The Hermeneutic Lens
Ricoeur’s Contribution to Discourse Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.48.095Keywords:
Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, discourse analysis, ontology, epistemology, organizational studiesAbstract
Discourse Analysis became mainstream in Organizational Studies. While some easily recognize discourse as one of the most expressive contemporary organizational phenomena, others consider its onto-epistemological and theoretical-methodological aspects to lack consistency: discourse is conceptually fragile and means virtually anything; it is epistemologically fragile as a pure reflector of reality or its universal constructor; builds false perceptions that is a simplistic way to access and understand reality objectively. In this paper, we confront these claims by proposing Ricoeur’s hermeneutics as an onto-epistemological alternative. We develop a comprehensive view of hermeneutics showing its strong connections with discourse and demonstrate how, in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, the most elementary concepts are intimately connected to the philosophical aspects of the discourse. Finally, we explain how Ricoeur’s hermeneutics may be an epistemology for Discourse Analysis.
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