In the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, one of the most important debates concerns the relationship between explanation (Erklären) and understanding (Verstehen). Borrowing from Wilhelm Dilthey and engaging with analytic philosophy, Ricoeur sought to overcome the divide between the natural sciences (which emphasize explanation) and the human sciences (which emphasize understanding). His hermeneutics insists that the two are not opposed but complementary moments in interpretation.
Explanation: The Objective Dimension
Explanation, for Ricoeur, refers to the analytical and structural examination of texts and actions. In this mode, we treat a text as an object: analyzing grammar, structure, patterns, and causal relations. Explanation relies on distance—stepping back from lived experience to view the text scientifically. This is where methods from linguistics, semiotics, and structuralism play a role.
For example, when analyzing a biblical parable, explanation might involve looking at its literary form, historical context, or rhetorical structure. It seeks clarity through detachment.
Understanding: The Subjective Dimension
Understanding, by contrast, is about appropriation and lived meaning. It involves placing oneself within the “world of the text” and allowing its meaning to reconfigure one’s own self-understanding. This is not about abstract analysis but about existential engagement.
Using the same parable example, understanding would mean asking: What does this story reveal about human life? How does it speak to me or to my community?
Ricoeur’s Mediation of the Two
Rather than treating explanation and understanding as opposites, Ricoeur integrates them into a dialectical process. Explanation provides the necessary distanciation, allowing us to see the text in its objectivity. Understanding completes the process by appropriation, bringing the meaning of the text into the life of the reader.
His famous formula captures this:
“To explain is to bring out the structure, to understand is to appropriate the meaning.”
Interpretation thus moves in a spiral: from naïve understanding, through explanation, and back to a deeper understanding.
The Role of the Text
Texts, for Ricoeur, are crucial because they embody this dual nature. A text can be analyzed like an object but also read as a projection of a possible world. The surplus of meaning within texts makes both explanation and understanding necessary. Without explanation, interpretation risks subjectivism; without understanding, it risks reductionism.
Ricoeur’s synthesis has profound implications for the human sciences. It insists that knowledge of human action, history, and identity cannot be reduced to causal laws alone, nor can it remain at the level of subjective empathy. True interpretation requires both the rigor of explanation and the existential depth of understanding.
This is why Ricoeur applies the model to narrative identity and social being: human lives can be studied through structures and institutions (explanation), but they can only be fully grasped through the lived meanings they project (understanding).
