ABSTRACT
In 1971, Paul Ricreur asserted that 'all hermeneutics are Kantian'. 1 This remains true insofar as modem hermeneuticists accept that there are limits to hwnan knowledge of self, freedom and reality. These limits render necessary the indirect strategy of interpretation of signs, or 'traces', 2 of our actions in and on the world. This chapter proposes to place ethics within the limits of a 'post-Ricreurian Kantian' hermeneutics. This is to appropriate, with my own distinctive twist, Ricreur's self-description of post-Hegelian Kantian. I include under my title Ricreur's ground-breaking work on hermeneutics of suspicion and of retrieval, but also his later work on 'that little ethics' ( cette petite ethiqwi3) in Oneself as Another and on the 'capable hwnan being' (l 'homme capable) in The Just. 4
At the same time this chapter is intended to fill a void in current discussions of Ricreur which tend to trace his ethical reflections back to his earliest work on a philosophy of the will without considering the dual moments of his hermeneutics. For me, this leaves a gaping silence and reflects a lack of critical discussion of the hermeneutic principles which shape his current Kantian project. 5 I would like to speak into this silence, in order to rethink how, after Kant, Ricreur demonstrates the crucial role of negative and positive hermeneutics.
