Key Arguments

• Ricoeur introduces this domain by saying that 'The second signification contained in the metacategory of otherness—the otherness of other people—is closely tied to the modalities oi passivity that the phenomenological hermcncutic of the self has come across repeatedly throughout the earlier studies concerning the relation of the self to the other than self', directly linking other persons to modes of passivity.
• He claims that this hermeneutic 'attests that here the Other is not only the counterpart of the Same but belongs to the intimate constitution of its sense', so alterity of persons is intrinsic to the meaning of the Same.
• He marks the contrast with egology: 'on the properly phenomenological level, the multiple ways in which the other than self affects the understanding of the self by itself marks, precisely, the difference between the ego that posits itself and the self" that recognizes itself only through these very affections.'
• He insists that 'There is not a single one of our analyses in which this specific passivity of the self affected by the other than self is not announced.', showing that this structure has been present at every earlier level (language, action, narrative, ethics).
• On the linguistic plane, 'the speaker's self-designation appeared to be intertwined, to employ a familiar term of Husscrlian terminology, to the speech situa tion by virtue of which every participant is affected by the speech ad dressed to him or to her. Listening to speech then becomes an integral part of discourse inasmuch as it is itself addressed to another.', so being-addressed and listening are constitutive affections of the speaking self.
• For action, 'the self-designation of the agent of action appeared to be inseparable from the ascription by another, who designates me in the accusative as the author of my actions. In this ex change between ascription in the second person and self-designation, one can say that the reflexive recovery of this being-affected by the ascription pronounced by others is intertwined with the intimate ascription of action to oneself.', making self-ascription reflexively depend on prior being-ascribed by others.
• He notes that this intertwining 'is expressed on the grammatical plane by the omnipersonal character of the self, which circulates among all the pro nouns. The affection of the self by the other than self is the basis for this ordered exchange between the grammatical persons.', tying the structure of personal pronouns to the affective relation between self and others.
• On the narrative plane, 'the same exchange between the affected self and the affecting other ... governs ... the way the reader of a story assumes the roles held by the characters, which arc most often con structed in the third person, inasmuch as they enter into the plot at the same time as the action recounted.', so reading involves an affective role‑taking mediated by others-as-characters.
• He identifies 'Reading, as the milieu in which the transfer between the world of the narrative—and hence the world of the literary characters as well—and the world of the reader takes place, [as] a privileged place and bond for the affection of the reading subject.', making reception of narratives a central modality of being-affected by others.
• He generalizes: 'It thus appears that the affection of the self by the other than self finds in fiction a privileged milieu for thought experiments that cannot be eclipsed by the "real" relations of interlocution and interaction. Quite the opposite, the reception of works of fiction contributes to the imaginary and symbolic constitution of the actual exchanges of words and actions. Being-affected in the fictive mode is therefore incorporated into the self's being-affected in the "real" mode.', so fictional otherness shapes and is integrated into real intersubjective life.

Source Quotes

b. The Otherness of Other People The second signification contained in the metacategory of otherness—the otherness of other people—is closely tied to the modalities oi passivity that the phenomenological hermcncutic of the self has come across repeatedly throughout the earlier studies concerning the relation of the self to the other than self A new dialectic of the Same and the Other is produced by this hermencutic, which, in many ways, attests that here the Other is not only the counterpart of the Same but belongs to the intimate constitution of its sense. Indeed, on the properly phenomenological level, the multiple ways in which the other than self affects the understanding of the self by itself marks, precisely, the difference between the ego that posits itself and the self" that recognizes itself only through these very affections.

The Otherness of Other People The second signification contained in the metacategory of otherness—the otherness of other people—is closely tied to the modalities oi passivity that the phenomenological hermcncutic of the self has come across repeatedly throughout the earlier studies concerning the relation of the self to the other than self A new dialectic of the Same and the Other is produced by this hermencutic, which, in many ways, attests that here the Other is not only the counterpart of the Same but belongs to the intimate constitution of its sense. Indeed, on the properly phenomenological level, the multiple ways in which the other than self affects the understanding of the self by itself marks, precisely, the difference between the ego that posits itself and the self" that recognizes itself only through these very affections. There is not a single one of our analyses in which this specific passivity of the self affected by the other than self is not announced.

Even on the linguistic plane, the speaker's self-designation appeared to be intertwined, to employ a familiar term of Husscrlian terminology, to the speech situa tion by virtue of which every participant is affected by the speech ad dressed to him or to her. Listening to speech then becomes an integral part of discourse inasmuch as it is itself addressed to another. In the second phase of our work, the self-designation of the agent of action appeared to be inseparable from the ascription by another, who designates me in the accusative as the author of my actions.

It is, once again, the same exchange between the affected self and the affecting other that governs, on the narrative plane, the way the reader of a story assumes the roles held by the characters, which arc most often con structed in the third person, inasmuch as they enter into the plot at the same time as the action recounted. Reading, as the milieu in which the transfer between the world of the narrative—and hence the world of the literary characters as well—and the world of the reader takes place, constitutes a privileged place and bond for the affection of the reading subject. The reader's catharsis, we might say—freely borrowing some of the categories from H.

Quite the opposite, the reception of works of fiction contributes to the imaginary and symbolic constitution of the actual exchanges of words and actions. Being-affected in the fictive mode is therefore incorporated into the self's being-affected in the "real" mode. It is finally on the ethical plane that the affection of the self by the other displays the specific features that belong as much to the properly ethical plane as to the moral plane of obligation.

Key Concepts

• The second signification contained in the metacategory of otherness—the otherness of other people—is closely tied to the modalities oi passivity that the phenomenological hermcncutic of the self has come across repeatedly throughout the earlier studies concerning the relation of the self to the other than self
• a new dialectic of the Same and the Other is produced by this hermencutic, which, in many ways, attests that here the Other is not only the counterpart of the Same but belongs to the intimate constitution of its sense.
• the multiple ways in which the other than self affects the understanding of the self by itself marks, precisely, the difference between the ego that posits itself and the self" that recognizes itself only through these very affections.
• Listening to speech then becomes an integral part of discourse inasmuch as it is itself addressed to another.
• Reading, as the milieu in which the transfer between the world of the narrative—and hence the world of the literary characters as well—and the world of the reader takes place, constitutes a privileged place and bond for the affection of the reading subject.
• Being-affected in the fictive mode is therefore incorporated into the self's being-affected in the "real" mode.

Context

Opening pages of 'b. The Otherness of Other People' in the Tenth Study, where Ricoeur surveys earlier levels (language, action, narrative, ethics) to show how, throughout his hermeneutics of the self, the self has always been constituted through specific forms of passivity in relation to others, with fiction highlighted as a privileged site of such affection.