A confrontation with archaic symbolism has brought new life to modern culture. Equally, an encounter of modern western culture with its own indigenous historical symbols may facilitate a similar renewal. The work of Paul Ricoeur can be conceived of as continuous with that of Mircea Eliade because it brings the threefold issue of the meaning of the symbol, a hermeneutic of the symbol, as well as the anthropological and linguistic consequences of the discovery of the symbol into a strictly philosophical framework. Hence, our original quest for an understanding of the meaning of symbols, the search for a framework for interpretation, will be furthered by a consideration of the work of Paul Ricoeur.