Phenomenology has been interpreted as being fundamentally transcendental, as well as, fundamentally ontological. However, these claims are often interpreted as being incompatible. The incompatibility finds its expression in the notion of the paradox of the reduction of intentional analysis. This paper looks at the work of Paul Ricoeur in order to assess whether he has been able to accommodate this paradox, and thus, whether he has been able to manage the tension between transcendentalism and ontology. This assessment includes both his account of methodological idealism and his account of hermeneutic phenomenology. It will be my conclusion that he has been unsuccessful in overcoming the possibility of an inherent incompatibility between the aims of transcendentalism and the aims of ontology within phenomenology.