Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

While the work of Paul Ricoeur ranges over diverse subjects – the problem of evil, the meaning of identity, human will, and human fragility - his philosophical writings have increasingly centered on hermeneutics as the key instrument in the search for meaning; he sees human experience as inherently interpretive; and he asserts that language is both the foundation and the form of one’s encounter with reality and one’s attempt to make sense of the world. Within this ‘horizon of humanity’, love is enabled, both as an attainable possibility and as the way of being which fulfils itself: ‘It is Eros, it is Love that shows that this aim, which is immanent to the function of man, is happiness anticipated in a consciousness of direction and of belonging’. While Ricoeur acknowledges the fallibility and frailty of human nature, and while he insists on an acceptance of the reality of evil as a creation of humanity, he nevertheless maintains a belief in the primordial goodness of the human being, he confirms the possibility of hope even amid impossible constraints, and he expresses a love of life in spite of its brokenness: ‘Man is the Joy of Yes in the sadness of the finite’.