Friday, February 22, 2008

Second Naivete--Hearing Again

"[I]n every way, something has been lost, irremediably lost: immediacy of belief. But if we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can, we modern men, aim at a second naivete in and through criticism. In short it is by interpreting that we hear again. . . . [T]he second immediacy that we seek and the second naivete that we await are no longer accessible to us anywhere else than in a hermeneutics; we can only believe by interpreting" (352-354).

--Paul Ricouer, from The Symbolism of Evil

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