The Speculative Solution to the Aporia of Temporality and the Meaning of Being

Abstract

This paper explains the process by which Ricoeur applied the Aristotelian ontology of actuality and potentiality to his own hermeneutics, and how this development enabled him to find a speculative solution to the aporetics of time. I identify two alternative solutions within this process: the poetic solution presented in Time and Narrative and the speculative solution developed in Memory, History, Forgetting. Although the existential analytic plays a significant role in both solutions, I argue that the shift of perspective between these works was a result of the introduction of Spinoza’s concept of conatus.