Heidegger (in whose footsteps all these thinkers tread, more or less) insisted that the fullest expression of that which is manifest through attendance to the conditions of our own existence as subjects is simply that "being speaks." For Ricoeur (in whose writings one could always discern the glimmer of old Marxist hopes), that wasn't enough: it had to be a matter that "being can still speak to me." That is, we can be modern believers and meaningful actors simultaneously; the modern, critical self can still engage the foundations of the world without eschewing that very modernity which allows us to think about the symbols of that foundation as symbols themselves.

¶ 6:58 AM