Paul Ricoeur

The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur was born on February 27, 1913, in Valence, France. Initially, he attempted to synthesize Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method with the existentialism of Gabriel Marcel and Karl Jaspers, but the insurmountable difficulties of this endeavor led him to focus on analyzing issues concerning the relationship between language and the cognitive appropriation of the world and ourselves. Representative works from the mature phase of his thought include: "The Rule of Metaphor" ("La metaphore vive", 1975), "Time and Narrative" ("Temps et récit, vol. I, II & III", 1983-1985), "Oneself as Another" ("Soi-même comme un autre", 1990). Other works include: "Gabriel Marcel et Karl Jaspers: Philosophie du mystère et philosophie du paradoxe", 1948, "Histoire et vérité", 1955, "De l'interprétation: essai sur Sigmund Freud", 1965, "Entretiens avec Gabriel Marcel", 1968, "Le conflit des interprétations: essais d'herméneutique", 1969, "Du texte à l'action: essais d'herméneutique II", 1986, "Le mal: un défi à la philosophie et à la théologie", 1986, "L'idéologie et l'utopie", 1997, "Lectures, I: Autour du politique", 1999, "Lectures, II: La contrée des philosophes", 1999, "Lectures, III: Aux frontières de la philosophie", 1999, "L'herméneutique biblique", 2000, "La Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli", 2000, "Parcours de la reconnaissance: trois études", 2004, among others. He passed away in his sleep on May 20, 2005, at his home in Châtenay-Malabry, outside Paris.