Henry Isaac Venema is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Messiah College.

"Venema has taken on a significant project in that he attempts to show that there are specific strands of thought that underlie and unify Ricoeur's thinking on phenomenological description, interpretation, understanding, narrative, metaphor, imagination, and selfhood. Helping others understand these textual and thematic interconnections in Ricoeur's writings is a significant contribution to the study of Ricoeur's thought and place in twentieth-century philosophy vis-à-vis Ricoeur's own responses to other major twentieth-century thinkers. 'Selfhood' takes Ricoeur back to some of the very fundamental issues in Husserlian phenomenology that contributed to Ricoeur's philosophical development and points to those issues where Ricoeur distanced himself from specific phenomenological formulations." — Gayle L. Ormiston, coeditor of The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur"This book exhibits a good grasp of certain main phases of the development of Ricoeur's thought and thus is not merely a regurgitation of Ricoeur, but quite a creative rendition, and from a questioning point of view. It carries Ricoeur scholarship and interests into discussions that are relevant to continental philosophy today." — Patrick L. Bourgeois, coauthor of Traces of Understanding: A Profile of Heidegger's and Ricoeur's Hermeneutics

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction 1. From Ego to Selfhood: A Question of Method1.1 Distanciation and Phenomenology1.2 Ricoeur's Critique of Phenomenological Idealism1.3 A Hermeneutical Variation of Phenomenology1.4 A Dialectic of Phenomenological Hermeneutics 2. Imagination: Mediated Self-Constitution 2.1 Creative Imaginativity2.2 Freedom and Nature2.3 Fault and Failure2.4 Fallible Man 3. Metaphorical Reformulation: Toward Mutual Selfhood 3.1 From Semantic of Discourse to the Work of Resemblance3.2 The Work of Resemblance3.3 Reference and Reality 4. Narrative Imagination and Personal Identity 4.1 Narrative Identity4.2 The Mimetic Arc4.3 Narrative Identity Between Art and Life 5. Identity and Selfhood 5.1 Identity and Language5.2 Identity and Sameness5.3 Identity, Selfhood, and Ontology ConclusionEthical Reciprocity or Mutuality?Identifying Selfhood NotesBibliographyIndex

Henry Isaac Venema is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Messiah College.

"Venema has taken on a significant project in that he attempts to show that there are specific strands of thought that underlie and unify Ricoeur's thinking on phenomenological description, interpretation, understanding, narrative, metaphor, imagination, and selfhood. Helping others understand these textual and thematic interconnections in Ricoeur's writings is a significant contribution to the study of Ricoeur's thought and place in twentieth-century philosophy vis-à-vis Ricoeur's own responses to other major twentieth-century thinkers. 'Selfhood' takes Ricoeur back to some of the very fundamental issues in Husserlian phenomenology that contributed to Ricoeur's philosophical development and points to those issues where Ricoeur distanced himself from specific phenomenological formulations." — Gayle L. Ormiston, coeditor of The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur"This book exhibits a good grasp of certain main phases of the development of Ricoeur's thought and thus is not merely a regurgitation of Ricoeur, but quite a creative rendition, and from a questioning point of view. It carries Ricoeur scholarship and interests into discussions that are relevant to continental philosophy today." — Patrick L. Bourgeois, coauthor of Traces of Understanding: A Profile of Heidegger's and Ricoeur's Hermeneutics

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction 1. From Ego to Selfhood: A Question of Method1.1 Distanciation and Phenomenology1.2 Ricoeur's Critique of Phenomenological Idealism1.3 A Hermeneutical Variation of Phenomenology1.4 A Dialectic of Phenomenological Hermeneutics 2. Imagination: Mediated Self-Constitution 2.1 Creative Imaginativity2.2 Freedom and Nature2.3 Fault and Failure2.4 Fallible Man 3. Metaphorical Reformulation: Toward Mutual Selfhood 3.1 From Semantic of Discourse to the Work of Resemblance3.2 The Work of Resemblance3.3 Reference and Reality 4. Narrative Imagination and Personal Identity 4.1 Narrative Identity4.2 The Mimetic Arc4.3 Narrative Identity Between Art and Life 5. Identity and Selfhood 5.1 Identity and Language5.2 Identity and Sameness5.3 Identity, Selfhood, and Ontology ConclusionEthical Reciprocity or Mutuality?Identifying Selfhood NotesBibliographyIndex