The feminist theology that appeared in the 1960s suggests “Hermeneutics of suspicion” against literalism of biblical interpretation. This became a process of criticizing patriarchal ideology, which was the base of the biblical text itself and conv...
The feminist theology that appeared in the 1960s suggests “Hermeneutics of suspicion” against literalism of biblical interpretation. This became a process of criticizing patriarchal ideology, which was the base of the biblical text itself and conventional biblical interpretation.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether there exists a connection point between the ideology criticism work of the feminism theologians and Ricoeur’s metaphor hermeneutics. Feminism theologian Ruether regards the objective of ideology criticism to be overall restoration of humanity of women. Ruether insists that feministic biblical interpretation should be based on an experiential Hermeneutics circle that penetrates that past and present. In order to turn this circle into a virtuous circle rather than the vicious circle of Heidegger, the process of “self-understanding before the text” that Ricouer’s hermeneutics adheres, should be carried out.
Compared to Aristotle, who sees metaphor as a substitute for word, Ricouer expands the concept to the level of text. He accommodates the interactive theory of metaphor. I. A. Richards, Max Black, and Monroe Beardsley reject denomination of metaphor. They say that metaphor stems from “interaction between two different domains of semantics.” The reason Ricouer expropriates the interactive theory of metaphor is relevant with “innovation of metaphoric meaning.” Metaphor becomes a live metaphor through semantic innovation and completes the Dialectics of semantics and reference. This is the creative power of metaphor. Ricouer suggests that by using this creative power of metaphor, metaphoric verity is exposed through the tension between “be” and “not be”.
Since the advent of modern studies, metaphor has been regarded to be a vague, unscientific language. Being a poetic language, metaphoric language is the language of reversion and limitation. Therefore, direct ideology criticism can be difficult through metaphoric language. Yet, if metaphor is extended to the level of text and placed upon hermeneutics of explanation and understanding, ideology criticism is an inevitable factor to go through the process. This point is where Ricouer’s hermeneutics and feministic ideology criticism meet. As a metaphoric text, the Bible has possibility to be reestablished through feministic ideology criticism.