From Text to Action

This collection of essays is a sequel to Ricoeur's earlier volume, "The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics 1" (1969, English edition 1989, Athlone). "From Text to Action" follows an original line of thought, passing from phenomenology to hermeneutics (defined by Ricoeur as "the general theory of interpretation") and from the hermeneutics of the text to the hermeneutics of action. It draws on the thought of Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer and incorporates ideas from the Social Sciences, the Philosophy of Language and Political Philosophy. The author, Paul Ricoeur, is a leading French thinker in the philosophy of language. His translated works include "The Symbolization of Evil" (1969) and "The Conflict of Interpretations" (Athlone, 1989).