Abstract

I would like to propose an interpretation of Ricœur’s first phenomenological works in the light of what I call an “experiential phenomenology”, by answeringthree important questions. The first is a factual and historical interrogation: why has Ricœur abandoned his project of a descriptive phenomenology after publishing his first volume of the The Voluntary and the Involuntary and why did he afterwards direct his philosophical research towards the problem of interpretation? The second interrogation is an epistemological and a methodological one: in what way is the Husserlian phenomenology a first-person approach and how does Ricœur’s phenomenology of the will lead us towards an experiential phenomenology in first person? The final question is heuristical: what criteria should we point out in order to establish a phenomenological science that is 1) descriptive and 2) approaching the experience in first-person?