This essay examines the intellectual development of the French philosopher PaulRicœur, who from his earliest work on phenomenology and symbolism to his more recent work on problems of language and text has made significant contributions to both methodology and theory in the human sciences. Through particular attention to Ricœur’s writings on psychoanalysis, structuralism, the philosophy of action and history, and the theory of metaphor an attempt is made to draw out the implications of these contributions for the study of development as well as for the idea of development itself. This conceptualization, with interpretation as its primary foundation, is largely concerned with the general process in which critical self-understanding is achieved, and the specific means by which it might be facilitated.