Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricoeur (born February 27, 1913 in Valence) is a French philosopher best known for his attempt to combine phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation.

Ricoeur's early years were marked by two main facts. First, he was born to a devout Protestant family, making him a member of a religious minority in Catholic France. Second, his father dies in WWI in 1915, when Ricoeur was only two years old. As a result he was raised by his Aunt in Rennes with a small stipend afforded to him as a war orphan. Ricoeur was a bookish, intellectually precocious boy whose penchant for study was increased by his family's protestant emphasis on bible study. Ricoeur received his license in 1933 from the University of Rennes and began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1934, where he was influenced by Gabriel Marcel. In 1935 he agregated second in the nation, presaging a bright future despite his provincial origins.

WWII interupted Ricoeur's career, and he was drafted to serve in the French army in 1939. His unit was captured during the German invasion of France in 1940 and he spent the next five years as a prisoner of war. His detention camp was filled with other intellectuals such as Mikel Dufrenne which organized readings and classes sufficiently rigorous that the camp was accredited as a degree-granting institution by the Vichy government. During this period he read Karl Jaspers, who was to have a great influence on him. He also began a translation of Edmund Husserl's Ideas.

After the war Ricoeur took up a position at the University of Strausbourg (1948-1956) where published widely. In 1950 he received his doctorate submitting (as is cutomary in France) two thesis: a 'minor' thesis which was a translation and commentary on Husserl's Ideas I (the first available in French) and a 'major' thesis that would later be published as Le Voluntaire et l'Involuntaire. As a result of his scholarly work, Ricoeur earned a reputation as an expert in phenomenology, which had become tremendously popular in France in the years after the war.

In 1956 Ricoeur took up a position at the Sorbonne as the Chair of General Philosophy. This appointment signaled Ricoeur's rise as one of France's most prominent philosophers. It was during this time that he wrote two Freud and Philosophy and The Symbolism of Evil, which cemented his reputation.

From 1965 to 1970 Ricoeur took up a position at the newly-founded University of Nanterre. Nanterre was an experiment in progressive education and Ricoeur hoped it would allow him the opportunity to escape the stifling atmosphere of the tradition-bound Sorbonne and create a university in accordance with his vision. Unfortunately, Nanterre become a hot bed of protest during the student uprisings of May 1968 and Ricoeur was derided as an 'old clown' and tool of the French government.

At the nadir of his popularity and disenchanted with life in France, Ricoeur took a position at the University of Chicago in 1970 where he would remain until 1985. As a result Ricoeur became acquainted with American philosophy and social science, making him one of the few thinkers equally at home with the French, German, and English-language intellectual scenes. The results were two of Ricoeur's most important and enduring works: The Rule of Metaphor and the three-volume Time of Narrative.

With Time and Narrative Ricoeur returned to France as an intellectual superstar, where he lives today. His recent work continues to cross-cut national intellectual traditions, and some of his most recent writing engages the thought of the American political philosopher John Rawls.

Bibliography

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Further Reading

• Paul Ricoeur: His Life and Work. Charles F. Reagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Paul Ricoeur: Les Sens d'une Vie. François Dosse. Paris: La Découverte, 1997.