The thought of Paul Ricoeur continues its profound effect on theology, religious studies, and biblical interpretation. Introduced by Mark Wallace, the twenty-one papers collected in this volume-some familiar, many translated here for the first time-constitute the most comprehensive anthology of Ricoeur's writings in religion since 1970. The writings are thematically divided into five parts: the study of religion philosophers of religion the Bible and genre theological overtures practical theology Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation and his deep sensitivity to the mystery and power of religious language offer fresh insight into the transformative potential of sacred literature, including the Bible.

It seems more urgent than ever before to fend off the rising wave of intolerance and at the same time determine the nature of tolerance and its limits. As Ricoeur says in his Foreword: "Tolerance is a tricky subject: too easy or too difficult. It is indeed too easy to deplore intolerance, without putting oneself into question, oneself and the different allegiances with which each person identifies." In order to explore these complexities, he has gathered together a number of prominent thinkers from various parts of the world and areas of activity and invited them to reflect on the "obstacles and limits to tolerance." The Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, issued by the United Nations in 1995, rounds up this remarkable collection of essays. Contributors: Norberto Bobbio, Vaclav Havel, Jeanne Hersch, Bernard Williams, Octavio Paz, Ghislain Waterlot, Antoine Garapon, Mario Bettati, Yehudi Menuhin, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, Hans Kung, Wole Soyinka, Ionna Kucuradi, Monique Canto-Sperber, Paul Ricoeur, Desmond Tutu. DIOGENES LIBRARY

Paul Ricoeur was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. In this short and accessible book, he turns to a topic at the heart of much of his work: What is translation and why is it so important? Reminding us that The Bible, the Koran, the Torah and the works of the great philosophers are often only ever read in translation, Ricoeur reminds us that translation not only spreads knowledge but can change its very meaning. In spite of these risk, he argues that in a climate of ethnic and religious conflict, the art and ethics of translation are invaluable. Drawing on interesting examples such as the translation of early Greek philosophy during the Renaissance, the poetry of Paul Celan and the work of Hannah Arendt, he reflects not only on the challenges of translating one language into another but how one community speaks to another. Throughout, Ricoeur shows how to move through life is to navigate a world that requires translation itself. Paul Ricoeur died in 2005. He was one of the great contemporary French philosophers and a leading figure in hermeneutics, psychoanalytic thought, literary theory and religion.

Paul Ricoeur is described in the "Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy "as "one of the leading French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century." This little book collects his thoughts on the subject of translation, and is vintage Ricoeur. He uses the topic to reflect on some of the perennial problems posed by translation, including the transmission of early Greek philosophy to the Renaissance, interpretations of the Bible amongst diverse religious traditions (no small issue at the moment), and the way translations of the same text reflect important cultural dynamics at work across different periods, leading to quite different meanings springing from the same book. There are also discussions of some contemporary figures, such as Umberto Eco, and the whole underscored by Ricoeur's point that there is a paradox at the hear of translation: impossible in theory but effective in practice.

Paul Ricoeur is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. In The Rule of Metaphor he seeks 'to show how language can extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within itself'. Recognizing the fundamental power of language in constructing the world we perceive, it is a fruitful and insightful study of how language affects how we understand the world, and is also an indispensable work for all those seeking to retrieve some kind of meaning in uncertain times.

Collected and translated by John B. Thompson, this collection of essays by Paul Ricoeur includes many that had never appeared in English before the volume's publication in 1981. As comprehensive as it is illuminating, this lucid introduction to Ricoeur's prolific contributions to sociological theory features his more recent writings on the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and issues, his own constructive position and its implications for sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Charles Taylor, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this classic work has been revived for a new generation of readers.

Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was one of the outstanding French philosophers of the 20th century and his work is widely read in the English-speaking world. This unique volume comprises the lectures that Ricoeur gave on Plato and Aristotle at the University of Strasbourg in 1953-54. The aim of these lectures is to analyse the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle and to discern in their work the ontological foundations of Western philosophy. The relation between Plato and Aristotle is commonly portrayed as a contrast between a philosophy of essence and a philosophy of substance, but Ricoeur shows that this opposition is too simple. Aristotelian ontology is not a simple antithesis to Platonism: the radical ontology of Aristotle stands in a far more subtle relation of continuity and opposition to that of Plato and it is this relation we have to reconstruct and understand. Ricoeur’s lectures offer a brilliant analysis of the great works of Plato and Aristotle which has withstood the test of time. They also provide a unique insight into the development of Ricoeur’s thinking in the early 1950s, revealing that, even at this early stage of his work, Ricoeur was focused sharply on issues of language and the text.

The most accessible of Ricoeur's early texts, Fallible Man offers an introduction to phenomenological method.

Collected and translated by John B. Thompson, this collection of essays by Paul Ricoeur includes many that had never appeared in English before the volume's publication in 1981. As comprehensive as it is illuminating, this lucid introduction to Ricoeur's prolific contributions to sociological theory features his more recent writings on the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and issues, his own constructive position and its implications for sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Charles Taylor, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this classic work has been revived for a new generation of readers.

Paul Ricoeur has been hailed as one of the most important thinkers of the century. "Oneself as Another, " the clearest account of his "philosophical ethics," substantiates this position and lays the groundwork for a metaphysics of morals.
Focusing on the concept of personal identity, Ricoeur develops a hermeneutics of the self that charts its epistemological path and ontological status.

Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A landmark work in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur's "Memory, History, Forgetting" examines this reciprocal relationship between remembering and forgetting, showing how it affects both the perception of historical experience and the production of historical narrative.
"Memory, History, Forgetting," like its title, is divided into three major sections. Ricoeur first takes a phenomenological approach to memory and mnemonical devices. The underlying question here is how a memory of present can be of something absent, the past. The second section addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Ricoeur explores whether historians, who can write a history of memory, can truly break with all dependence on memory, including memories that resist representation. The third and final section is a profound meditation on the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering, and whether there can be something like happy forgetting in parallel to happy memory. Throughout the book there are careful and close readings of the texts of Aristotle and Plato, of Descartes and Kant, and of Halbwachs and Pierre Nora.
A momentous achievement in the career of one of the most significant philosophers of our age, "Memory, History, Forgetting" provides the crucial link between Ricoeur's "Time and Narrative" and"Oneself as Another" and his recent reflections on ethics and the problems of responsibility and representation.

Ricoeur’s theory of productive imagination in previously unpublished lectures. The eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur was devoted to the imagination. These previously unpublished lectures offer Ricoeur’s most significant and sustained reflections on creativity as he builds a new theory of imagination through close examination, moving from Aristotle, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant to Ryle, Price, Wittgenstein, Husserl, and Sartre. These thinkers, he contends, underestimate humanity’s creative capacity. While the Western tradition generally views imagination as derived from the reproductive example of the image, Ricoeur develops a theory about the mind’s power to produce new realities. Modeled most clearly in fiction, this productive imagination, Ricoeur argues, is available across conceptual domains. His theory provocatively suggests that we are not constrained by existing political, social, and scientific structures. Rather, our imaginations have the power to break through our conceptual horizons and remake the world.

Dramatic Approaches to Creative Fidelity is a unique study of the work of Gabriel Marcel, a twentieth-century philosopher of international renown. This book brings a fresh perspective to the examination of Marcel's thought, highlighting facets that are sure to interest many different audiences. Dramatic Approaches to Creative Fidelity presents a clear exposition of the nature of creative fidelity, a central theme in Marcel's life and work. The distinctive contribution of this book, however, is its illustration of how theater and philosophy are complementary in Marcel's investigation and reflective clarification of life's existential questions. Each chapter of the book studies a play and a contemporary philosophic essay and examines how they relate to clarify a particular aspect of creative fidelity. Thus, this work communicates Marcel's understanding of the nature of creative fidelity, illustrates the relationship that links theater and philosophy, and demonstrates the important role theater plays in providing a privileged way into personal philosophizing. The principal aim of this book is to introduce English-speaking audiences to Gabriel Marcel's theater. The book also intends to suggest to students, teachers, scholars, and theatrical personnel the heuristic as well as the pedagogical advantages offered by an integrated approach that sees Marcel's theater and philosophy as essentially complementary.

In volume 1 of this three-volume work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing. Now, in volume 2, he examines these relations in fiction and theories of literature.
Ricoeur treats the question of just how far the Aristotelian concept of "plot" in narrative fiction can be expanded and whether there is a point at which narrative fiction as a literary form not only blurs at the edges but ceases to exist at all. Though some semiotic theorists have proposed all fiction can be reduced to an atemporal structure, Ricoeur argues that fiction depends on the reader's understanding of narrative traditions, which do evolve but necessarily include a temporal dimension. He looks at how time is actually expressed in narrative fiction, particularly through use of tenses, point of view, and voice. He applies this approach to three books that are, in a sense, tales about time: Virgina Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway;" Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain;" and Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past."
"Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy--critical, economical, and clear."--Eugen Weber, "New York Times Book Review "
"A major work of literary theory and criticism under the aegis of philosophical hermenutics. I believe that . . . it will come to have an impact greater than that of Gadamer's Truth and Method--a work it both supplements and transcends in its contribution to our understanding of the meaning of texts and their relationship to the world."--Robert Detweiler, "Religion and Literature"
"One cannot fail to be impressed by Ricoeur's encyclopedic knowledge of the subject under consideration. . . . To students of rhetoric, the importance of Time and Narrative . . . is all too evident to require extensive elaboration."--Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, "Quarterly Journal of Speech"

Woher kommt das Bose? Wie kommt es, dass wir Boses tun? Diese Fragen haben Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) - den Philosophen und Theologen, der sich selbst nie als solchen bezeichnet hat - seit seinen fruhesten Arbeiten begleitet. Der vorliegende Essay, entstanden aus einem Referat, das Ricoeur 1985 an der Theologischen Fakultat Lausanne gehalten hat, kann stellvertretend fur seine Beschaftigung mit diesen Fragen stehen. Angesichts dessen, was das 20. Jahrhundert an Bosem hervorgebracht hat, beleuchtet Ricoeur hier in einer exemplarischen Tiefe die verschiedenen religiosen, mythologischen und philosophischen Diskurse uber das Bose. Er zeigt, wie die traditionelle Theodizee, aber auch wie Kant, Hegel oder Barth versucht haben, das Problem, das die Existenz des Bosen bedeutet, zu losen. Ricoeur selbst pladiert fur eine Weisheit, die auf die (An-)Klage verzichtet. Paul Ricoeur, 1913-2005, franzosischer Philosoph, war zuletzt Professor an der Universitat Paris-Nanterre und Lehrstuhlnachfolger von Paul Tillich an der University of Chicago. Neben existenz- und geschichtsphilosophischen Forschungen widmete er sich intensiv dem Problem der Sprache.

"Criticism 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, until now, Ricoeur has been conspicuously silent on the subject of himself. In this book -- a conversation about his life and work with Fran?ois 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 against 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 Andr? Philip. Ricoeur tells the intriguing story of his capture and five-year imprisonment by the Germans during World War II, where he and his compatriots fashioned an intellectual life complete with a library and lectures, and where he, amazingly, was able to continue his dissertation research.

Elegantly interweaving anecdotal with philosophical meditations, Ricoeur recounts his relationships with some of the twentieth century's greatest figures, such as 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 Claude L?vi-Strauss and Michel Foucault, Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for the narratologist Algirdas Julien Greimas.

Ricoeur also explores the relationship between the philosophical and religious domains, attempting to reconcile the two poles in his thought. And readers who have struggled with Ricoeur's work will be grateful for these illuminating discussions that provide an invaluable key to his writings on language and narrative, especially those on metaphor and time. Spontaneous and lively, "Criticism and Conviction" is a passionate confirmation of Ricoeur's eloquence, lucidity, and intellectual rigor, and affirms his position as one of this century's greatest thinkers. It is an essential book for anyone interested in philosophy and literary criticism.

The most accessible of Ricoeur's early texts, Fallible Man offers an introduction to phenomenological method.

Paul Ricoeur is one of the most important modern literary theorists and a philosopher of world renown. This collection brings together his published articles, papers, reviews, and interviews that focus on literary theory and criticism. The first of four sections includes early pieces that explore the philosophical foundations for a post-structural hermeneutics. The second contains reviews and essays in which Ricoeur engages in debate over some of the central themes of literary theory, including figuration/configuration and narrativity. In the third section are later essays on post-structuralist hermeneutics, and in the fourth, interviews in which he discusses text, language, and myths. Mario Valdes provides an introduction to the literary theories of Paul Ricoeur and the works in this collection particularly. He also includes a complete bibliography of Ricoeur's works that have appeared in English.

This collection brings together twenty-two essays by Paul Ricoeur under the topics of structuralism, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and religion. In dramatic conciseness, the essays illuminate the work of one of the leading philosophers of the day. Those interested in Ricoeur's development of the philosophy of language will find rich and suggestive reading. But the diversity of essays also speaks beyond the confines of philosophy to linguists, theologians, psychologists, and psychoanalysts.