Horizons of Expectation. Ricoeur, Derrida, Patocka

STUDIA PHÆNOMENOLOGICA XIII (2013) 297–323

Horizons of Expectation. Ricœur, Derrida, Patočka

Eddo EvinkUniversity of Groningen

Abstract: In several texts, Paul Ricœur has elaborated diff erent concepts of horizon: the horizon of tradition that shapes our perspectives, the horizon as a careful set of determinations of the future, the horizon as a divine call that comes from the future towards us. However, the connection of these three views on the horizon, together with the explicitly Christian interpretation of the third horizon are problematic elements in Ricœur’s thoughts on this topic. In this article his views are confronted with the criticism of Jacques Derrida, who uses a quite diff erent notion of horizon: an enclosing limit that dominates the understanding of what seems to fi t in its circle. Finally, the notions of ho-rizon and history as formulated by Jan Patočka provide valuable alternatives to Ricœur’s problematic versions of the horizons of expectation, while leaving the underlying thread of his understanding of horizon intact.

Keywords: Ricœur, Derrida, Patočka, Horizon, Expectation, Ideology, Eschatology

Th e term horizon has a long history as a metaphor in philosophy. Already in ancient Greek texts one can fi nd the term ‘horisdein’ in its metaphorical meaning of demarcating or creating a border. In modern philosophy, at least from Leibniz on, horizon has been frequently used as a metaphor for the de-marcation of a certain domain of knowledge.

In the Lebensphilosophie of Nietzsche and Dilthey, the term receives a more outlined meaning, referring to the historical and cultural borders of fi nite human life. All human activities are embedded in cultural, historical structures that cannot be mastered or overlooked. Every eff ort to refl ect on these cultural horizons is itself always already embedded in other horizons.1 Here the horizon becomes a border by which man himself is limited and

1 Engfer, Jansen and Scherener 1974: 3, 1194–1206.

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determined. Horizons are determining for the historical and cultural perspec-tives we can participate in. As the framework of our experience, it is both limit and condition of possibility. As a demarcation the horizon delimits what we can see and thereby shows us the fi nitude and contextuality of our existence. As a framework it makes it possible for us to see: there is no experience pos-sible outside of a horizonal context.

Th ese two meanings of horizon will be central in this article that focuses on Paul Ricœur’s notion of horizon. Th e leading question will be: what is the proper use and understanding of the phenomenological idea of horizon? I shall start with a short and introductory section on the horizon in Husserl and Heidegger (§1). Th en Ricœur’s view of the horizon will be discussed, with an emphasis on the horizon of the future, the horizon of expectation (§2). Th is view will be confronted with Derrida’s critique (§3) after which a discussion of this criticism will follow that will mainly defend Ricœur’s point of view, but will also point at two problems with Ricœur’s idea of the horizon of expecta-tion (§3.1.). Finally, these problems will be answered and the Ricœurian un-derstanding of the horizon will be reinforced with the help of some suggestions drawn from the work of Jan Patočka (§4).

1. Husserl, Heidegger. Th e phenomenon of horizon

In Husserl’s phenomenology, the idea of horizon has reached the status of a philosophical concept. Th e Husserlian horizon has the same double meaning that was given above: limit and necessary framework. Th ere is also a diff er-ence with regard to Nietzsche and Dilthey, who mainly thought of historical and cultural frames. Husserl often uses horizon with a more abstract meaning and for the most part in the context of knowledge and experience. We never experience phenomena purely in themselves, but always as part of a context; they derive their meaning from their context. As synonym of horizon, Hus-serl mentions: “Hof,” “Hintergrund,” and “Wahrnehmungsfeld”: courtyard, background and fi eld of experience.2 In many of his texts, horizon is more or less similar to world.3

Th e more abstract use of the metaphor by Husserl can be illustrated by his distinction between an inner and an outer horizon. Th e inner horizon comprises what seems to be absent in the perception of an object: the parts we cannot see but of which we immediately know they are there. Th e outer horizon determines the place of the phenomenon in its context, the way it is located in space and in networks of references.

2 Husserl 1976: 71–73, 186 / 70–73, 197; Husserl 1963: 84–86, 131–133; Husserl 1962: 365–386; Husserl 1985: 26–35; Husserl 2008: 53–143.

3 Th ese two terms are not synonyms, but their range of meanings has a signifi cant overlap.

Horizons of Expectation. Ricœur, Derrida, Patočka 299

Horizon recurrently also receives a temporal meaning. Husserl then speaks of horizon as a set of predelineated potentialities (vorgezeichnete Potential-itäten): every experience has a realm of potentialities that can be further expe-rienced and examined. In addition, in the phenomenology of time conscious-ness, Husserl distinguishes a threefold horizon of time: “der Horizont vom Vorhin, der Horizont vom Nachher und der Horizont vom Gegenwart”—the horizons of what has been (what has left its traces), what will be (what can be expected) and what is now (horizon of several experiences at the same time). Th is threefold temporal horizon is also one of the many places where one can fi nd the tension in the later Husserl between the Cartesian tendency towards unity in the transcendental ego and the hermeneutical interpretation of the lifeworld. On the one hand, the three horizons have a common origin as Originaritätshorizont in the pure ego. On the other hand, Husserl speaks of “endless horizons,” the unity of which must be thought of as a Kantian Idea. Both sides are taken together as a “streaming horizon”: a continuous move-ment of horizons within the stream of consciousness.4

Another problematic domain of Husserl’s phenomenology in which the notion of horizon plays an important role is the recognition of the other ego in the fi fth Cartesian Meditation. Only by the use of the idea of horizon is Husserl is able to step from the perception of the body of the other to the immediate recognition of the other’s consciousness. Th e consciousness of the other is only recognizable as the necessary horizon of her body.5

In the later genetic phenomenology the horizon becomes more and more a cornerstone of Husserl’s project. Th e historical development of scientifi c knowledge presupposes the horizons of a language community and of human-ity as such, in which it is embedded. Th e life-world is the ultimate background of any judgment and ideal object as “the horizon of all possible substrates of judgments.”6 Here we reach the idea of the world as a “horizon of horizons,” the ultimate idea of order and coherence as such.

Th e phenomenological horizon is also an important element in the thought of Heidegger, although he, like Husserl, usually prefers the term world. Th e status of the horizons, however, is diff erent. Whereas Husserl seeks to fi nd the origin of all horizons in the subject, Heidegger insists that Dasein always fi nds itself within horizons. Heidegger also distinguishes a threefold horizon of time: Gewesenheit, Gegenwart and Zukunft. Th e future receives a greater emphasis in Heidegger, since Dasein is always directed towards the coming future as being-able-to or Sein-können. Likewise, the horizon of the future, i.e. the horizon of expectancy, becomes one of the most important horizons. On the one hand, this horizon of expectation is very open and receptive, for

4 Husserl 1966.5 Husserl 1963: 89–150.6 Husserl 1985: 36 / 39.

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we can never know or control the future; on the other hand, Heidegger takes all horizons of the future together in the concept of care (Sorge), in order to secure the unity and wholeness of Dasein.

Heidegger mostly uses the metaphor of the horizon as a methodical term: In Being and Time he is in search of an understanding of time as the horizon from where we may fi nd an understanding of Being, or at least the horizon of time from within which we can ask the question of Being.7 Th is horizon is not already there, as the contingent historical and cultural horizon in which we are thrown; it is a starting position that has to be developed methodically.8

In Heidegger, therefore, several notions of horizon go together that will be divided by the second generation of phenomenologists. By now we have found three distinctions:

1/ horizon as an enclosing limit and as condition of possibility, i.e. as openness;

2/ horizon as a framework of the past and the present and as an expectancy of the future;

3/ horizon as a framework that has already been given and as a framework that has to be developed methodically.

2. Ricœur

Paul Ricœur does not discuss the term “horizon” very often explicitly, but one can fi nd passages with remarks on the notion of horizon scattered over his oeuvre. In this section, I shall fi rst discuss a few observations in From Text to Action, then a passage in Time and Narrative, before fi nally going to the per-haps most signifi cant remarks on the horizon in Freud and Philosophy. In these texts, Ricœur elaborates on diff erent aspects of the horizon. He takes over the distinctions that were mentioned above and also adds other distinctions, which, as will be demonstrated, leads to contradictions between the diff erent meanings of “horizon”.

2.1. Horizon as framework and as methodical projection

In several passages in his work, Paul Ricœur refers with approval to the way Hans-Georg Gadamer uses the concept of horizon. Gadamer takes up again the hermeneutic notion of horizon that can be found in, among others, Dilthey: the horizon as the historical and cultural background that shapes our perspective. Gadamer emphasizes the way in which horizons can restrain us from becoming too narrow minded. As a cultural phenomenon it always includes other points of view and diff erent perspectives. Th e fi nitude of our

7 Heidegger 1927: 39.8 Staudigl 2004: 264–267.


culturally determined point of view is compensated by the openness to and inclusion of other angles:

Th e horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point. Applying this to the thinking mind, we speak of narrowness of horizon, of the possible expansion of horizon, of the opening up of new horizons, and so forth. Since Nietzsche and Husserl, the word has been used in philosophy to characterize the way in which thought is tied to its fi nite determinacy, and the way one’s range of vision is gradually expanded.9

We always share horizons with others, and therefore they are never closed. For the same reason, the horizon is also a border that we cannot control, we are more shaped and moulded by our culture and history than that we can shape them. Horizons are ever moving and changing borders, that cannot be localized or objectifi ed:

Just as the individual is never simply an individual because he is always in un-derstanding with others, so too the closed horizon that is supposed to enclose a culture is an abstraction. Th e historical movement of human life consists in the fact that it is never absolutely bound to any one standpoint, and hence can never have a truly closed horizon. Th e horizon is, rather, something into which we move and that moves with us. Horizons change for a person who is moving.10

Th e horizon, in short, is a fl exible, moving, implicit and open demarcation that cannot be objectifi ed and that always already surrounds us. Gadamer uses these characteristics of the horizon in re-establishing the old notion of the hermeneutic circle with his famous idea of a “fusion of horizons” (Hori-zontverschmelzung). He does not only speak here of a fusion of the horizon of the interpreter with the horizon of the interpretandum, but also, in terms of historiography, of a fusion of the horizon of the present with the horizon of the past. Th e interpreter, e.g. a historian, enters into a dialogue with the in-terpretandum, e.g. the past, and the horizons within which they function, are involved in this dialogue as well. Th e presuppositions of the interpreter form the point of departure and guiding focus at the start of the interpretation, but can be disputed and refuted in the course of the interpretation. Horizons change in their fusion. Th e distinction between horizons, before and in their fusion, is, however, according to Gadamer, a methodological distinction that should not hide the fact that there actually is only one horizon: one horizon to which the interpreter and the interpretandum always already belong.11

9 Gadamer 1960: 307 / 301.10 Gadamer 1960: 309 / 303. 11 Gadamer 1960: 307–310 / 301–304.

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In many respects Ricœur follows Gadamer in the way he brings into play the notion of horizon. In his view the theory of fusion of horizons fi nds the right balance between fi xed objectivity and absolute understanding, as well as between Hegelian absolutism and a Nietzschean “radical pluralism”.12 Th e fusion of horizons neither leads to incommunicado nor to absolute knowledge. It combines the fi niteness of specifi c perspectives with the necessary guidance of their focus. ‘Horizon’ thus stands for the combination of coherence and openness, unity and ambivalence, guidance and free imagination. According to Ricœur, “we exist neither in closed horizons nor within a horizon that is unique. […] Th e very word horizon indicates an ultimate repudiation of the idea of a knowledge wherein the fusion of horizons would itself be grasped.”13

But with regard to several elements of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and his view on horizons, Ricœur is critical as well. In Gadamer’s thematization of the cultural tradition as one horizon, he discerns a tension between alienation and belonging.14 Th is tension is made explicit by Ricœur with an emphasis on the distanciation of author and text. In four steps, he analyses the way in which a text distances itself from its author: discourse, structural work, writing and world. Th e analysis of this process of distanciation allows him to combine a hermeneutical interpretation with the methodological approach of, among other methods, structuralism.15 Here we fi nd an important diff erence between Gadamer and Ricœur. Whereas Gadamer rejects the view that interpretation within the humanities would need a specifi c method or methodological refl ec-tion—one of the main statements of Truth and Method—, Ricœur thinks that the inclusion of methodological analyses in interpretation is essential for the further development of hermeneutics.

Th e introduction of such a methodological approach of texts and inter-pretation also changes the features of the horizon, although Ricœur does not mention this explicitly. It implies a distinction between the cultural and tradi-tional horizon that always already surrounds us and the horizon as a coherent view that we project on the text or cultural object that we try to understand. Th is distinction can be compared with Heidegger’s use of the concept of world: we are already in the world and we also construct worlds, we are an In-der-Welt-sein as weltbildend. In other words, Ricœur introduces in Gadamer’s idea of a fusion of horizons the third distinction inherent in the notion of horizon, that I discerned in Heidegger’s usage of it: the distinction of horizon as a framework that has already been given and as a framework that has to be developed methodically.

12 Ricœur 1986c: 383–384 / 282–283.13 Ricœur 1986c: 384 / 282–283. With regard to the openness of hermeneutics compared

to the closed language system in structuralism, cf. the fi rst three articles in Ricœur 1969: 31–97 / 27–96.

14 Ricœur 1986a : 106–111 / 70–74. 15 Ricœur 1986a : 113–131 / 75–88.


2.2. Horizon as an opening limit

Th e second horizon in this distinction, the horizon that shapes the ex-pected coherence that we project on the text, work of art, etc., which we try to interpret, can also be called a horizon of expectation.16 It is the fi rst step in the process of interpretation that takes place through the hermeneutic circle. Th e diff erence between the horizon we come from and the horizon that we envisage, is further developed by Ricœur in the fourth part of Time and Nar-rative, with the help of a terminological distinction that he borrows from the German historian Reinhart Koselleck. Koselleck makes a division between the space of experience (espace d’expérience, Erfahrungsraum), which equates the horizon of the past and the present, and the horizon of expectation (horizon d’attente, Erwartungshorizont).17

Both Koselleck’s terminological distinction and Ricœur’s use of it take place in the realm of historiography. In a large historiographical project, Ko-selleck has traced the changes in the historical and political vocabulary in late 18th century German. Th e word Geschichte, e.g., has replaced Historie and is also being used in singular instead of only in plural. In order to understand changes like these, Koselleck distinguishes between the space of experience—the realm that the past and tradition delivers us as our framework of refer-ences—and the horizon of expectation—the open perspective that is directed towards the future. On the one hand, expectations of the future cannot be thought without emerging from out of the horizon that a tradition gives us. But on the other hand, the space of experience does in no way determine the horizon of expectancy because the expectations are far too open and undeter-mined to be controlled by any tradition or experience. In short, the space of experience and the horizon of expectation are mutually dependent. Ricœur follows Koselleck in these analyses:

As for the expression “horizon of expectation”, it could not have been better chosen. For one thing, the term “expectation” is broad enough to include hope and fear, what is wished for and what is chosen, rational calculation, curios-ity—in short, every private or public manifestation aimed at the future. […] If, for another thing, we speak here of a horizon rather than of space, this is to indicate the power of unfolding as much as of surpassing that is attached to expectation. In this way, the lack of symmetry between the space of experience and the horizon of expectation is underscored. Th is opposition between gath-ering together and unfolding implies that experience tends toward integration, expectation tends toward the breaking open of perspectives. […] In this sense, expectation cannot be derived from experience. […] Conversely, there is no surprise for which the baggage of experience is too light […] Hence the space

16 Ricœur 1986a: 314–317 / 172–173.17 Ricœur 1986a: 376–377 / 208–209; cf. Koselleck 1979: 349–375.

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of experience and the horizon of expectation do more than stand in a polar opposition, they mutually condition each other.18

But Koselleck and Ricœur have a diff erent agenda. Koselleck is interested in showing the changes in the semantic history that accompany the develop-ment of modern political thought. One of the characteristic changes in the modern terminology of history and politics that Koselleck’s conceptual his-tory is able to show, is the growing distinction between the space of experience and the horizon of expectation. In the historical and political thought of the Enlightenment the idea of a new era, Neue Zeit, came up accompanying the belief that the past and its traditions were to be left behind and the world of the future to be created anew.

Although this is important for Ricœur’s point of view, he prefers to detach these two categories from this modern historical development and to see them as having a universal value.19 Th erefore he gives them, in line with Koselleck’s own remarks, a meta-historical, philosophical-anthropological and transcen-dental status:

Koselleck is perfectly justifi ed in taking them as metahistorical categories, ap-plicable at the level of philosophical anthropology. In this way, they govern all the ways in which human beings in every age have thought about their exis-tence in terms of history […]. In this sense, one can grant them the vocabulary of conditions of possibility, that qualify them as transcendental.20

Th e recognition of the tension between space of experience and horizon of expectancy is, according to Ricœur, exactly the sign of the threat that they might be separated. We only start to see the connection between past and future, once they tend to be taken apart and to be unconnected. Here we can see the rise of utopian thought that threatens to change the distinction into a schism.

If the newness of the Neuzeit was only perceived thanks to the growing dif-ference between experience and expectation […] then the tension between experience and expectation could only be recognized at the moment when its breaking point was already in sight. Th e idea of progress which still bound the past to a better future […] tends to give way to the idea of utopia as soon as the hopes of humanity lose their anchorage in acquired experience and are projected into an unprecedented future. With such utopias, the tension becomes a schism.21

18 Ricœur 1985: 376–377 / 208–209.19 Ricœur gives a detailed argumentation to defend this shift from historical to universal

categories; cf. Ricœur 1985: 379–389. I leave a discussion of this argumentation aside here.20 Ricœur 1985: 386 / 214 [surprisingly, the last sentence of this quotation and a few that

follow, are entirely missing in the translation]. 21 Ricœur 1985: 388 / 215.


Th us, the two categories of space of experience and horizon of expectation have important ethical and political implications. Th ey should not be sepa-rated by regarding the past as over, closed and determined, and by looking at the future as radically indeterminate and open for new and pure creations. In order not to let the expectations not be too vague and unpractical, they need to be regulated at least to a certain extent by the facts and developments of past and present. At the same time, the past needs to be reopened so that we can recognize its hidden and unaccomplished potentialities.

Th e permanent ethical and political implication of these metahistorical cat-egories of expectation and experience is thus clear. Th e task is to prevent the tension between these two poles of thinking about history from becoming a schism. […] On the one hand, we must resist the seduction of purely uto-pian expectations. Th ey can only make us despair of all action, for, lacking an anchorage in experience, they are incapable of formulating a practical path directed to the ideals that they situate “elsewhere”. […] On the other hand, we must also resist any narrowing of the space of experience. […] We have to reopen the past, to revivify its unaccomplished, cut-off —even slaughtered—possibilities. In short, when confronted with the adage that the future is open and contingent in every respect but that the past is unequivocally closed and necessary, we have to make our expectations more determinate and our experi-ence less so.22

In other words, only by combining the diff erent aspects of the notion of horizon—the horizon as both enclosing limit and as openness; the horizon as a framework of the past and the present and as an expectancy of the future—the dangers of utopian ideologies can be prevented.

2.3. Horizon as projection and as unexpected future.

Th is point of view has received a specifi c elaboration in an earlier work of Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy, again in terms of horizon, but with signifi cant diff erences. Here Ricœur develops a notion of horizon as that which comes to us from beyond any projection, as entirely other, even as Holy Other. At the end of his long ‘essay’ on Freud, in which he has searched for the character-istics and rules of the interpretation of symbols, Ricœur focuses his attention on the religious symbol. On the basis of extended readings of Freud, Ricœur has unfolded the dialectics between archeological and teleological interpreta-tions. He places the Freudian inclination to interpret personal behavior and cultural expressions by reducing them to traces of the psychological-econom-ical system over against the Hegelian idea of interpretation as a gathering of meaning within a historical context of growing self-understanding. Th ese

22 Ricœur 1985: 389–390 / 215–216.

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two approaches have appeared to be not only competitive but also and even more supplementary, and to go together in a dialectical tension. In Ricœur’s view they are combined in an exemplary manner in the symbol: “We now know that the key to the solution lies in the dialectic between archeology and teleology. It remains to fi nd the concrete ‘mixed texture’ in which we see the archeology and teleology. Th is concrete mixed texture is symbol.”23

After having demonstrated this dialectics at work in sublimation and in the cultural object, Ricœur turns to the religious symbol. He starts by stating that the ‘problematic of faith’ lies beyond the reach of philosophical refl ection. Its source is beyond philosophical refl ection as well, in the revelation that addresses the religious individual. “Th e origin of faith lies in the solicitation of man by the object of faith”.24 Both the archeological and the teleological interpretation fall short of a suffi cient understanding of the religious symbol. An archeologi-cal interpretation can only reach what is already there in the cogito and its (un)consciousness; the teleological interpretation can only project an ultimate sense that can always be understood as a self-projection. Beyond these extrapolations Ricœur senses another source that we can never control or supervise, but to which we can only answer: “Compared to this archeology of myself and to this teleology of myself, genesis and eschatology are Wholly Other.”25

Th is Wholly Other [Tout-Autre] turns out to be a Holy Other as well. One can only speak of such a Wholly Other after the Holy Other has revealed itself. In this revelation the Wholly Other ceases to be Wholly Other and enters into a relation with the believer that can only be a relation of dialogue and interpretation:

To be sure, I speak of the Wholly Other only insofar as it addresses itself to me; and the kerygma, the glad tidings, is precisely that it addresses itself to me and ceases to be the Wholly Other. Of an absolute Wholly Other I know noth-ing at all. But by its very manner of approaching, of coming, it shows itself to be Wholly Other than the archê and the telos which I can conceptualize in refl ective thought. It shows itself as Wholly Other by annihilating its radical otherness.26

By revealing itself, the Wholly Other makes itself immanent in human dis-course, as Wholly Other. It enters the dialectics of archeology and teleology, but only as genesis and eschatology, as that which lies beyond both. It is here that Ricœur introduces the term “horizon”. Th e horizon stands for that which appears without becoming an object. It is that which approaches refl ection while always remaining unreachable and beyond:

23 Ricœur 1965: 516 / 494.24 Ricœur 1965: 547 / 525.25 Ricœur 1965: 548 / 525.26 Ricœur 1965: 548 / 525.


Creation and eschatology present themselves as the horizon of my archeology and the horizon of my teleology. Horizon is the metaphor for what approaches without ever becoming a possessed object. Th e alpha and omega approach re-fl ection as the horizon of my roots and the horizon of my intendings or aims; it is the radical of the radical, the supreme of the supreme.27

According to Ricœur, a phenomenology of the sacred has to go together here with a kerygmatic theology in the style of Barth and Bultmann. Why does Ricœur introduce this element of revelation and faith that leads be-yond philosophical refl ection? He brings only one argument to the fore: every teleological refl ection, even if it has the pretention of absolute knowl-edge, fi nds its failure in the problem of evil. Th e symbol, the concrete “mix-ture” of archeology and teleology also leads beyond both, in the form of the symbolism of evil. Symbols give us food for thought, they are in need of rational interpretation, but they are also the witnesses of the limits of ratio-nal refl ection, they lead beyond thought as well. What comes from beyond, is, however, exclusively thematised by Ricœur as a Christian revelation, in terms of genesis, eschatology, kerygma, faith, and with references to the theology of Barth and Bultmann.

In this section of Freud and Philosophy, “horizon” refers to this beyond. It is not anymore the projection of a future, but it is, in a way, its exact opposite. Th e horizon of expectation is beyond any teleological projection, it cannot be grasped by it, it interrupts every teleology; teleological refl ection can only be understood as an answer to this horizon that comes to us:

It is solely through its relation to the immanent teleology of the fi gures of culture that the sacred concerns this philosophy; the sacred is its eschatology; it is the horizon that refl ection does not comprehend, does not encompass, but can only salute as that which quietly presents itself from afar [ce qui vient à elle sur des pattes d’oiseaux].28

Th e symbol testifi es of this tension between rational understanding and its beyond. It always tends to let itself be objectifi ed and resists this objectifi -cation at the same time: “It seems that such a horizon, by a kind of diabolic conversion, inevitably tends to become transformed into an object.”29 Fol-lowing Kant, Ricœur speaks of a necessary illusion that accompanies every thinking of the unconditional. In this process of problematic objectifi cation Ricœur fi nds the birth of metaphysics and religion. Both tend to objectify the Wholly Other and to create new spheres of objects and institutions, without

27 Ricœur 1965: 548–549 / 526.28 Ricœur 1965: 552 / 529.29 Ricœur 1965: 552 / 529.

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which no testimony of the Other would be possible. Every testimony of the Holy Other, however, runs the risk of turning into an idol. Comparably, every careful exploring of a future justice may turn into an enclosing ideology.

Faith is that region of the symbolic where the horizon-function is constantly being reduced to the object-function; thus arise idols, the religious fi gures of that same illusion which in metaphysics engenders the concepts of a supreme being, fi rst substance, absolute thought. An idol is the reifi cation of the ho-rizon into a thing, the fall of the sign into a supernatural and supracultural object. […] Th us the idols must die—so that symbols may live.30

In summary, Ricœur takes over the characteristics of the horizon that were distinguished before, but adds two distinctions that complicate the use of the notion of horizon. Horizon can also be taken as that which comes to us from the future; and as originating from an absolute alterity that can only be spo-ken of in religious terms. Th e short list of distinctions that was found in the work of Heidegger, can be supplemented with two tensions:

1/ horizon as an enclosing limit and as condition of possibility, i.e. as openness;

2/ horizon as a framework of the past and the present and as an expectancy of the future;

3/ horizon as a framework that has already been given and as a framework that has to be developed methodically;

4/ horizon as a rational projection of the future and as a given and unpre-dicted future that comes to us and interrupts every projection;

5/ horizon as a mundane expectation of the future and as a religious, i.e. Christian, revelation of a Wholly and Holy Other.

Th ese additions raise two questions:1/ Th is list of characteristics of horizons of expectation does not only men-

tion tensions, but seems to contain contradictions as well, e.g., horizon as a, perhaps methodical, projection of the future, and as that which comes to us from an absolute beyond and interrupts any projection. Can these character-istics be combined in one notion of horizon?

2/ Th e introduction of a Christian horizon of expectancy beyond rational refl ection is problematic within philosophy. How can this step be justifi ed philosophically? Does this idea of horizon have characteristics that can be adopted by a philosophical approach without leaving the philosophical realm of radical critical questioning and without subjecting to a religious revelation?

Th ese are the main questions that we need to keep in mind, when we take a look at what Jacques Derrida has to say about horizons of expectation.

30 Ricœur 1965: 553–554 / 530–531.


3. Derrida

In Derrida’s work, we can fi nd a diff erent view on the idea of the horizon. An examination of his use of the term has to go back to his fi rst texts from the 1950s and ’60s. Th e phenomenology of the late Husserl is his primary subject in these texts. As we have seen above, in Husserl’s later genetic phenomenol-ogy the concept of horizon receives a crucial position. In his dissertation Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl as well as in his introduction to Th e Origin of Geometry, Derrida underlines the importance of the horizon as one of the basic presuppositions of Husserl’s philosophy. Th e justifi cation of scientifi c knowledge that Husserl’s phenomenology tries to guarantee pre-supposes regulative idea of science, as well as a linguistic community and an idea of humanity in general, as the necessary background for intersubjective understanding and for an openness for new theoretical determinations. Hus-serl calls this “the horizon of all possible substrates of judgments.”31 According to Derrida, this horizon functions as a Kantian regulative idea. It is less neutral than Husserl suggests. “Within the horizon of this consciousness of fellow mankind, it is ‘mature, normal’ mankind that is ‘privileged’, both ‘as the ho-rizon of civilization and as the linguistic community’.”32 In Derrida’s reading this implies “[…] the index of an ideal normativity which is on the horizon of de facto normal adults.”33 Th e Husserlian horizon thus serves as an openness for new theoretical knowledge, but also as a normative principle that decides what does and what does not belong to theoretical knowledge:

We are clearly dealing with a primordial knowledge concerning the totality of possible historical experiences. Horizon is the always-already-there of a future which keeps the indetermination of its infi nite openness intact. […] As the structural determination of every material indeterminacy, a horizon is always virtually present in every experience; for it is at once the unity and the incom-pletion for that experience—the anticipated unity in every incompletion. Th e notion of horizon converts the abstract condition of possibility of criticism into the concrete infi nite potentiality secretly presupposed therein. Th e notion of horizon thus makes the a priori and the teleological coincide.34

Th is view of the horizon as a regulative Kantian Idea has turned out to be decisive in Derrida’s use of this metaphor. In Derrida’s opinion, the open-ness of the horizon always remains subordinate to the normative guidance of the presupposed coherence. Th e openness necessarily fi nds its limits in a

31 Husserl 1985: 36 / 39; quoted in Derrida 1990a: 186 / 109.32 Derrida 1962: 74 / 79.33 Derrida 1962: 75/80.34 Derrida 1962: 123 / 117 [translation slightly changed]; cf. Derrida 1990b: 110–111 /

56; Derrida 1990c: 218–221, 232–234 / 120–122, 128–129.

310 Eddo Evink

totalizing unity that has to make all its elements understandable. In addition, Derrida regards the use of such a horizon as a strategy, an eff ort to dominate and control, that only makes a strategic use of the indeterminacy that it also implies.

In terms of the three Heideggerian distinctions that were made above, Derrida views the horizon rather as an enclosing limit than as openness (1), rather as a methodically developed framework than as a coherence that has already been given (3), regardless whether we speak of the past, present or future (2).

In Derrida’s view, such a strategic role of the horizon is characteristic for phi-losophy in general. In “Tympan,” the introductory text of Margins of Philosophy, he describes philosophical understanding as an attempt to dominate and control its object. Th is domination considers its own limit as a being and as something of its own, thus including its own limit. Philosophy, according to Derrida, is “[…] the infi nite mastery that the agency of Being (and of the) proper seems to assure it; this mastery permits it to interiorize every limit as being and as being its own proper.”35 In several ways this strategy dominates its object by surrounding it with an encompassing circle, regardless “[…] whether it is a question, fi nally, of Heidegger’s hermeneutical circle or of Hegel’s ontotheological circle.”36 In Derrida’s view, both circles are examples of logocentrism.37 Of course Derrida is well aware of the diff erences between hermeneutics and Hegelian dialectics, but he underlines their familiarity as movements of understanding that try to grasp and seize their objects, even to grasp entire Being. In his view, the hermeneutic horizon is a circle of enclosure that tries to maintain multiplicity and variation within the fi eld of a meaningful coherence.

Th e same view on the horizon is expressed in Derrida’s explanation of the diff erence between hermeneutics and his own deconstructive approach of texts. In several works, Derrida has discussed this diff erence in terms of poly-semy and dissemination. He regards polysemy, the multiplicity of meanings of one word or utterance, as part of a hermeneutic strategy that acknowledges diff erences of meaning as long as they can be kept within a coherent unity, within a horizon. Polysemy is thus seen as fi tting in the circular movement of thought. Polysemy, Derrida writes in Dissemination,…

[…] always puts out its multiplicities and variations within the horizon, at least, of some integral reading which contains no absolute rift, no senseless deviation—the horizon of the fi nal parousia of a meaning at last deciphered, revealed, made present in the rich collection of its determinations.38

35 Derrida 1972a: xiv / xix.36 Derrida, 1972a: xv / xx. 37 Derrida, 1972a: xvii / xxi.38 Derrida 1972d: 389 / 384.


It will be clear that a complete and unequivocal understanding cannot be reached, but the horizon serves as an attempt and a promise of such a total comprehension and assured presence of meaning in clear coherence:

[…] polysemy, as such, is organized within the implicit horizon of a unitary resumption of meaning, that is, within the horizon of a […] teleological and totalizing dialectics that at a given moment, however far off , must permit the reassemblage of the totality of a text into the truth of its meaning…39

According to Derrida, this “teleological and totalizing dialectics” of the rational eff ort to understand, is always undermined and interrupted by dis-semination, the diff usion of meanings beyond control. Dissemination is the uncontrollable eff ect of writing, it is inherent in the functioning of language. Th e diff erential relations between words generate meanings that cannot be held within a planned coherence, but only have their semantic results within fl uctuating and instable contexts.

Th e horizon, in Derrida’s point of view, is a tool in the scheme of the her-meneutic circle to keep the meanings of language in its bounds. Dissemina-tion is the process of expansion of meaning that breaks through any horizon that was supposed to hold it within reach. Dissemination fractures the limits of the text, “[…] the force and form of its disruption explode [crèvent] the semantic horizon.”40 In short, the horizon is always broken through by the working of diff érance and dissemination. Derrida makes the same move in Spurs, when he criticizes Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche as a herme-neutic eff ort to fi x the versatile meanings of Nietzsche’s many-sided oeuvre: “Reading, which is to relate to writing, is to perforate this horizon or this hermeneutic veil, to reject all the Schleiermacher, all the veilmakers, according to the word of Nietzsche, cited by Heidegger.”41

Exploding or perforating a horizon—this would be unthinkable for Ga-damer and Ricœur. Th ey see the horizon not as a strategic instrument, but as a background or context that is always already given; and not as a fi xed border that can be broken through, but as an open border that cannot be objectifi ed or located.42

Th is diff erence in the usage of the metaphor comes again to the fore when Derrida writes about horizons of expectation. He does so in his later work, where he gives more explicit attention to ethics and religion, for example in Force of Law, where he discusses the relation between deconstruction and justice. Both deconstruction and justice cannot be fi xated. Deconstruction is at work in the critical questioning of laws and rules without which their amelioration would

39 Derrida 1972c: 62 / 45.40 Derrida 1972c: 61 / 45; cf. Derrida 1972c: 376 / 316.41 Derrida 1979: 127 [translation changed].42 Evink 2012.

312 Eddo Evink

not be possible. Laws have to be problematized and opened up to make space for justice, which can never be defi ned or determined but always remains to-come. Deconstruction is at work between justice and law and it fi nds itself confronted with aporias.43 Deconstruction, Derrida writes,

[…] operates on the basis of an infi nite “idea of justice”, infi nite because it is irreducible, irreducible because owed to the other […]. Th is “idea of justice” seems to be irreducible in its affi rmative character, in its demand of gift with-out exchange, without circulation […]. Th is kind of justice, which isn’t law, is the very movement of deconstruction at work in law and the history of law.44

Justice cannot be determined, but remains to-come, not as a future pres-ence, but as always calling and imminent. Th e expectation of justice, however, should not be thought as a horizon, a horizon of whatever type, because that would be too determinate. Derrida mentions many sorts of horizon—mes-sianisms, Kantian ideas, eschatologies, etc.—and prefers to question them as such, as well as the concurrence among them.

I would hesitate to assimilate too quickly this “idea of justice” to a regulative idea (in the Kantian sense), to a messianic promise or to other horizons of the same type. I am only speaking of a type, of this type of horizon that would have numer-ous competing versions. […] One of the reasons I’m keeping such a distance from all these horizons […] is that they are, precisely, horizons. As its Greek name suggests, a horizon is both the opening and the limit that defi nes an infi -nite progress or a period of waiting. But justice, however unrepresentable it may be, doesn’t wait. It is that which does not wait. To be direct, simple and brief, let us say this: a just decision is always required immediately, “right away”.45

In this passage, Derrida describes the horizon as both a limit and an open-ing. Instead of choosing between the two or emphasizing one of them, as he seemed to do in the earlier quoted passages, he tries to show here how the horizon is always already broken through. Justice is not an ideal to be awaited in the future, it is already calling here and now, urgently. But it cannot be determined in a presence and therefore remains to-come, always again:

Paradoxically, it is because of this overfl owing of the performative, because of this always excessive haste of interpretation getting ahead of itself, because of this structural urgency and precipitation of justice that the latter has no hori-zon of expectation (regulative or messianic). But for this reason, it may have an avenir, a “to-come,” which I rigorously distinguish from the future that can

43 Derrida 1994a: 49–50 / 960.44 Derrida 1994a: 55–56 / 965.45 Derrida 1994a: 56–57 / 965–967.


always reproduce the present. Justice remains, is yet to come, à venir, it has an, it is à-venir, the very dimension of events irreducibly to come.46

Justice, in Derrida’s refl ection, is called for here and now, but it will never be entirely realized; it will always be approaching, but not as a future present; it therefore is to be awaited, but as unpredictable, uncontrollable, indeterminate. Laws can be planned, determined and applied; justice is diff erent, but still needs to be anticipated as to come, it can only be approached through aporias.

Derrida has elaborated this strange form of expectation in terms of mes-sianism. Th ere are many sorts of messianism: Jewish, Christian, Marxist, etc.. In all of them, the promised Messiah, is to be awaited and will always remain to come, while at the same time he (she, it) has to be expected any moment. For Derrida it is crucial that the Messiah has to be as indeterminate as possible. Messianic justice is always other than the current legislation and the common ethical norms and values. Every determination of justice is dangerous because it will exclude aspects of justice that might be important. It is alterity in itself that has to guarantee the calling and appealing power of justice. Every stipulation of the Messiah might change the Messiah into a devil. Derrida wants to hold on to the messianic structure, but without clarity about the Messiah and messianic justice. In his deconstructive readings of messianisms, he tries to excavate the messianic traditions as far as possible, until he reaches, if possible, the pure and formal messianic structure without content. Th e messianic, thus, is a strictly formal structure of a promise of and openness and receptivity for the other. Derrida is very well aware, of course, that such a formal structure without any content cannot be given or thought, that there will always be a tension between form and content, between the structure of the messianic and the specifi c Mes-siah that is expected. Also his own thought of the messianic in itself is already in-scribed in specifi c traditions. Derrida tries to open them up towards the radical openness of the formal messianic structure for the other.47 “Th e messianic […] would be the urgency, the imminence, but, irreducible paradox, an expectation without horizon of expectation.”48

A paradoxical consequence of this radical excavation is the formal status of otherness as such. Derrida has stated this in a famous formula: tout autre est tout autre, “every other is wholly other”, which also implies “God is every other” and “every other is God”.49 Paradoxically, all otherness is taken together here as the same, the same otherness. Th is otherness cannot be integrated in total systems or understandable coherences, it undermines them, perforates

46 Derrida 1994a: 60 / 969. 47 Derrida 1993a: 265–268; Derrida 1994b: 35–36, 55, 197; Derrida 1997: 23–24. For a

critical discussion of Derrida’s own messianic stance, see Evink 2009.48 Derrida 1993a: 267. 49 Derrida 1999: 109–157 / 77–115; cf. Derrida 1993: 273; Derrida 1994b: 40, 259;

Derrida 1993b: 92, 95–96.

314 Eddo Evink

the horizons that enclose these coherent unities—a tension that is thought in the very general terms of totality versus otherness.

3.1. Horizons and Otherness

A comparison between Ricœur and Derrida shows a few remarkable agree-ments and disagreements. Both state that an expectation of justice cannot be thematized without a reference to the Wholly Other. Justice cannot be reached through the accomplishment of general rules and political measures. In a world of fi nite human beings and fi nite social arrangements the ideal of justice needs to be approached as a call that can never be entirely answered.

Our relation to this call, however, is understood quite diff erently by Ricœur and Derrida. In Ricœur we found three ways of speaking about the horizon. In several texts in From Text to Action, fi rstly, he describes the horizon as a methodical projection. In Time and Narrative Ricœur, secondly, empha-sizes that he wants to avoid a too utopian design of the future that completely detaches itself from the past. Th is implies that justice, despite its otherness, is in need of a practical determination of its horizon of expectation. In Freud and Philosophy, thirdly, he is sensitive for the limits of a planned teleology and introduces the notion of horizon as a call that comes from beyond any teleol-ogy, as an otherness outside methodical calculation and projection.

Although Ricœur makes a diff erent use of the metaphor of horizon in dif-ferent texts, it is possible to recognize a coherent point of view within the dif-ferent terminology. Some determination of justice is necessary, but every regu-lation needs to be understood as an interpretation of what comes from beyond any rational planning. In this way the otherness of justice can only appear as otherness within a horizon. We have to recognize, interpret and respond to the call for justice as anticipated but incalculable. Th e problem and danger here is that the horizon of expectation in which justice announces itself, always tends to be objectifi ed, by diabolic conversion, into an idol. Philosophical refl ection should always make eff orts to change fi xated idols into living symbols again. Th is is the way to respect the otherness of messianic justice without making it too indeterminate for a necessary practical application.

Derrida has developed a diff erent view on our relation to the alterity of justice. A call from the other is a call from the Wholly Other, that can never be approached without being contaminated by our response. In the end, it doesn’t matter much whether this approach is a calculating blueprint or a fl exible horizon. Every horizon is regarded by Derrida as a totalizing eff ort to dominate otherness, to reduce it to the same. However subtle or imperfect a horizon may be, it is nevertheless the promise of a strategy of domination by an encompassing circle. Every beginning of an understanding of justice is a determination that is basically equal to a totalizing dialectics that may change the Messiah into a devil.

Where Ricœur places a decisive diff erence between teleology and ho-rizon, between idol and symbol, Derrida sees a crucial tension between an


encompassing horizon and an alterity that interrupts the horizon. Whereas Ricœur distinguishes himself from Hegel—there is no closed or unique hori-zon, the notion of horizon resists absolute knowledge—in Derrida’s perspec-tive Ricœur’s horizon and a Hegelian totalizing dialectics are ultimately one and the same. Ricœur recognizes the requirement of an interpretation of the Wholly Other, in which this otherness loses its absolute alterity; he also ac-knowledges the need to translate the promise of justice in practical rules and measures. Derrida emphasizes the radical alterity of justice, the tout autre of all otherness that interrupts every eff ort to understand and apply it, in order to save it from the diabolic conversion that will inevitably accompany every understanding and application. Finally, there is a diff erence between Ricœur and Derrida with regard to the relation between faith and knowledge. Ricœur carefully tries to explore a sense of the Wholly Other beyond a calculative teleology and then takes refuge in a revelation that leads beyond a critical rational questioning attitude. Derrida stresses the obligation to subject this move towards religion beyond philosophy to a rational philosophical critique.

How should we assess these diff erent approaches of the horizons of ex-pectation? Before reaching a balanced evaluation, a few considerations need to be made:

1/ Th e diff erent uses Ricœur makes in diff erent texts of the metaphor of horizon seem to justify Derrida’s reservations with regard to determinations of justice and otherness within a horizon. Sometimes a horizon is presented as a methodically developed framework, and sometimes as a revelation and call that interrupts such an instrumental approach—is it still possible to make a clear diff erence here? Isn’t it possible that the horizon that is supposed to come from afar easily changes into an enclosing interpretation of it?

It is also possible, however, to regard the horizon in both cases as a fl ex-ible, moving and open border that can let the other appear as other without equating this horizon with a Hegelian absolutism. A methodically construct-ed horizon of expectation is meant by Ricœur as the opening of a dialogue with other horizons that implies a critical evaluation of the presuppositions of the horizon of expectation. Th is is also the case in the relation between the teleologically constructed horizon and the horizon of a revelation in which the Wholly Other enters into a dialogue while giving up its radical other-ness. A horizon of anticipating expectation thus opens itself for an otherness that announces itself as a call and then can only appear as otherness within such a horizon. Both horizons, constructed and calling, are to be understood as moving, versatile and impossible to localize or dominate. In this dialogue between horizons one needs to be aware of the tension between horizon and objectifi cation, between symbol and idol.

2/ Otherness can only appear and be recognized as otherness when it shows itself, as otherness, within a horizon. Th is is exactly the criticism that the early Derrida in the 1960s had brought to the fore against the idea of absolute

316 Eddo Evink

alterity in Levinas.50 In his later work in the 1980s and 90s, however, Derrida has moved in the direction of Levinas, emphasizing the absolute alterity of the other and of justice beyond any horizon. But the argumentation of the young Derrida is still valid. Even if we want to underscore the absolute alter-ity of justice, it still needs to be recognized as justice, so it is in need of some determination anyway. In Specters of Marx, Derrida describes the messianic structure as an absolute hospitality for a future that cannot be anticipated, but that also is not “n’importe quoi”, and therefore in anticipation of “the event as justice.”51 Even the justice that is supposed to be inanticipable, demands to be anticipated as justice. Derrida, however, approaches the diff erence between self and other in a radical way. He tries to keep alterity as pure, absolute and indeterminate as possible, but at the same time to regard it as always already undermining the structures and coherences that attempt either to encompass or to exclude it. In my point of view, this determination is better understood as a partial determination of what also remains other within a fl exible and uncontrollable horizon than as a defi nition that is fi rst presupposed to be pure and then happens to be contaminated and undermined because it can never be absolutely pure. Th e hermeneutic use of the metaphor of horizon turns out to be much more convincing here than Derrida’s approach of the horizon as a totalizing dialectics.

3/ A related problem comes to the fore if we focus on the applicability of the notions of justice that are related to the horizons of expectation. Ricœur wants our expectation to be “more determined” in order to make a suitable application of justice possible. At the same time the horizon of expectancy should not be objectifi ed to an ideology or an idol. In opposition to this at-titude, and despite his emphasis on the urgency of justice here and now, Der-rida underlines the inapplicability of justice, because of its absolute otherness. In combination with the idea that every other is wholly other, tout autre est tout autre, this not only leads to an impasse that makes justice impossible, but also to a radical leveling of judgments. Th ere is no criterion left to decide what is righteous and what is not, what is more just and what is less just. Derrida’s strategy with regard to horizons of expectation can function well as a criticism of the objectifi cations that threaten the anticipation of justice, but not as a positive political strategy in itself.

4/ In his eff ort to understand religious symbols, Ricœur reaches beyond philosophy and its fi nite perspectives by seeking refuge in a Christian revela-tion. Although the Christian eschatology gives up its absolute otherness by entering a philosophical teleology and thus makes itself subject to interpreta-tion and criticism, the choice for the Christian tradition is rather arbitrary. Ricœur’s reference to the critical theology of Barth and Bultmann does not

50 Derrida 1967.51 Derrida 1993a: 266–267.


change this arbitrariness. From a philosophical point of view, it would be better to fi nd a philosophical answer to the problem of the shortcomings and dangers of a rational teleology. Th is does not mean that a philosophical point of view should free itself from any religious infl uence, but it does mean that religious infl uences should be answered with a profound critical attitude, that does not take for granted the validity of a specifi c revelation in any way. Der-rida tries to give such an answer by exploring the religious messianisms—but we have seen above that his view on the relation between horizons and other-ness is quite problematic.

Derrida’s critique of the hermeneutic horizon has not solved the problems that were found at the end of section 2.2, in Ricœur’s view on horizons of ex-pectation. But it does underscore the problem of the relation between the dif-ferent horizons and the problem of the introduction of religious revelation in a philosophical discourse. Th e main question at the end of this article thus is: is there a philosophical account of the problematic relation between teleology and its limits, that shows a good use of the philosophical-hermeneutical idea of horizon without being supported by a religious revelation beyond rational critique? In my view, the philosophy of Jan Patočka is a very good candidate to fulfi ll this task.

4. Jan Patočka

Jan Patočka mainly follows Husserl in his ideas on the horizon. In his lec-tures of 1968–69 he gives clear descriptions of the metaphor of horizon and of its importance for phenomenology. Th e horizon is designated as a ‘demi-phe-nomenon’, because it is the appearance of what does not appear as an object.

A fi xed horizon is the self-presence of what is not present, a limit that shows that it can be transcended. […] Th e horizon belongs to all manifestation, ev-erything manifests itself within some horizon. Yet a horizon does not manifest itself in the same sense as the givens we encounter within a horizon.52

Horizons are permanent, in the sense that every experience takes place within a broader horizon that is always already presupposed. Horizons can never be fi xated, they move with us and cannot be exactly localized. Th e no-tion of horizon plays an important role in Patočka’s existential phenomenol-ogy. He has not analyzed this notion, however, in terms of a horizon of expec-tation. Nevertheless, a signifi cant element of his phenomenology, his idea of the three movements of human life, can be very helpful in fi nding solutions for the two problems we came across in Ricœur’s use of the horizon. Patočka did not use this term in his description of the three movements, but I shall

52 Patočka 1998: 34, 39.

318 Eddo Evink

show that this notion implicitly plays a main role in his theory of the three movements of existence. In addition, this theory will be linked to his thoughts on the philosophy of history. In combination this will shed a new light on the idea of a horizon of expectation.

Movement is an essential notion in Patočka’s phenomenology. He intro-duces the Aristotelian concept of entelecheia, a purposeful development, in a Heideggerian framework, in which human life is pictured as always character-ized by open possibilities. Patočka has discerned three major movements in human existence, that are always entwined and cannot be untied from each other, but may receive a specifi c emphasis.53

Th e fi rst movement is the movement of anchoring or rooting in a natural and social environment, where one can feel at home. Aff ection is an impor-tant element in this layer of existence. Th e past is its basic mode of time. Th e second movement is the movement of prolongation and work: one has to stay alive and develop a living by work. An instrumental engagement with the environment, as well as concurrence and confl ict, are typical features of this movement. Its time mode is the present. Th ese fi rst two movements are bound to what Patočka calls the Earth. Th ey are bound to fi xed structures of the world and of society, that cannot be questioned. Life is fragmented in the sense that one cannot yet overlook existence as a whole.

Th e third movement is the movement of breakthrough or truth. Th e rule of the Earth is broken through, when humans begin to consciously relate to the world as a whole and to their existence as such. Th e traditional worldview, opinions and rules are questioned, and a search for rational understanding of life and of the world is started, a search for truth. Th e world and one’s entire life, however, cannot be surveyed. Th ey are not given as an object. Th erefore they remain problematic; we will never fi nd defi nitive answers to our ques-tions about life and the world in their entirety. Nevertheless we do have to give answers, and although they are fi nite, restricted and always tied to a specifi c perspective, they try to give coherence to what used to be fragmented opin-ions. Th ese old opinions are shaken forever, and there is no way back to their naïve acceptance. Since one can no longer rely on conventions and authori-ties, one’s opinions and choices have to be accounted for. Th e third movement is the source of responsibility. Th us, we cannot but have general insights in life and in the world, but we also have to realize that these insights are fragile, one-sided and debatable. We must look for “fi rm ground under our feet”, but we must also have the courage to question this fi rm ground again.54

Th is third movement has a specifi c start in history, but is also the start of history. Patočka makes a distinction between mythical or prehistoric cul-ture, in which the fi rst two movements, bound to the Earth, are dominant, and

53 Patočka 1998: 143–161; Patočka 1990: 241–267.54 Patočka 2002; Patočka 2007: 32–42.


history, which fi nds its beginning with the development of the third move-ment, for the fi rst time in ancient Greece. Th e cyclic time of mythical culture is also broken through, now something entirely new can start. Th e basic time mode of the third movement is the future.

All this can be translated in terms of horizon. Th e fi rst and second move-ments are tied to fi xed horizons: structures and worldviews that are not ques-tioned. Th e third movement breaks through these rigid horizons, and then one can discover the real nature of horizons, namely that they can never be fi xed, but are versatile, moving, dynamic. By breaking through these stiff ed horizons of “prehistoric” cultures, the third movement shows us that a hori-zon, well understood, is an open limit and background that is impossible to break through, because it moves with us and cannot be exactly localized.

History has as a typical feature that it has an open future. In his Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, to be more precise, in the third essay, Patočka discusses the question whether history has a meaning. He states that the ques-tion of meaning presupposes both the experience of meaninglessness—other-wise the question could not have come up—and the experience of meaning—otherwise meaninglessness could not have been experienced as such. Th us, there must be some meaning of life and of history, but they cannot be simply defi ned. We can have meaningful experiences, but they are fi nite and fragmented. Th ey presuppose a general principle of meaning, a belief in an absolute meaning, that, however, can never be suffi ciently justifi ed. We cannot live without ideas of life and the world in their totality, but we can also not be completely sure of these worldviews. We have to question them again and again. Th is attitude is what Patočka calls the care of the soul. Th e third movement makes us aware that we have the freedom and responsibility to lead our own life and that it is not certain how we have to do this—in this uncertainty lies our freedom.55

History is the temporal development in which we have to realize this life. Th e care for the soul is the core of history. History is the history of the soul: “Precisely because history fi rst means this inner process, the emergence of hu-mans who master the original dilemma of human possibilities by discovering the authentic, unique I, that history is foremost a history of the soul.”56

Th e relation to the future in history is fi rst of all one of openness. Th ere is no fi nal goal or meaning of history. If the meaning of history can be put into words, it is exactly the fact that human beings are free to care for their own life, in a responsible way. Th e meaning of history lies in the openness of the care for the soul: “History is nothing other than the shaken certitude of a pre-given meaning. It has no other meaning or goal. […] Yet the problem of history may not be resolved, it must be preserved as a problem.”57

55 Patočka 1996: 53–77.56 Patočka 1996: 103.57 Patočka 1996: 118.

320 Eddo Evink

In the fi fth heretical essay Patočka sketches a history of the care of the soul, i.e. a historical development of the main phases in the refl ection on what the care of the soul is about. Th is history fi nds its beginning in ancient Greece, in the fi fth essay represented by Plato; the next phase is Christianity, which is fol-lowed by modernity, the period in which the care of the soul goes down and gets out of sight. Patočka describes a quite pessimistic course of history, especially of modern technological culture, but he also wants to preserve hope. Th ere is the possibility, that the meaning of history, the care of the soul, can be found again.

Th is openness of history can be understood very well in terms of a horizon of expectation. Th is is not a horizon of eschatology or messianism. In this re-gard, Patočka has a diff erent understanding of history than that of both Ricœur and Derrida. But there is in Patočka’s view the hope of a return to the care for the soul. Th is is the horizon of history, that can only be discovered, if the too fastened horizons of the fi rst two movements are broken through. In Patočka’s conception of modernity, human life falls back in a state that is dominated by the second movement: by calculation, instrumental reason, confl ict and self-interest. In such a technological culture, the openness of history can only be approached with calculating ideologies, projections that leave not much space for change and free choice. Th ese ideological stances with regard to history and the future are too encompassing and can even become totalitarian.

Th is is the objectifying of the horizon of the future that Ricœur, Derrida and Patočka are all critical of. Ricœur wants to solve this problem by relying on a call from a Christian revelation—thereby taking a problematic step away from philosophy towards theology. Derrida takes both horizons, the fi xating ideologies as well as the open horizon of an indeterminate history together, by interpreting every small articulation of the future as a potential ideology, that might dominate or exclude pure otherness. With Patočka’s philosophy of his-tory I try to show here how two possible horizons of the future can be seen as related to each other: modern ideologies objectify the open horizon and thus create an enclosing horizon that needs to be broken through, in order to fi nd the true openness of the horizon of time, that can never be stifl ed, but also needs its humble and careful determinations. Patočka has developed this perspective on history without recourse to a Christian eschatology or other sort of messianism. His philosophy of history is not messianic at all, but still leaves place for hope.58

58 Th ere is a clear infl uence of Christianity in Patočka’s philosophy, but that does not lead to a messianic philosophy of history. As far as his thought can be labeled as Christian, it is an en-tirely secularized form of Christian philosophy; cf. Hagedorn 2011: 245–261. In Donner la mort, Derrida suggests that Patočka was a Christian philosopher, ascribing Patočka’s description of the Christian phase in the history of the care for the soul to Patočka himself, followed by the remark that it doesn’t matter much if Patočka was a Christian or not. Th is is at least a misleading account of the Christian elements in Patočka’s work. His remark that Patočka’s Christianity is messianic, is clearly wrong; cf. Derrida 1999: 15–78/1–52; cf. Evink 2006: 307–321.


Conclusions

Th e horizon is a rich metaphor that has become an important concept in phenomenology. If we look at the future as a horizon, a horizon of expecta-tion, it is possible to think of the future in terms of hope and justice. Th e status of the political understanding of these ideas is dependent on a good estimation of the horizon. In several texts Paul Ricœur has developed diff erent notions of horizon that are very valuable and helpful: the horizon of tradition that shapes our perspectives, the horizon as a careful set of determinations of the future, the horizon as a divine call that comes from the future towards us. However, the connection of these three views on the horizon, together with the explicitly Christian interpretation of the third horizon were shown to be problematic elements in Ricœur’s thoughts on the horizons of expectation.

Th e attention was shifted, therefore, to Jacques Derrida’s criticism of the hermeneutic understanding of the horizon. It turned out that Derrida uses a quite diff erent notion of horizon: an enclosing limit that dominates the understanding of what seems to fi t in its circle. Th is approach appeared to be even more problematic, because of its too pure and absolute understanding of justice. Derrida’s critique, however, underscored the two problems that were mentioned before.

Finally, in the philosophy of Jan Patočka, a view on the horizon and on history was found that gave valuable alternatives for the problematic elements in Ricœur’s horizons of expectation, while leaving the convincing points of his understanding of horizon intact. Th e result is that a phenomenological horizon of expectation can discard false ideologies and sketch the necessity of balanced pre-determinations of the future that are solid enough to prac-tically work with, but also open enough to let themselves be corrected and changed—in a genuine philosophical refl ection that can do without religious revelations.

Eddo EvinkDe Ranitzstraat 11a

9721 GG GroningenTh e [email protected]

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Horizons of Expectation. Ricoeur, Derrida, Patocka

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