Sketch on Paul Ricoeur’s life and writings

Abstract

Abstract This study engages into a wider reflection about Paul Ricoeur. Undoubtedly, he is a remarkable personality of thought and spiritual life, being known as the “philosopher of obedience”. On the one hand, the novelty of his thinking lies in the narrative identity, in the dissociation between the same and the ipseity, diachronic and synchronic, between the socius and the neighbor. On the other hand, he reveals us a „modus vivendi”, between the rational-philosophical rigor and the Protestant religious beliefs, with regard to the depths of the confrontation between desire and choice, between understanding and explaining, between universal and singular. Nevertheless, his panoramic view of life departs from the complexity of life, from existentialism, as a radical opposition between the being itself and the being for itself or the self. As a conclusion, throughtout Paul Ricoeur’s domains-philosophy and religion-physical and psychological integrity implies by analogy a moral integrity.