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a subtle dialectic between argumentation and conviction, which has no theoretical outcomebut only the practical outcome of the arbitration of moral judgment in situation.” 15Argumentation is a particular, sometimes formalized, practice in which participants clarifytheir convictions in order to resolve conflicts and reach understanding. Argumentationnever stands above our convictions or conventions, but instead is the “critical agencyoperating at the heart of convictions.” 16In The Just (2000), Ricoeur continues to advance a theory of interpretation andargumentation in the context of legal interpretation and decision-making. Ricoeur concurswith Habermas that the “thesis of a potential agreement at the level of an unlimited andunconstrained community” forms the horizon of universal consensus before which “we areto place the formal rules of every discussion claiming correctness.” 17 Argumentation,however, is dialectically related to interpretation. The rules governing discussion go handin hand with a prior meaning-giving context in which the interpretations of our needs andinterests occur.The notion of an ideal discourse situation offers a horizon of correctness for alldiscourse where the participants seek to convince each other through argument. The idealis not just anticipated, it is already at work. But we must also emphasize that the ideal canbe inserted into the course of a discussion only if it is articulated on the basis of alreadypublic expressions of interests, hence of needs marked by prevailing interpretations concerningtheir legitimacy. 18The relationship between facts and norms in general is a dialectic interpretation andargumentation. Ricoeur goes on to say that the principle of universalization, “onlyprovides a check on the process of mutual adjustment between the interpreted norm andthe interpreted fact. In this sense, interpretation is not external to argumentation. It constitutesits organon.” 19 Claims like these strain the credibility of Ricoeur’s prior claimto avoid creating super-systems that would encompass them both.Narrative-Evidence and Communicative RationalityWhen Ricoeur’s reflections on truth are taken together, we have a model of theinterpretation and validation of claims raised about human actions involving evidence,narration, and argumentation. Unlike the hermeneutic philosophies of Heidegger andGadamer, Ricoeur’s theory of truth entails the argumentative vindication of claims underthe presupposition of unconstrained communication. But unlike the universal pragmaticsof Habermas, Ricoeur’s theory of truth presupposes not only the prior interpretation of thesubject of discussion within a broader, interpretive context, but also the prior experiencesparticipants bring to discussion. It includes the very descriptive, narrative, testimonialexperiences that a consensus theory of truth forbids. If we were to construct a model oftruth and validity from Ricoeur’s scattered remarks on the subject, we could draw ahermeneutic arc that would have one end anchored in phenomenological experience,passing through a narrative interpretation, anchored at the other end in communicativerationality. The path of the arc from phenomenology to hermeneutics is old route that doesnot need to be revisited here. The more interesting paths are those that connect an15Paul Ricoeur, Oneself As Another (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 287.16Ibid., 288.17Paul Ricoeur, “Interpretation and/or Argumentation,” in idem, The Just, trans. David Pellauer(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 117.18Ibid., 119.19Ibid., 122.90