Critique and Conviction: Conversations with Francois Azouvi and Marc de Launay

by Paul Ricœur, Marc Buhot de Launay

Critique and Conviction offers a rare opportunity to share personally in the intellectual life and journey of the eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Internationally known for his influential works in hermeneutics, theology, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, he has until now been silent on the subject of himself. In this book - a conversation about his life and work with Francois Azouvi and Marc de Launay - Ricoeur reflects on a variety of philosophical, social, religious, and cultural topics, from the paradoxes of political power to the relationship between life and art, and life and death. In the first of eight conversations, Ricoeur traces the trajectory of his life, recounting the origins of his convictions and the development of his intellect during the tragic events of the twentieth century. Declaring himself the "son of a victim of the First World War, " Ricoeur, an orphan, sketches his early years in the house of stern but loving grandparents, and the molding of his intellect under the tutelage of Roland Dalbiez, Gabriel Marcel, and Andre Philip. Ricoeur tells the intriguing story of his capture and five-year imprisonment by the Germans during World War II, when he and his compatriots fashioned an intellectual life complete with a library and lectures, and when he, amazingly, was able to continue his dissertation research. Interweaving anecdotes with philosophical meditations, Ricoeur recounts his relationships with some of the greatest figures of the twentieth century including Heidegger, Jaspers, and Eliade. He also shares his views on French philosophers and explains his tumultuous relationship with Jacques Lacan. And while expressing his deepest respect for the works of ClaudeLevi-Strauss and Michael Foucault, Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for the narratologist Algiridas Julien Greimas. Ricoeur also explores the relationship between the philosophical and religious domains, attempting to reconcile the two poles in his thought. Readers who have

Genres: Philosophy

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished philosophers of the twentieth century. In the course of his long career he wrote on a broad range of issues. His books include a multi-volume project on the philosophy of the will: Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950, Eng. tr. 1966), Fallible Man (1960, Eng. tr. 1967), and The Symbolism of Evil (1960, Eng. tr. 1970); a major study of Freud: Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (1965, Eng. tr. 1970); The Rule of Metaphor (1975, Eng. tr. 1977); Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (1976); the three-volume Time and Narrative (1983-85, Eng. tr. 1984–88); Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986); the published version of his Gifford lectures: Oneself as Another (1990, Eng. tr. 1992); Memory, History, Forgetting (2000, Eng. tr. 2004); and The Course of Recognition (2004, Eng. tr. 2005). In addition to his books, Ricoeur published more than 500 essays, many of which appear in collections in English: History and Truth (1955, Eng. tr. 1965); Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology (1967); The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (1969, Eng. tr. 1974); Political and Social Essays (1974); Essays on Biblical Interpretation (1980); Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (1981); From Text to Action (1986, Eng. tr. 1991); Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination (1995); The Just (1995, Eng. tr. 2000); On Translation (2004, Eng. tr. 2004); and Reflections on the Just (2001, Eng. tr. 2007).

The major theme that unites his writings is that of a philosophical anthropology. This anthropology, which Ricoeur came to call an anthropology of the “capable human being,” aims to give an account of the fundamental capabilities and vulnerabilities that human beings display in the activities that make up their lives. Though the accent is always on the possibility of understanding the self as an agent responsible for its actions, Ricoeur consistently rejects any claim that the self is immediately transparent to itself or fully master of itself. Self-knowledge only comes through our relation to the world and our life with and among others in that world.

In the course of developing his anthropology, Ricoeur made a major methodological shift. His writings prior to 1960 were in the tradition of existential phenomenology. But during the 1960s Ricoeur concluded that properly to study human reality he had to combine phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation. For this hermeneutic phenomenology, whatever is intelligible is accessible to us in and through language and all deployments of language call for interpretation. Accordingly, “there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols, and texts; in the final analysis self-understanding coincides with the interpretation given to these mediating terms” (Oneself as Another, 15, translation corrected). This hermeneutic or linguistic turn did not require him to disavow the basic results of his earlier investigations. It did, however, lead him not only to revisit them but also to see more clearly their implications.

Reviews

[Gorkem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Ricouer benim hayranlık duyduğum felsefecilerden biri. Son zamanlarda, tekrardan eserlerini okuma veya okumadığım eserlerini tamamlama isteğindeyim. Eleştiri ve inanç ise bu tamamlama ve Ricouer'u tekrardan tanıma konusunda müthiş bir perspektif oluşturdu.

Ricouer'un François Azouvi ve M. De Launay ile söyleşilerini içeren Eleştiri ve İnanç, Ricouer’u tanıma açısından belgesel bir kitap olarak düşünelebilir.

Kitabın ilk yarısı bence, Eleştiri başlığını alan kısım. Ricouer'u daha yakından tanıma konusunda biyografik bir içeriğe sahip. Ricouer'un doğumundan itibaren fenomenoloji ve batı hermenötiği içine girişini her açıdan ele alıyor. Ricouer'nun Fransa'dan Nanterre Üniversitesinden 68 olaylarından dolayı istifa edip Chicago Üniversitesine tam zamanlı transferiyle birlikte Avrupa ve ABD'de karşılaştırması olan ikinci bölüm kitabın ilerleyen başlıkları açısından da ilgi çekiciydi. Kitabın en ilgi çekici bölümü olan Belleğin Görevi, Adaletin Görevi (sf:165)itibaren ise inanç bölümüne karşı hazırlık yapılıyor.

Eleştiri ve İnanç, her ne kadar kitap başlığı olarak Eleştiri ve İnanç gibi spesifik bir başlığa sahip olsa da bir entellektüelin kendi öz eleştirisini sunan oldukça objektif bir argümantasyon içinde ilerleyen bir kitap.

Özetle, eğer Paul Ricouer'e bir giriş yapmak ya da yukarıda belirtilen konu başlıklarına farklı bir açıdan bakmak istiyorsanız inanılmaz derece keyif alabileceğiniz bir söyleşi kitabı.

Meraklısına iyi okumalar!

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do not be fooled by the poor two stars that I have given to this booklet. Paul Ricoeur is not just anyone, but one of the most interesting philosophers of the 20th century. But the interviews in this book are slightly dated (they are more than 20 years old). And I had hoped to learn a lot more about Ricoeur's own philosophy, and especially his hermeneutical reading of the world and look on history. But the latter remains limited, hence the lesser rating. Yet, again, there are quite interesting things to read in it about man and society, philosophy and religion. Perhaps it’s better to take on his own work first.

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this volume, a series of eight interviews between Ricoeur and two intermediaries, as an introduction to his life and work. These studies are first personal, but also thematic - they cover Ricoeur's life from a 'WWI orphan' through his intellectual career in the United States and France, and the political turmoil of the mid-20th century.

The thematic interviews cover much of Ricoeur's own work, ranging from his appreciation of aesthetics to religion and psychoanalysis. The form of dialogue is fitting, as it mirrors his own attempts to bridge different approaches within schools of thought.

On one last note, I find it amazing that Ricoeur considers his own works, such as the three-volume 'Time and Narrative', which covers fiction between Dante and Virginia Woolf, to be 'limited in scope'.

I now feel less bewildered than when I had first heard explanations of his ideas, though I cannot call myself an expert in any sense. Still, this volume is much more accessible than his other works, and I personally found it to be an excellent place to begin.

[Simon Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب ممتع يبحث امكانية نقد كل شيئ بكل شفافية وموضوعية وما ساعد على فهم فكر الفيلسوف "ريكور" الترجمة الرائعة .اجمل محور في الكتاب ان المعتقدات الصحيحة لا تهرب من المواجهة النقدية ،خصوصاً في الشؤون الدينية ،حيث يتطرق المؤلف إلى الحالة الجديدة التي تعرّف اليها الشعب الفرنسي خصوصاً والغربي عموماً وهي الدين الاسلامي وكيفية محاصرة الفتاة المحجبة بينما لا يقنن كشف الفتاة لجسمها كمساواة لإخفائها لجسمها والتي يعاقب عليها القانون الفرنسي .