Ricœur e il concetto jaspersiano di «cifra»

Abstract

Ricœur’s interpretation of Jaspers’ thought endeavors to underscore that this philosophy cannot be confined to a meditation on the inner drama of freedom or a mere analytics of existence, as is frequently purported. Instead, it proffers a contemplation on the status of absolute reality, as revealed by the “ciphers” of transcendence. For Jaspers, metaphysics concerns itself with objects that, in fact, dissolve as objects and are comprehensible only to existence. Ciphers are the language that captures the reality of being in its evanescence. The original ciphers of transcendence are found, on the one hand, in myths and religions, and on the other, in ontological systems. The task of philosophy, in this human language, is to capture the immediate presence of transcendence. Metaphysics thus becomes a hermeneutics of ciphers as the language of being. This conception of metaphysics as a hermeneutics of the ciphers of transcendence, as developed by Jaspers, provides the theoretical foundation for Ricœur’s hermeneutic philosophy, as further elaborated in his subsequent works.