meaning emerges from the horizon (Merleau-Ponty
xix).
Phenomenology and hermeneutics, in
combination are an attempt to describe the phenomena within the world and to
give meaning to that phenomena. This is
accomplished through the reaching out [noesis]
toward the phenomena [noema]. This intentionality is never completely
accomplished since we enter the phenomenological and hermeneutical task with
limits. The essence of the thing
described is always from the individual's point of view, yet description and
meaning is not constructed from the individual's imagination; the actual
description and meaning are found within the thing itself, which is already
there within the world which is already there.
Through description of experiences found within the Lebenswelt coherence is
located within the unity of that experience.
Rationality, conversely, has more stringent requirements for
"making sense."
A. The Problem with the Method:
Husserl's presentation of phenomenology, in light of
the Ideen, introduces a serious
problem for hermeneutics. Since
phenomenology is interconnected with hermeneutics, for Ricoeur, the problem for
hermeneutics is also a problem for phenomenology. Ricoeur describes the problem by reference to
five idealistic premises found in Husserl's Nachwort to the Ideen.
For Husserl, justification within
phenomenology is Selbst-Begrundung [self-grounding];
there are paths toward the beginning which are without presuppositions (Ricoeur
Hermeneutics 103). This form of
justification requires a foundation that is proved correct in itself and by
itself, in order that it be self-grounding.
The "ideal of scientificity," that Husserl is suggesting,
presents a problem for hermeneutics since phenomenology under the constraint of
science is unable to complete the "ontological condition of
understanding" (105). The
ontological understanding is lost because the independence of the subject and
object creates a relationship of distance rather than a relationship of
"belonging" which the noesis-noema
relationship necessitates[8] (cf. 105).
The second idealistic premise states
that intuition is the foundation of phenomenology. The Erfahrungsfeld
[field of experience] is the image that intuition is thought to engage
in. For Husserl, "the principle is
a 'field' and the first truth an 'experience'." Intuition acts as the seer of 'experience'
and is thus able to answer all questions within the 'field' (Ricoeur Hermeneutics
103). The problem enters when
hermeneutics admits that the individual does not see the complete Erfahrungsfeld. We enter the world of experience with limits;
we are always missing part of the conversation or image. We are limited by the fact that the field of
experience is temporally horizontal, and we are always excluded from viewing
the past field that we just missed and the future field which we have passed
by.
The primary idealistic thesis,
according to Ricoeur, is that "all transcendence is doubtful[9]; immanence is indubitable" (Hermeneutics
103). Being outside of subjectivity is
uncertain; while, staying within consciousness and subjectivity is
certain. Since "transcendence"
operates through Abschattungen [profiles],
the combination of profiles within the world can produce discordance of
parts. Thus, the "destruction of
the world" is possible. Immanence
does not produce profiles; but rather, immanence produces reflection based on
what was experienced (103). The primary
problem as Ricoeur states is that "the ruses of self-consciousness are
more subtle than those of the thing."
This precise problem is addressed in Heidegger's work when he asks the
question: "Who is Dasein?" According to Heidegger, "Perhaps when
Dasein addresses itself in the way which is closest to itself, it always says
'I am this entity', and in the long run says this loudest when it is 'not' this
entity" (109). The point being, it
is conceivable that we are the deceivers, that entities themselves have no
reason to deceive, but we gain
domination and power over others by the deceptions of our communication (cf.
110).
For the purpose of coming to the
pure noema through noesis, the fourth idealistic premise
requires that phenomenology place all questions of existence and attachment of
attributes in brackets. The questions
within the brackets are considered inappropriate questions for
phenomenology. The fourth idealistic
premise is trying to let go of the world through a reduction of it. Only through the loss of the world is the
world "revealed as 'pre-given'."
The problem is that we never really can let go of the world. When we put the world in brackets, it still
remains. Phenomenological reduction is
aiming at eliminating all other meaning in a text in order that the
"pure" intent of the author is made evident. This requires that the author herself is
introduced. Ricoeur concludes,
"thus the phenomenological radicality, which severs the transcendental
subjectivity from the empirical self, is the same as the radicality which
transforms the Seinsglaube [belief in
being] into the noematic correlate of the noesis."[10]
Phenomenology, under the constraints of Idealism, is reduced to the
psychological (Ricoeur Hermeneutics 104). Thus the current question is: What did the
author intend to say, rather than, what is the text describing?
The final idealistic premise, for Husserl, considers
reflection as the "immediately self-responsible act" and is thus the
supremely ethical act (Ricoeur Hermeneutics 104). Husserl places the content of the
"natural attitude" in brackets.
Letting go of that "natural attitude" is essential to the
ethical act of reflection. Ultimate
responsibility of the self is gained with the abandonment of the "natural
attitude." No outside force can
justify the foundational act, since only the self is responsible for
actions. Reflection is "self-positing"
and so it is "self-responsible."
When the reflecting subject breaks away from the "natural
attitude," action is both epistemological and ethical. This "self-positing,"
"self-responsible," "self-assertive" subject is the
"philosophizing subject" (105).
This presents a problem for hermeneutics in that the subject is now
considered a new master of the text
rather than a "disciple of the
text" (113).
B. The Resolution of the Problem:
Through Ricoeur's critique of the
idealistic account of phenomenology, a greater understanding of both
hermeneutics and phenomenology is realized.
The point of this critique is to preserve the place of hermeneutics in a
phenomenology that requires its presence.
Hermeneutics responds to the
idealistic account of justification by promoting the concept of
"belonging." The unity of
meaning found in the noesis-noema
relationship poses a problem for the idealistic account of knowledge which will
promote the "ideal of scientificity" found in the subject-object
relationship. The relationship between
the subject and the object includes both the "allegedly autonomous subject
and the allegedly adverse object."
But inclusion, on the contrary, is what Ricoeur refers to as
"belonging."
"Belonging" is actualized through the connectedness of the noesis-noema relationship, but it is
void in the subject-object relationship.
The "ontological priority of belonging" demands that the
necessity of the presuppositionless foundation no longer constitute ultimate
justification (Ricoeur Hermeneutics 105).
For Ricoeur, all understanding is
mediated by interpretation; thus, even intuition is mediated by interpretation
(Hermeneutics 106). Complete
foundation is impossible in hermeneutics because of the hermeneutical
circle. The interpreter is always caught
in the middle of conversation. The
interpreter already has a "pre-understanding" before the text is
introduced. Since we are never present
at the foundation of the Erfahrungsfeld
we are not able to use our intuition as the founding principle to a
phenomenological pursuit. There is a
complete history that is impossible for us to understand within a glance—within
the single vision of intuition. Explication,
however, extends beyond a given field of vision, "coinciding with the
broadest historical connection" (108).
For Ricoeur, "the key hypothesis of hermeneutic philosophy is that
interpretation is an open process which no single vision can conclude"
(109).
Ricoeur critiques Husserl's third idealistic premise,
emphasizing the importance of distanciation and belonging. The connection between distanciation and
belonging is that "distanciation is a moment of belonging" (Hermeneutics
111). Although the noesis and noema are
always conjoined, distanciation is such that it can never overcome
separation. Ricoeur refers to
distanciation as the "dialectical counterpart of the notion of
belonging" (110). "We belong
to an historical tradition through a relation of distance" that ranges
from what is near to what is far.
"To interpret is to render near what is far (temporally,
geographically, culturally, spiritually)" (110-111). Through "textual exegesis" and this
"critique of ideology" understanding progresses to interpretation
(111).
Clearly, the purpose of hermeneutics
is to "discern the 'matter' of the text (Gadamer) and not the psychology
of the author." The meaning of the
text stands alone, without the ambiguous intention of the author to change
it. Once the text is released from the
author, hermeneutics is free to see the world as the text reveals it (Ricoeur Hermeneutics
111). Thus the task of hermeneutics is
not directed toward the "psychological intentions which are hidden beneath
the text, but rather as the explication of the being-in-the-world" shown
in the text. The purpose is not to
reveal the subjectivity behind the text; but rather, the purpose is to see the
world as the text reveals it. The world
is revealed through the process of reaching out toward the noema, through the process of intentionality as noesis (112).
Subjectivity is not the founding character of
understanding; it is the final character of understanding. Subjectivity does not initiate consciousness
or understanding; however, it does complete it (Ricoeur Hermeneutics
112). Ricoeur requires that the reader
be held subject to the text prior to allowing subjectivity to enter the process
of understanding. "To understand oneself is to understand oneself in front of the text" (113). Clearly the text must be understood prior to
subjective interpretation. Appropriation is to "make what was
alien become one's own." With the
introduction of appropriation, we
must also consider disappropriation, so
that we might "let the matter of the text be." In addition to appropriation and disappropriation,
the "distanciation of self from
itself" allows for the critical point in understanding where the
"ruin of the ego's pretension" allows me to become a "disciple of the text" rather than a master of the text (113).
Works Cited
Hurston,
Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching
God.
Merleau-Ponty,
M. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith.
Ricoeur,
Paul. Hermeneutics and the Human
Sciences. Thompson, John, ed. and
trans.
---. Oneself As Another.
[1]The noema is
the aim toward which the noesis as
intentionality is directed. It indicates
what I am focusing on in my awareness. A
further explanation of the relationship between noema and noesis can be
found on page 31 in the appendix.
[2]Emplotment is used by Ricoeur to designate the way
that the plot line of any story incorporates expected and surprising elements
into one story that overall makes sense.
[3]Ricoeur rejects the dichotomy between description and
prescription which was thought to exist since Hume. For Ricoeur, within description there is
always a prescription (169). I can
describe the following scene in Their Eyes Where Watching God: upon the
grand opening of the new store in Eatonville, Janie was requested to make a
speech after her husband, Joe, was chosen as mayor of the town. Before Janie could say a word, Joe told the
crowd that Janie wasn't an impressive speaker (40). Within this incomplete description of action
there is already an implication of an ethical choice. There is already a prescription for what
ought to have been said, what ought to have been done, even though the reader
is unaware of what preceded this particular description of action. However, Ricoeur does not take into account
that if I were to describe an event that
I have no control over, such as the weather, or a thing, such as the book in front of me, then description does not
imply prescription. The connection
between description and prescription is only necessary when we describe human
actions in which Ricoeur is most interested.
[4]Morality, for Ricoeur, likewise will operate within
the borrowed framework of the good life, solicitude, and the just institution. But morality uses these three as basic
characteristics for deriving universal norms.
[5]To use Heidegger's terminology, the duty that Kant
describes is not possibility. Morality has no freedom and is thus reducible
to a list of commandments that must be actualized in order to offer everyone a
basic level of self-respect.
[6]The "life world" is complete with all
cultural aspects and human creations as well as human interactions and human
emotions.
[7]This is a true story of a woman who is currently living
in
[8] The
relationship between belonging and the noesis-noema relationship is my emphasis. Ricoeur's point at this point is strictly
concerned with establishing the loss of belonging with the introduction of the
independent subject and object.
[9] At this point
it is important to note that Husserl doesn't see transcendence as doubtful or
not doubtful. Husserl simply doesn't
consider transcendence to be important in a discussion of meaning. Transcendence as doubtful is Ricoeur's
interpretation of Husserl.
[10]Ricoeur is interpreting Husserl as separating the
transcendental self from the empirical self. It is debatable whether or not Husserl
actually does this.