Between Explanation and Understanding: On Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of the Parallel Discourse

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the possibility to define Ricoeur’s dialectic between explanation and understanding within the horizon of Heidegger and Gadamer’s hermeneutics of “parallel discourse” as proposed by Furia Valori. The paper is focused on the possibility to understand the alternative between explanation and understanding as a mediation which leaves the two terms in an alternative but parallel course of meaning which lies undisclosed under the tensions of language. In this sense, this contribution aims to show a deep connection of the whole investigation proposed by Ricoeur starting from his analysis of poetic language until his investigation on alterity.