Literature and the Philosophy of Paul Ricœur

Abstract

From Aristotle’s Poetics to the twenty-first century’s commentaries, distinguished philosophers have concerned themselves with art and literature. In most cases their interest has focused on the creative act itself, as in the work of Mikel Dufrenne in The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience1 or the later work of Martin Heidegger as is found in Poetry, Language, Thought.2 Another principal area of philosophical inquiry has been the languages of artistic expression as, for example, in the work of Nelson Goodman in Languages of Art,3 or Roman Ingarden in The Literary Work of Art.4 In the case of Paul Ricœur the interest in literature came in a roundabout way which he has called a necessary detour in his work on the human will. The complete work of Paul Ricœur is a profoundly humanistic interpretation of human experience; therefore, it was just a matter of time before he would turn his attention to literature. Early in a career that spanned seventy years, Ricœur developed an approach that would construe the question at issue in terms of conflict and struggle between two poles. His mediation between the opposite sides did not reduce one or the other, but rather elaborated the productive tension or