Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion (review)

In Ricoeur-the-man, a constant dialogue took place between philosophical doubt and Protestant faith. In Ricoeur-the-philosopher, the first dialogue impels a search for a more perfect dialectic between doubt and meaning. For Ricoeur, "Cartesian doubt provides a way into the work of the human in seeking a world of meaning and ethical strength." In this service, Scott-Baumann traces Ricoeur's engagements with the "masters of suspicion" (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) and his careful resistance to philosophical trends descending from them (a too-far-taken existentialism or structuralism). Ricoeur accepted the masters' challenge to Cartesian dualism and to the always potential abuse of power within religion (and other faith-based ideologies); but, eager to curtail the dangers of an over-powerful skepticism, he deployed an artful dialectic, woven of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism—his dialectic swirling not toward a totality but toward a wizened condition of humanity and meaning. The gem of these chapters is the seventh, in which those attracted to Ricoeur's shape of thought find this methodological dialectics outlined clearly in an applicable but not proscriptive manner by Scott-Baumann. For Ricoeur, overdetermination, whether originating in faith or doubt, is the enemy of human being and the ethical inhabitation of a meaningful world. For Scott-Baumann, a pressing instance of the problems to which Ricoeur addressed his powers is the current tension within European societies as they encounter their Muslim citizens and must deal with their mutual suspicion, their differing narratives, their difficulties reading and finding meaning in each other. Students new to Ricoeur's work will find here a patient and crystalline introduction to the whole of his works, presenting both concise content summary and elucidation of his philosophical "inter-method." Ricoeur scholars will value Scott-Baumann's book for its seamless reconciliation of the two Ricoeurs—the skeptic and the believer—as the one master theorist of how skepticism can protect, rather than erase, human being.