Thehermeneutics of suspicion is a style ofliterary interpretation in which texts are read withskepticism in order to expose their purportedrepressed orhidden meanings.[1]
This mode of interpretation was conceptualized byPaul Ricœur, inspired by the works of what he called the three "masters of suspicion" (French:maîtres du soupçon):[2]Karl Marx,Sigmund Freud, andFriedrich Nietzsche,[3]: 33, 35 who, he believed, shared a similar view ofconsciousness as false.[4] Ricœur's term "school of suspicion" (French:école du soupçon)[5] refers to his association of his theory with the writings of the three, who themselves never used this term,[6]: 32 and was coined inFreud and Philosophy (1965).[3][6][7]: 2 Thisschool is defined by a belief that the straightforward appearances of texts aredeceptive orself-deceptive and that explicit content hides deeper meanings orimplications.[1][8]
Hans-Georg Gadamer, in his 1960magnum opusTruth and Method (German:Wahrheit und Methode), offers perhaps the most systematic survey ofhermeneutics in the 20th century. The title of the work indicates his dialogue between claims of "truth" on the one hand and the processes of "method" on the other—in brief, thehermeneutics of faith and thehermeneutics of suspicion. Gadamer suggests that, ultimately, one must decide between one and the other when reading.[9]: 106–107
Ruthellen Josselson similarly writes, "Ricoeur distinguishes between two forms of hermeneutics: a hermeneutics of faith which aims to restore meaning to a text and a hermeneutics of suspicion which attempts to decode meanings that are disguised."[10][11]
According to literary theoristRita Felski, hermeneutics of suspicion is "a distinctively modern style of interpretation that circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths." Felski further writes:
[Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche] share a commitment to unmasking 'the lies andillusions ofconsciousness'; they are the architects of a distinctively modern style of interpretation that circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths… Ricoeur's term has sustained an energetic after-life within religious studies, as well as in philosophy, intellectual history, and related fields.[12]
Felski also notes that the "'hermeneutics of suspicion' is the name usually bestowed on [a] technique of reading texts against the grain and between the lines, of cataloging their omissions and laying bare their contradictions, of rubbing in what they fail to know and cannot represent."[13] In that sense, it can be seen as being related toideology critique. Felski has built on Ricœur's theory in outlining her influential theory ofpostcritique.[14]