Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to provide an in-depth analysis of the concept of attestation in the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur defines attestation as the "assurance---the credence and the trust---of existing in the mode of selfhood." I argue throughout the dissertation that Ricoeur's concept of attestation is the highest form of testimony that the self can give regarding its way of being-in-the-world. This way of being is structured by what Ricoeur calls the affirmative mode. ;In chapter one, I begin with an analysis of several complementary definitions of attestation. Furthermore, I argue that attestation needs to be seen in the context of the crisis of the cogito and that attestation, with its emphasis on the capable person, can be interpreted as Ricoeur's response to this crisis. Chapter two provides an in-depth analysis of Ricoeur's conception of a philosophy of testimony, a notion which serves as a propaeductic for attestation. Here I consider the various philosophers of testimony such as Nabert, Heidegger and Levinas and how they contribute to Ricoeur's understanding of this notion. In chapter three I trace the presence of attestation along the four sites that comprise a hermeneutics of the self. Here attestation emerges as the assurance and trust that the self has in its power to speak, to act, to recount, and to impute actions to himself or herself. Chapter four analyzes the ontological commitment of attestation. In this chapter I show how Ricoeur incorporates the metacategories of being as true, being as act and potentiality and the dialectic of same and other in order to provide ontological clarification to attestation. Finally, in chapter five I consider two significant issues that arise in view of Ricoeur's emphasis on attestation. The first issue is the priority of affirmation over negation and the second issue is the ability of the self to make a connection to the real