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Horizons of Expectation.
Ricur, Derrida, Patoka
Eddo Evink
University of Groningen
1
Engfer, Jansen and Scherener 1974: 3, 11941206.
298 Eddo Evink
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 finitude 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.
These two meanings of horizon will be central in this article that focuses
on Paul Ricurs notion of horizon. The 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). Then Ricurs view of the horizon will be discussed, with an
emphasis on the horizon of the future, the horizon of expectation (2). This
view will be confronted with Derridas critique (3) after which a discussion
of this criticism will follow that will mainly defend Ricurs point of view, but
will also point at two problems with Ricurs idea of the horizon of expecta-
tion (3.1.). Finally, these problems will be answered and the Ricurian un-
derstanding of the horizon will be reinforced with the help of some suggestions
drawn from the work of Jan Patoka (4).
2
Husserl 1976: 7173, 186 / 7073, 197; Husserl 1963: 8486, 131133; Husserl 1962:
365386; Husserl 1985: 2635; Husserl 2008: 53143.
3
These two terms are not synonyms, but their range of meanings has a significant overlap.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 299
4
Husserl 1966.
5
Husserl 1963: 89150.
6
Husserl 1985: 36 / 39.
300 Eddo Evink
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 find an understanding of Being, or at least the horizon of
time from within which we can ask the question of Being.7 This 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. Ricur
Paul Ricur does not discuss the term horizon very often explicitly, but
one can find passages with remarks on the notion of horizon scattered over his
oeuvre. In this section, I shall first discuss a few observations in From Text to
Action, then a passage in Time and Narrative, before finally going to the per-
haps most significant remarks on the horizon in Freud and Philosophy. In these
texts, Ricur elaborates on different 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 different
meanings of horizon.
7
Heidegger 1927: 39.
8
Staudigl 2004: 264267.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 301
The 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
finite determinacy, and the way ones 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 objectified:
9
Gadamer 1960: 307 / 301.
10
Gadamer 1960: 309 / 303.
11
Gadamer 1960: 307310 / 301304.
302 Eddo Evink
In many respects Ricur follows Gadamer in the way he brings into play
the notion of horizon. In his view the theory of fusion of horizons finds the
right balance between fixed objectivity and absolute understanding, as well
as between Hegelian absolutism and a Nietzschean radical pluralism.12 The
fusion of horizons neither leads to incommunicado nor to absolute knowledge.
It combines the finiteness of specific 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 Ricur, we exist neither in closed horizons nor within a horizon that is
unique. [] The 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 Gadamers hermeneutics and his
view on horizons, Ricur is critical as well. In Gadamers thematization of the
cultural tradition as one horizon, he discerns a tension between alienation and
belonging.14 This tension is made explicit by Ricur 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. The 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 find an important difference between
Gadamer and Ricur. Whereas Gadamer rejects the view that interpretation
within the humanities would need a specific method or methodological reflec-
tionone of the main statements of Truth and Method, Ricur thinks that
the inclusion of methodological analyses in interpretation is essential for the
further development of hermeneutics.
The introduction of such a methodological approach of texts and inter-
pretation also changes the features of the horizon, although Ricur 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.
This distinction can be compared with Heideggers 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, Ricur introduces in Gadamers
idea of a fusion of horizons the third distinction inherent in the notion of
horizon, that I discerned in Heideggers 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
Ricur 1986c: 383384 / 282283.
13
Ricur 1986c: 384 / 282283. With regard to the openness of hermeneutics compared
to the closed language system in structuralism, cf. the first three articles in Ricur 1969: 3197 /
2796.
14
Ricur 1986a: 106111 / 7074.
15
Ricur 1986a: 113131 / 7588.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 303
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-
ityin 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. This 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
Ricur 1986a: 314317 / 172173.
17
Ricur 1986a: 376377 / 208209; cf. Koselleck 1979: 349375.
304 Eddo Evink
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. The 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
Ricur 1985: 376377 / 208209.
19
Ricur gives a detailed argumentation to defend this shift from historical to universal
categories; cf. Ricur 1985: 379389. I leave a discussion of this argumentation aside here.
20
Ricur 1985: 386 / 214[surprisingly, the last sentence of this quotation and a few that
follow, are entirely missing in the translation].
21
Ricur 1985: 388 / 215.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 305
22
Ricur 1985: 389390 / 215216.
306 Eddo Evink
two approaches have appeared to be not only competitive but also and even
more supplementary, and to go together in a dialectical tension. In Ricurs
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 find the concrete mixed texture in which we see the
archeology and teleology. This concrete mixed texture is symbol.23
After having demonstrated this dialectics at work in sublimation and in the
cultural object, Ricur turns to the religious symbol. He starts by stating that
the problematic of faith lies beyond the reach of philosophical reflection. Its
source is beyond philosophical reflection as well, in the revelation that addresses
the religious individual. The 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 sufficient 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
Ricur 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
This 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 arch and the telos which I can conceptualize in
reflective 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 Ricur introduces the term horizon. The horizon stands for that which
appears without becoming an object. It is that which approaches reflection
while always remaining unreachable and beyond:
23
Ricur 1965: 516/ 494.
24
Ricur 1965: 547 / 525.
25
Ricur 1965: 548 / 525.
26
Ricur 1965: 548 / 525.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 307
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. The alpha and omega approach re-
flection 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
27
Ricur 1965: 548549 / 526.
28
Ricur 1965: 552 / 529.
29
Ricur 1965: 552 / 529.
308 Eddo Evink
In summary, Ricur 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. The 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.
These additions raise two questions:
1/ This 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/ The introduction of a Christian horizon of expectancy beyond rational
reflection is problematic within philosophy. How can this step be justified
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?
These 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
Ricur 1965: 553554 / 530531.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 309
3. Derrida
In Derridas work, we can find a different view on the idea of the horizon.
An examination of his use of the term has to go back to his first texts from the
1950s and 60s. The phenomenology of the late Husserl is his primary subject
in these texts. As we have seen above, in Husserls later genetic phenomenol-
ogy the concept of horizon receives a crucial position. In his dissertation Le
problme de la gense dans la philosophie de Husserl as well as in his introduction
to The Origin of Geometry, Derrida underlines the importance of the horizon
as one of the basic presuppositions of Husserls philosophy. The justification
of scientific knowledge that Husserls 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 Derridas reading
this implies [] the index of an ideal normativity which is on the horizon of
de facto normal adults.33 The 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:
This view of the horizon as a regulative Kantian Idea has turned out to
be decisive in Derridas use of this metaphor. In Derridas opinion, the open-
ness of the horizon always remains subordinate to the normative guidance
of the presupposed coherence. The openness necessarily finds 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: 110111 /
56; Derrida 1990c: 218221, 232234 / 120122, 128129.
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 effort 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 Derridas 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. This 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 infinite 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, finally,
of Heideggers hermeneutical circle or of Hegels ontotheological circle.36 In
Derridas view, both circles are examples of logocentrism.37 Of course Derrida is
well aware of the differences 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 field of a meaningful coherence.
The same view on the horizon is expressed in Derridas explanation of
the difference between hermeneutics and his own deconstructive approach of
texts. In several works, Derrida has discussed this difference 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
differences of meaning as long as they can be kept within a coherent unity,
within a horizon. Polysemy is thus seen as fitting 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
deviationthe horizon of the final 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.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 311
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
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 Im 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 defines an infi-
nite progress or a period of waiting. But justice, however unrepresentable it may
be, doesnt 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:
43
Derrida 1994a: 4950 / 960.
44
Derrida 1994a: 5556 / 965.
45
Derrida 1994a: 5657 / 965967.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 313
always reproduce the present. Justice remains, is yet to come, venir, it has an,
it is -venir, the very dimension of events irreducibly to come.46
Justice, in Derridas reflection, 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 different, 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. There 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. The 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 specific Mes-
siah that is expected. Also his own thought of the messianic in itself is already in-
scribed in specific traditions. Derrida tries to open them up towards the radical
openness of the formal messianic structure for the other.47 The 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. This otherness cannot be integrated in
total systems or understandable coherences, it undermines them, perforates
46
Derrida 1994a: 60 / 969.
47
Derrida 1993a: 265268; Derrida 1994b: 3536, 55, 197; Derrida 1997: 2324. For a
critical discussion of Derridas own messianic stance, see Evink 2009.
48
Derrida 1993a: 267.
49
Derrida 1999: 109157 / 77115; cf. Derrida 1993: 273; Derrida 1994b: 40, 259;
Derrida 1993b: 92, 9596.
314 Eddo Evink
the horizons that enclose these coherent unitiesa tension that is thought in
the very general terms of totality versus otherness.
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 nimporte 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 difference 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 flexible and
uncontrollable horizon than as a definition that is first presupposed to be pure
and then happens to be contaminated and undermined because it can never
be absolutely pure. The hermeneutic use of the metaphor of horizon turns out
to be much more convincing here than Derridas 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. Ricur
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 objectified 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. There is no criterion left to decide what
is righteous and what is not, what is more just and what is less just. Derridas
strategy with regard to horizons of expectation can function well as a criticism
of the objectifications that threaten the anticipation of justice, but not as a
positive political strategy in itself.
4/ In his effort to understand religious symbols, Ricur reaches beyond
philosophy and its finite 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.
Ricurs reference to the critical theology of Barth and Bultmann does not
50
Derrida 1967.
51
Derrida 1993a: 266267.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 317
4. Jan Patoka
Jan Patoka mainly follows Husserl in his ideas on the horizon. In his lec-
tures of 196869 he gives clear descriptions of the metaphor of horizon and of
its importance for phenomenology. The horizon is designated as a demi-phe-
nomenon, because it is the appearance of what does not appear as an object.
A fixed horizon is the self-presence of what is not present, a limit that shows
that it can be transcended. [] The 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 fixated, they move with us and cannot be exactly localized. The no-
tion of horizon plays an important role in Patokas existential phenomenol-
ogy. He has not analyzed this notion, however, in terms of a horizon of expec-
tation. Nevertheless, a significant element of his phenomenology, his idea of
the three movements of human life, can be very helpful in finding solutions
for the two problems we came across in Ricurs use of the horizon. Patoka
did not use this term in his description of the three movements, but I shall
52
Patoka 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 Patokas 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. Patoka has discerned three major movements in
human existence, that are always entwined and cannot be untied from each
other, but may receive a specific emphasis.53
The first movement is the movement of anchoring or rooting in a natural
and social environment, where one can feel at home. Affection is an impor-
tant element in this layer of existence. The past is its basic mode of time. The
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 conflict, are typical features of
this movement. Its time mode is the present. These first two movements are
bound to what Patoka calls the Earth. They are bound to fixed 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.
The third movement is the movement of breakthrough or truth. The 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. The 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. The world and ones entire
life, however, cannot be surveyed. They are not given as an object. Therefore
they remain problematic; we will never find definitive answers to our ques-
tions about life and the world in their entirety. Nevertheless we do have to give
answers, and although they are finite, restricted and always tied to a specific
perspective, they try to give coherence to what used to be fragmented opin-
ions. These old opinions are shaken forever, and there is no way back to their
nave acceptance. Since one can no longer rely on conventions and authori-
ties, ones opinions and choices have to be accounted for. The third movement
is the source of responsibility. Thus, 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 firm ground under our feet, but
we must also have the courage to question this firm ground again.54
This third movement has a specific start in history, but is also the start
of history. Patoka makes a distinction between mythical or prehistoric cul-
ture, in which the first two movements, bound to the Earth, are dominant, and
53
Patoka 1998: 143161; Patoka 1990: 241267.
54
Patoka 2002; Patoka 2007: 3242.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 319
history, which finds its beginning with the development of the third move-
ment, for the first time in ancient Greece. The cyclic time of mythical culture
is also broken through, now something entirely new can start. The basic time
mode of the third movement is the future.
All this can be translated in terms of horizon. The first and second move-
ments are tied to fixed horizons: structures and worldviews that are not ques-
tioned. The third movement breaks through these rigid horizons, and then
one can discover the real nature of horizons, namely that they can never be
fixed, but are versatile, moving, dynamic. By breaking through these stiffed
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, Patoka
discusses the question whether history has a meaning. He states that the ques-
tion of meaning presupposes both the experience of meaninglessnessother-
wise the question could not have come upand the experience of meaning
otherwise meaninglessness could not have been experienced as such. Thus, there
must be some meaning of life and of history, but they cannot be simply defined.
We can have meaningful experiences, but they are finite and fragmented. They
presuppose a general principle of meaning, a belief in an absolute meaning, that,
however, can never be sufficiently justified. 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. This attitude is what
Patoka calls the care of the soul. The 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 thisin this uncertainty lies our freedom.55
History is the temporal development in which we have to realize this life.
The care for the soul is the core of history. History is the history of the soul:
Precisely because history first 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
The relation to the future in history is first of all one of openness. There
is no final 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. The 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
Patoka 1996: 5377.
56
Patoka 1996: 103.
57
Patoka 1996: 118.
320 Eddo Evink
In the fifth heretical essay Patoka sketches a history of the care of the soul,
i.e. a historical development of the main phases in the reflection on what the
care of the soul is about. This history finds its beginning in ancient Greece, in
the fifth 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. Patoka describes a quite pessimistic course of history, especially of
modern technological culture, but he also wants to preserve hope. There is the
possibility, that the meaning of history, the care of the soul, can be found again.
This openness of history can be understood very well in terms of a horizon
of expectation. This is not a horizon of eschatology or messianism. In this re-
gard, Patoka has a different understanding of history than that of both Ricur
and Derrida. But there is in Patokas view the hope of a return to the care for
the soul. This is the horizon of history, that can only be discovered, if the too
fastened horizons of the first two movements are broken through. In Patokas
conception of modernity, human life falls back in a state that is dominated by
the second movement: by calculation, instrumental reason, conflict 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. These ideological stances with regard to history
and the future are too encompassing and can even become totalitarian.
This is the objectifying of the horizon of the future that Ricur, Derrida
and Patoka are all critical of. Ricur wants to solve this problem by relying
on a call from a Christian revelationthereby taking a problematic step away
from philosophy towards theology. Derrida takes both horizons, the fixating
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 Patokas 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 find the
true openness of the horizon of time, that can never be stifled, but also needs its
humble and careful determinations. Patoka 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
There is a clear influence of Christianity in Patokas 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: 245261. In Donner la mort,
Derrida suggests that Patoka was a Christian philosopher, ascribing Patokas description of the
Christian phase in the history of the care for the soul to Patoka himself, followed by the remark
that it doesnt matter much if Patoka was a Christian or not. This is at least a misleading account
of the Christian elements in Patokas work. His remark that Patokas Christianity is messianic, is
clearly wrong; cf. Derrida 1999: 1578/152; cf. Evink 2006: 307321.
Horizons of Expectation. Ricur, Derrida, Patoka 321
Conclusions
Eddo Evink
De Ranitzstraat 11a
9721 GG Groningen
The Netherlands
c.e.evink@rug.nl
Works cited