In The Elgar Companion to Émile Durkheim. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 331-349. 2026In the 1960s Paul Ricoeur coined the phrase “masters of suspicion” to describe Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud for their ability to reveal the hidden or repressed meanings or truths located in texts or social and psychological phenomena. Philosophers, theologians, and literary theorists have subsequently applied the term “master of suspicion,” as well as the associated term “hermene
