Path to Metaphor in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur

The French hermeneutic scholar Paul Ricoeur tries to solve the problem of metaphor in connection with contemporary literary theories. His research, however, does not stop there but endeavours to grow further and to form a hermeneutic approach where the metaphor will become the pattern of any understanding of a certain text. He was directed to such an approach already by his research of the symbol, where he found the basic characteristic of the symbol in its being open to new meanings. Following Kant's saying that a symbol makes think, he looks for a more objective area of research where he could confirm his findings in the field of symbols by means of objective literary sciences. Metaphor presents itself to him as the most suitable field. Beforehand, he requests that this must be a live metaphor charged with a new meaning like what he already researched in the field of symbols. In his work Live Metaphor (The Rule of Metaphor) he starts from literary and analytical research and turns to ontology. The key question is about the basis of the "invention" of a good live metaphor. It must necessarily include an old, known meaning so that understanding may take place at all, and at the same time also something new, which will bring a new, topical meaning and preserve the said word or phrase as a live metaphor. Looking for this point of reference and creativity in the metaphor, the area of research also extends to biblical texts, where it opens the possibility of revelation. Through the live metaphor man can understand a new message of revelation and it opens his eyes for new meanings requiring his own active hermeneutic approach. In the modern crisis of the naming of God, Ricoeur's ontology of metaphor may offer a path to rediscovering the once written revelation as a naming of God suitable for our time.