In the attempt to situate the results of the present study in terms of the first variation of the second trend noted above, Ricoeur's provocative attempt to mediate a dialectic rapprochement between phenomenology and hermeneutics will be considered. Ricoeur's argument is based on the thesis, that beyond "the simple opposition there exists, between phenomenology and hermeneutics, a mutual belonging."¹ The simple opposition that Ricoeur refers to concerns the hermeneutical critique of Husserl's phenomenological idealism. Ricoeur distinguishes the latter critique, from the phenomenological concern per se with the "question of meaning,"² and holds that this "phenomenology remains the unsurpassable presupposition of hermeneutic...[while again, this] phenomenology cannot constitute itself without a hermeneutical presupposition."³