Towards a "Hermeneutics of Historical Consciousness"? Questioning Ricoeur

In the present text I address some problems regarding the hermeneutical project developed by Paul Ricoeur. Hence, I attempt (1) to highlight three issues which confine the difficulty in understanding Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics, and (2) to point out, as an example, that Ricoeur's "hermeneutics of historical consciousness" addresses a non-hermeneutic debate. The indirect thesis of my text is that one always has to consider Ricoeur's hermeneutics as a "work in progress" even when he clearly emphasizes that "the text" must be regarded as the centre of hermeneutics and my main thesis is that one always has to pay particular attention to Ricoeur's non-hermeneutic insights when he addresses a hermeneutic problem.