Repository | Book | Chapter

There is a great deal in Professor Ricoeur's paper. Perhaps we can regard it, however, as composed of a base and a superstructure, in the sense that it relies upon there being a fundamental distinction between the situation in which we find ourselves in relation to historical inquiry on the one hand, and that in relation to the natural sciences on the other. The entire development of the argument, and the formulation of our current dilemmas in the latter part of the paper, are based on this distinction. Let me therefore focus on the distinction itself, because it is an extremely difficult one to get clear. Once it has become clear, one can go on to what depends on it. But I shall confine my own remarks to this distinction alone.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9365-5_2

Full citation: