This book has all the virtues of Ricoeur's own work: wide-ranging, philosophically acute, immensely well-informed, possessed of a searching critical intelligence, and capable of stretching the reader's mind around questions that demand a real depth of ethical as well as philosophical engagement ... a fine contribution to Ricoeur's reception-history and one that will doubtless rank high on the list of authoritative secondary literature.

Professor Christopher Norris, Cardiff University, UK

Scott-Baumann seeks to correct the widespread attribution to French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) a position somewhat resembling postmodern trends of pessimistic tenor, which he himself rejected. There is no such error in the French literature, she points out, so the problem may be some nuance shift when the phrase hermeneutics of suspicion is translated. Among her topics are Cartesian doubt; Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud as Ricoeur's masters of suspicion the use and abuse of the term hermeneutics of suspicion linguistic analysis methodological dialectics and philosophical anthropology. Interspersed are three views of Ricoeur's hermeneutics, focusing in turn on the archeology of suspicion, the theory of interpretation, and recovery.

Eithne O'Leyne

Students new to Ricoeur's work will find here a patient and crystalline introduction to the whole of his works, presenting both concise content summary and elucidation of his philosophical "inter-method" Ricoeur scholars will value Scott-Baumann's book for its seamless reconciliation of the two Ricoeurs- the skeptic and the believer- as the one master theorist of how skepticism can protect, rather than erase, human being.

Common Knowledge, Volume 17, No.3