Ricoeur's Personalist Republicanism: Personhood and Citizenship 9781498552882, 9781498552875, 1498552889

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Political Philosophy of Personalism
2 The Young Ricoeur’s Personalism
3 When Personalism Dies, the Person Returns
4 Ricoeur’s Personalist Political Philosophy
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

Ricoeur’s Personalist Republicanism

Studies in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur Series Editors Greg S. Johnson, Pacific Lutheran University/Oxford University (ELAC), and Dan R. Stiver, Hardin-Simmons University Studies in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur, a series in conjunction with the Society for Ricoeur Studies, aims to generate research on Ricoeur, about whom interest is rapidly growing both nationally (United States and Canada) and internationally. Broadly construed, the series has three interrelated themes. First, we develop the historical connections to and in Ricoeur’s thought. Second, we extend Ricoeur’s dialogue with contemporary thinkers representing a variety of disciplines. Third, we utilize Ricoeur to address future prospects in philosophy and other fields that respond to emerging issues of importance. The series approaches these themes from the belief that Ricoeur’s thought is not just suited to theoretical exchanges, but can and does matter for how we actually engage in the many dimensions that constitute lived existence. Titles in the Series Ricoeur’s Personalist Republicanism: On Personhood and Citizenship, by Dries Deweer Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics and the Discourse of Mark 13: Appropriating the Apocalyptic, by Peter C. de Vries Ricoeur, Culture, and Recognition: A Hermeneutic of Cultural Subjectivity, by Timo Helenius Feminist Explorations of Paul Ricoeur’s Philosophy, edited by Annemie Halsema and Fernanda Henriques Paul Ricoeur in the Age of Hermeneutical Reason: Poetics, Praxis, and Critique, edited by Roger W. H. Savage In Response to the Religious Other: Ricoeur and the Fragility of Interreligious Encounters, by Marianne Moyaert Imagination and Postmodernity, by Patrick L. Bourgeois Interdisciplinary Interpretation: Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Theology and Science, by Kenneth A. Reynhout Paul Ricoeur and the Task of Political Philosophy, edited by Greg S. Johnson and Dan R. Stiver

Ricoeur’s Personalist Republicanism On Personhood and Citizenship Dries Deweer

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2017 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Deweer, Dries, 1986- author. Title: Ricoeur's personalist Republicanism : on personhood and citizenship / Dries Deweer. Description: Lanham, MD : Lexington Books, 2017. | Series: Studies in the thought of Paul Ricoeur | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed Identifiers: LCCN 2017025397 (print) | LCCN 2017026531 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498552882 (electronic) | ISBN 9781498552875 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Ricoeur, Paul. | Personalism. | Individualism. | Political science—Philosophy. | Republicanism. LCC B2430.R554 (ebook) | LCC B2430.R554 D49 2017 (print) | DDC 194—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025397 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction

ix

1 2 3 4

The Political Philosophy of Personalism The Young Ricoeur’s Personalism When Personalism Dies, the Person Returns Ricoeur’s Personalist Political Philosophy: Continuity and Relevance

1 39 91 163

Conclusion

213

Bibliography

221

Index

237

About the Author

241

v

Acknowledgments

I owe thanks to many people who have stimulated and supported me during my research and the writing of this book. First, I wish to thank my former colleagues at KU Leuven’s Institute of Philosophy and my current colleagues at the Department of Philosophy at Tilburg University. I also thank the people in charge of the Fonds Ricoeur in Paris for their hospitality during my research stay. This book could not have been completed without their permission to consult their treasures. I also benefited from the possibility to present my work at numerous conferences around the globe. I have found the international communities of Ricoeur scholars and personalism scholars to be the living proof of the existence of an academic environment of hospitality, encouragement, and mutual assistance. I feel very privileged to have become part of it. Naming people is always an injustice toward many who remain excluded, but I still want to mention some in particular. In completing this book, I benefited from the help of Greg Johnson, Dan Stiver, George Taylor, and the people from Lexington Books. During my research I was very fortunate to be able to rely on the advice and help of Paul van Tongeren, Ernst Wolff, Toon Vandevelde, and, most of all, Bart Raymaekers. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my wife, Christel, and my daughters, Hanne and Merel. They are everything to me.

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Introduction

Moral and political convictions never stand alone. They are always connected to an underlying view of mankind. Liberalism, which currently predominates, is connected to a focus on the free individual. Marxism thinks of man in terms of class struggle, determined by economic relationships. Halfway through the twentieth century a powerful alternative came about, by the name of “personalism.” This term stood for a form of social and political thought based on the concept of the human person. This concept stresses that a human being only becomes human in relationship with others and in a commitment to values that go beyond one’s individual interests. However, the success of personalist philosophy did not last long. After an intensive golden age between the 1930s and 1950s personalists disappeared from the forefront, pushed aside by the new crop of structuralists and poststructuralists. Hence, it would seem that personalism did not make a profound impression. John Hellman, who carried out historical research into the movement, worded his conclusion rather sharply: “The ‘Personalists’ are unimportant in the history of philosophy” (Hellman 1973, 385). Hellman’s conclusion is way too emphatic. Although the philosophical development of personalism in a strict sense did cool off, 1 it remains remarkable to what extent personalist ideas influence western thought. A personalist movement is still active within the domain of applied ethics, for example in medical ethics or business ethics. 2 More importantly, personalism continues to be the key to Christian democratic ideology (Beke 2008; Norgaard Mortensen 2014; Van Hecke 2008). Hence, in Europe, it is the philosophical background for important political leaders such as the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, or the first President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. In the United States, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, for example, were profoundly inspired by personalist ideas (Zwick and ix

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Zwick 2005, 97–115). This raises the question what continuing philosophical relevance can be found in personalism, and more specifically in a social ethics and political philosophy based on a personalist view of mankind. French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is an interesting interlocutor in light of the preceding question. As a young academic he made a name for himself as a public intellectual under the wing of the influential personalist Emmanuel Mounier. Hence, he was considered a representative of personalism in his younger years. Nevertheless he later supported fatal criticisms of personalism. 3 The extent to which Ricoeur succeeded in integrating these two elements—loyalty and criticism—in his work shows us a way to consider personalism so that it still provides us with a tenable philosophical stance and an important input in contemporary political philosophy. Therefore, the question that will lead us throughout this book is: To what extent does the thought of Ricoeur bear a continuing stamp of personalism that allows him to instigate a personalist perspective within contemporary political philosophy? Although in principle the scope of our question covers the entirety of Ricoeur’s huge oeuvre, we will specifically focus on his political philosophy. His political thought is not restricted to one or more monographs. It is spread over many essays on social ethics and political philosophy, published throughout the years, especially in the journals Esprit and Le christianisme social, but elsewhere as well. Given the fact that these essays are based on an underlying interpretation of the human person, we also have to take into account the relationship of his political thought with his philosophical anthropology. This philosophical anthropology was originally contained in the three volumes of his Philosophie de la volonté (Ricoeur 1950; 1960a; 1960b). However, I will especially focus on Soi-même comme un autre (1990), because this work is the key to Ricoeur’s later thought. My method in the exploration of these works will be to think along with Ricoeur and to follow the development of his thought along evolving social contexts, methodological refinements, and the continuous confrontation with other authors, all the while keeping his relationship with personalism in mind as a continuing thread. This will allow us to gain an insight into the gradual elaboration of key concepts such as personhood, the political paradox, and the responsibility of the person as citizen, leading to a compelling answer to my question and, particularly, to a personalist input that draws our attention to a blind spot in contemporary political philosophy. With this end in view I will go through four stages. The first stage presents the particularity of the political philosophy of personalism. Personalist thought has been studied quite extensively, 4 but an analysis of the overarching political theory has until now been lacking. The first chapter fills this gap, albeit in a modest way, because I will limit myself to three personalist philosophers who represent the personalist influence on Ricoeur. After an explanation of the social and intellectual context in which

Introduction

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French personalism came about, I will focus on the thought of Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), Emmanuel Mounier (1905–1950) and Paul-Ludwig Landsberg (1901–1944). Maritain was an intellectual heavyweight in his day and the most influential representative of personalism. The aforementioned Mounier and his friend and colleague Paul-Ludwig Landsberg were the main theoreticians of the early Esprit movement, the personalist movement with which the young Ricoeur sympathized. The analysis of the political thought of these three authors shows remarkable overlap, to such an extent that we can talk about a common personalist political theory. That provides us with an insight into the personalist framework in which Ricoeur’s own political philosophy came into being. In the second stage, I focus on Ricoeur’s own direct involvement in the personalist movement. Between the end of World War II and the 1960s Ricoeur grew into one of the main theorists of personalism, by means of frequent contributions to the journals Esprit and Le christianisme social. Three topics received ample treatment: the relationship between personalism and existentialism, the possibility of a Christian socialism and the perils and promises of politics. These three topics in which Ricoeur succeeded in leaving his mark on personalist thought will be examined in the second chapter. The analysis of the concerned essays will show that the reflection on the paradoxical nature of politics and the subsequent responsibility of the citizen was the spearhead of Ricoeur’s intellectual contribution to personalism. Moreover, we will find that Ricoeur’s reflections build on the political theory of personalism manifested in the first chapter. The fact that a personalist dimension is present in Ricoeur’s thought during those early years is more or less generally acknowledged. Most secondary literature, however, gives this little or no attention (Monteil 2013b; Muldoon 2002; Simms 2003) or presents it as just a phase (Dosse 2008; Michel 2006; Mongin 1998; Reagan 1996). 5 This last version of the facts is what I will call into question in the third stage. I will look at how Ricoeur indeed supported fundamental criticisms of original personalism, while he nevertheless continued to display a tenacious critical loyalty. The four criticisms that were on the table will all prove to be given a response in Ricoeur’s later work. This key particularly opens a new perspective on Ricoeur’s late main work, Soi-même comme un autre (1990), that is as the expression of an endeavor to bring the core ideas of personalism back into the limelight, but in a more resilient manner. Special attention will be devoted to the criticism that personalism mixes up philosophy and faith. The controversy that surrounds Ricoeur himself in that regard prompts us to abandon for a while our methodology of thinking along with Ricoeur, to engage in the concerned debate in the secondary literature and to reach a conclusion on the extent to which Ricoeur himself remains vulnerable to the trouble of original personalism.

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The restatement of personalism brings us to the fourth and final stage, where I return to Ricoeur’s political thought. On the basis of his later hermeneutical phenomenological anthropology Ricoeur took a new look at political philosophy during the last two decades of his life. In the study of the personalist-inspired political theory in his early work (in the second chapter) we will have encountered key concepts such as the political paradox and the responsibility of the person as a citizen in a preliminary form. In the fourth chapter we are going to find out how Ricoeur elaborates these concepts later on. This will allow me to work out how he implicitly uncovers a personalist potential within contemporary political philosophy. In that regard I will look at the attempt to solve the dilemma between liberalism and communitarianism by focusing on the concepts of citizenship and civic virtue. This debate spurred the revival of republicanism in Anglo-American political philosophy. Authors such as Quentin Skinner, Philip Pettit and Michael Sandel argue for the understanding of freedom as non-domination, combined with an emphasis on a mixed constitution and a vigilant citizenry. I will first show that Ricoeur’s political thought is on the same wavelength with contemporary republicanism. Eventually I will argue that Ricoeur’s personalist leanings allow him to circumvent problems that haunt more common kinds of contemporary republicanism, namely the blindness for transnational citizenship, the lack of foundation for the required civic virtue and the controversiality of the intrinsic value of self-government. The final result lies on three fronts. First, there is more clarity in the status of personalism in contemporary philosophy, as Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology shows that there are still viable means to elaborate the core ideas of personalism, beyond the usual criticism. Second, a personalist kind of republicanism is shown to provide a valuable input into the contemporary philosophical debate on citizenship. This opens the door to further investigation, for the next step that presents itself is to examine how a personalist republicanism can be elaborated in the light of vexed questions with regard to the ethical meaning of citizenship, such as the relationship between justice and solidarity, our collective responsibility for the environment and multicultural coexistence. Finally, the most tangible result is a deeper understanding of the oeuvre of Ricoeur, in the sense that this work shows that personalism is an important and above all underestimated perspective for understanding his thought. NOTES 1. There are, however, notable exceptions who still try to elaborate personalism as a distinct philosophical system. See for example (Buford 2009; 2011; Burgos 2000; Triest 2000). 2. For personalism in contemporary medical ethics, see for example (Petrini and Gainotti 2008; Schotsmans 1999; Vanlaere and Gastmans 2011). For contemporary business ethics, see

Introduction

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for example (Acevedo 2012; Ballet et al. 2014; L. Bouckaert 1999; Gronbacher 1998; Whetstone 2002). 3. This is especially clear in the essays Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne (1983b) and Approches de la personne (1992a), which will be analyzed in detail further on in this book. 4. For recent overviews, see (Burgos 2012; Norgaard Mortensen 2014). 5. For notable exceptions, see (Agís Villaverde 2012; Dauenhauer 1998).

Chapter One

The Political Philosophy of Personalism

SITUATION The intellectual quest for the task and responsibility of the person as a citizen did not come out of nowhere in the work of Paul Ricoeur. 1 It was already the key question of personalism, the movement that breathed new life into the Christian intellectual environment in which Ricoeur grew up. Although Ricoeur himself was a Protestant, the origin and the core of French personalism is Catholic. The history of French personalism starts at the end of the nineteenth century, when the Catholic Church became increasingly aware of a world in which she no longer fitted. 2 Two important encyclicals, Aeterni Patris (Leo XIII 1879) and Rerum Novarum (Leo XIII 1891), initiated a Christian response to modern industrial society. In the first encyclical, Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) faced the intellectual challenge, that is offering a response to scientific progress. Modern thought discredited Christian doctrine, but at the same time it imposed itself as an inescapable force. The pope placed his hope in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Aquinas was supposed to provide an adequate framework to value modern science. Neo-Thomism brought the philosophical binder to match science and Christian principles, because it placed reason in the service of faith without rejecting the autonomy of reason, and it sketched a metaphysical synthesis of reality to complement the sciences. The impulse of the pope initiated the flourishing of Neo-Thomism among Catholic academics (Steel 1991, 44–50). The second encyclical concerned the social challenge of industrial society. The Church had to define its position with regard to the excrescences of capitalism, which brought misery and oppression to the working classes and 1

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Chapter 1

to the threat of Marxism, which provided a fundamentally anti-Christian solution. The task of the Christian in modern society was in need of a new definition. Catholic social teaching, which gradually came about from Rerum Novarum onward, had to fill the void. French Catholic social and political thought underwent a radical transformation during the turbulent decades between World War I and II. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Neo-Thomism was a privileged philosophical standpoint among Catholic intellectuals. However, rather than seeking to reconcile faith with modern society, Neo-Thomism was used to maintain a rigid antimodernism. Accordingly, the reactionary nationalism of the Action Française movement was very attractive to the Catholic elite. Charles Maurras (1868–1952), the leader of the movement and an atheist, sought to collaborate with Neo-Thomists in order to establish a nationalist, monarchist alliance of believers and nonbelievers. Neo-Thomist political philosophy was supposed to provide theoretical justification for Catholics to chant “la France d’abord” and “politique d’abord” (Chenaux 1999, 17–47; Perreau-Saussine 2011, 191–206; Sutton 1982, 46–240). In 1926, Pope Pius XI (1857–1939) put an end to this alliance by condemning Maurras and the Action Française, due to an implied doctrinal separation between politics and ethics (Canali 1926). This condemnation came as a bombshell to French Catholic intellectuals, a majority of whom sympathized with the Action Française. Nevertheless, it compelled them to rethink the Christian vision of man and society and the place of Christianity in the modern era. This was the basis for the development of French personalism in the 1930s (Calvez 2000, 312–15; Hellman 1973, 381–90). The condemnation of Action Française radically transformed the sense of Catholic social and political thinking. It was now occupied with a vision of man as a creature that could only develop within communities, but whose individuality must still be invested with absolute dignity. This made it possible to navigate between individualism, which neglected the importance of communities, and collectivism, which subordinated the individual to a whole community. The intellectual movement that sought to reconcile these two was called personalism, after Charles Renouvier (1815–1903), a French moral philosopher, coined the term at the beginning of the century to refer to similar ideas (Renouvier 1903). Renouvier advanced a theory of freedom aimed at both libertarian individualism and the collectivist denial of individual freedom and responsibility. He argued that individual freedom needs to be reconciled with social order. Therefore each individual has to pursue the common good, which is a society that propagates individual freedom and the means for the good life. This requires a mutual dynamic of formation of the person and institutional reform. The pursuit of justice and truth is then embodied in free cooperation, without relapse into totalitarian or determinist claims based on an absolute philosophy of history. With these ideas of liberty

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3

and distrust of ideology Renouvier drew the outlines that would later characterize the personalist tradition (De Tavernier 2009, 364–67). 3 French personalism of the 1930s was defined by the search for man’s vocation in modern society, in contrast to the dominant ideologies of the day: communism, fascism, and so-called bourgeois-capitalism. This in itself was definitely not an exclusively French phenomenon. More or less the entire continent during the interbellum was involved in a search for a “Third Way” between the American and Russian paths. Rather than be another ideology, personalism was designed to provide a broad ethical perspective on civilization (Landsberg 1952b; E. Mounier 1961c, 483–88). The point of departure within personalism is that man is not an atomic individual, but a communal creature who, nevertheless, retains his individual value. In addition, personalists sought a vision that recognized the human person in his totality, instead of reducing him to a productive instrument, a citizen of a nation, or any other part of a whole. The spiritual and the material dimension of the person had to be balanced in an “integral humanism” (Maritain 1936). As a consequence, the political dimension and the religious and ethical dimensions of personhood were in line with each other, in explicit contrast to the ideology of Maurras and the Action Française. Although personalism became the primary guiding principle among the French Catholic elite, that is not to say that there were no dissenting voices to be heard. An important example was Simone Weil’s (1909–1943) criticism. She criticized the focus on the concept of the person, especially because she considered the concept of the person to be an unfortunate corollary of Christians’ bend toward modern liberalism and the discourse of rights. Weil considered this a misplaced striving for compromise: “In all the crucial problems of human existence the only choice is between supernatural good on the one hand and evil on the other” (S. Weil 1957, 29). Hence according to Weil, personalism was mistaken in trying to ground human dignity in the worldly concept of the person-in-community. Instead, she emphasized that human sanctity rests on the impersonal, which was her way of referring to that which could not be expressed in words: transcendent, pure truth and justice, only to be found in the relationship with God (Hamilton 2005, 187–207). 4 Whether or not Weil’s radical criticism is convincing, she was correct in identifying that personalists generally aimed to place the Christian in rather than against modern society. In spite of this common project, however, personalism took on many faces. Therefore, it is more accurate to talk about personalisms rather than an unambiguous personalism (E. Mounier 1961c, 483–88). The common project was interpreted in different ways, depending on several factors. An important factor was the vision of Christian philosophy, a subject of fierce debate in those days. In opposition to a mainstream movement that stated that Christian philosophy was a contradiction in terms, there were two important inter-

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pretations of Christian philosophy: On the one hand, there was the NeoThomist approach and, on the other hand, the modern approach. Neo-Thomists, of course, considered medieval philosophy to be the authentic Christian philosophy and they intended contemporary Christian philosophy to be a loyal adaptation thereof. 5 But the defenders of a modern Christian philosophy looked for more contemporary inspiration, such as the spiritualism of Henri Bergson (1859–1941). They criticized the Neo-Thomist’s focus on the past, arguing that a contemporary Christian philosophy should be grafted onto modern thought, without reducing the supernatural to naturalistic explanations (Sadler 2011). Maritain and Mounier developed their personalism from within these different frameworks. Jacques Maritain was the most important representative of Neo-Thomist personalism. Emmanuel Mounier, on the other hand, was influenced by the modern Christian philosophy of Jacques Chevalier (1882–1962), and developed a more existential personalism, which was also marked by Bergsonian and phenomenological affinities (Amato 2002; L. Bouckaert 1992c, 11–17). Another important factor is related to the thought of Charles Péguy (1873–1914). Péguy was a French poet and publicist who connected politics and spirituality in a capricious mishmash of socialism, Catholicism, and nationalism (Finkielkraut 1991; Guillemin 1981). In fact, there is no French personalist that remained uninfluenced by this charismatic figure. Péguy resisted modernity and questioned the ideology of progress. In opposition to the megalomania of modern man he defended the importance of modest values, such as sense of family and work ethic. Moreover, he linked social criticism to a message of hope. According to him, hope is the most important of the theological virtues. It is wrongfully put in the shade of faith and love, like a little girl overshadowed between two women, following the metaphor of his famous poem Le porche du mystère de la deuxième vertu (1911). His Christian activism and his plea for a moral revolution were very inspirational, even long after his heroic death at the beginning of World War I. The meaning of Péguy was, however, open to interpretation. Mounier referred to Péguy to plea in favor of a Christian heroism, in light of a revolution against the establishment. Maritain read Péguy in a more moderate fashion, with a focus on the idea that the superiority of the spiritual above the temporal does not only concern the ends but also the means. This diverging interpretation goes hand in hand with, on the one hand, the revolutionary and activist personalism of Mounier, and, on the other hand, the more moderate and less antiliberal academic personalism of Maritain (Amato 2002; Chenaux 1999, 215–23; Perreau-Saussine 2011, 199–206). 6 Maritain and Mounier are not only the most prominent representatives of French personalism, they are in particular important points of reference for Ricoeur. A third personalist with a major influence on Ricoeur was the German refugee Paul-Ludwig Landsberg. Because of his German back-

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ground it is harder to categorize Landsberg in the above distinctions within French personalism. Landsberg’s thought is, however, generally speaking very close to Mounier’s, with whom he also collaborated on the editorial board of the journal Esprit. It is likewise an existential-phenomenological and activist personalism, but insofar as Mounier was inspired by Bergson and Péguy, Landsberg got his inspiration from the German philosopher Max Scheler (Keller 2003). In the following we will examine the political philosophy of Maritain, Mounier, and Landsberg, in order to understand the background of the political thought of the young Ricoeur. JACQUES MARITAIN From Antimodernism to Integral Humanism Jacques Maritain was the captain of Catholic social and political thought in the middle of the twentieth century. Brought up as a nonbeliever and converted to Catholicism in his younger years, he would eventually become one of the most important mentors of Christian democracy and the Second Vatican Council. Ricoeur was influenced as well. Roland Dalbiez, Ricoeur’s Neo-Thomist teacher at the University of Rennes, introduced him early on to the philosophy of Maritain (Dosse 2008, 19–27). Despite his later status as helmsman of the Catholic aggiornamento, Maritain was initially one of the Neo-Thomists that sympathized with the reactionary Action Française. His early work Trois Réformateurs (Maritain 1925) was a Neo-Thomist attack on modernism and democracy, in which he pointed to Luther, Descartes, and Rousseau as the sources of everything that went wrong in Western societies since the sixteenth century. As such, this constituted a Catholic complement for the profane antimodernism of Maurras. On many levels, they were in agreement: their identification with France, Catholicism, and Western civilization, their rejection of the existing social order, their criticism of the idea of progress, and the imputation of individualism and collectivism as the essential illnesses of the modern world. The papal condemnation of the Action Française (Canali 1926) provoked a revolution in his thinking. Eventually, he was even asked by the pope to explain the reasons for the condemnation to the French people. Whereas Maritain’s initial philosophy combined apocalyptic, reactionary, and reformist elements, this was no longer possible after the condemnation. Hence, he evolved in the direction of a more empirical and less ideological perspective on society. It forced him to distinguish between the essential and the nonessential elements of Catholic doctrine, diluting the most conservative and reactionary components of his thought leading him to search for a more positive relation between Catholicism and contemporary democracy (Amato 2002, 55–76; Chenaux 1999, 133–61). Ten

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years after the Vatican intervention, his refreshed philosophy was embodied in his magnum opus Humanisme Intégral (Maritain 1936). Maritain based his dissociation from Maurras on the so-called “primacy of the spiritual” (Maritain 1927). In opposition to Catholic nationalism, from the 1920s onward he stressed the universality of Christianity, elevated above any particular civilization. Moreover, he rejected the separation between faith and world that was characteristic of the ideology of Maurras (Maritain 1936, 102–33). The socio-political domain and the spiritual domain are distinct, but should not be separated. Politics is autonomous and has its own order, but only God is sovereign and the Christian also has a worldly task to fulfill. In this way, Maritain opposed the Machiavellianism of modern politics. Machiavelli was supposed to have made politics into an art of gaining and retaining power, an art that is completely detached from ethics. Maritain, however, considered politics in the Neo-Thomist sense, as a matter of practical wisdom in the service of the bonum commune. Hence, there was a need for a Christian social and political philosophy that would give a closer interpretation of that bonum commune. Maritain took up this task by means of the formulation of a “concrete historical ideal” for the new Christianity (Opdebeeck 2000; Schall 1998, 1–17). The concrete historical ideal had three central characteristics. Maritain started by describing the ideal as a “communitarian” ideal: it is aimed at a material and moral common good that is more than the sum of the individual interests. The liberal notion of common good was, hence, rejected in favor of the Neo-Thomist notion of a substantive bonum commune. Moreover it is also a “personalist” ideal, by which he meant that the political community is subsidiary to the person and her full development as a free spiritual being: “La société politique est destinée essentiellement, à raison de la fin terrestre elle-même qui la spécifie, au développement de conditions de milieu qui portent de telle sorte la multitude à un degré de vie matérielle, intellectuelle et morale convenable au bien et à la paix du tout, que chaque personne s’y trouve aidée positivement à la conquête progressive de sa pleine vie de personne et de sa liberté spirituelle” (Maritain 1936, 141). 7 On the basis of these first two characteristics, we can talk of a typically personalist tension. Every person participates in the common task of a society, to which she is, hence, subordinate. On grounds of her personal vocation, however, the person is also superior to that common task. The person is at the service of the common good, but the common good is at the service of fostering the individual’s pursuit of their vocation. Maritain sought for the foundation of this view in Thomas Aquinas’ portrayal of mankind: “Every individual person is related to the community as a part to a whole,” Aquinas wrote, but “man is not subordinate to the political community on the basis of all that he is and possesses.” 8 A human being is by nature a social animal, but he is—on the basis of the supratemporal destination of the soul—at the same

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time bearer of an absolute dignity that has to remain out of the grasp of the collective. 9 The third and final central characteristic shows the concrete historical ideal as a “pilgrims’ ideal,” an ideal that is by definition eternally unfinished. The realization of our vocation here and now is underway in pursuit of a higher goal. The worldly ideal is an important but subordinate goal, for the completion of our humanity is unattainable on Earth. Next to these three characteristics, Maritain also underlined the historical nature of the ideal. The Christian vision of twentieth-century politics cannot be identical to the medieval vision. Although the essence remains the same, the interpretation is outdated. The main difference is that a twentieth-century vision has to be pluralist, hence a matter of “profane Christianity,” as Maritain used to call it. There is no longer a need for a unity of faith, but only for a “unity of friendship,” based on a shared practical vocation: the actualization of a communal life in accordance with values of an implied Christian nature, such as human dignity and love (Maritain 1936, 134–214). After the interpretation of the content of the ideal, the next question is how to realize it. The pursuit of a better society is a worldly task for every individual Christian, and by extension for every human being. That is why the concrete commitment of every person is required. For the structural embedding of the bonum commune Maritain counted, however, especially on politicians with the necessary “prudentia politica.” The politician has to be a good person, but he also has to dispose of the necessary understanding of the dynamics and capacity of the society. “Prudentia politica” refers, therefore, to a way of political action that links politics to ethics, but in a human way, taking into account the possibilities of the historical circumstances at hand. Usually, the lesser evil is then to be preferred over and above the absolute good (Belmans 1983, 40–57; De Jonghe 1992, 111–13). From Integral Humanism to a Personalist Theory of Democracy With regard to the practical realization of his concrete historical ideal, Maritain experienced a further development in his thinking during World War II. While he was in exile in the United States, he was impressed by American society. There he discerned a reasonably faithful reflection of his view of society: a classless and religiously inspired society on the basis of a pluralist ideal of the living together of communities and persons. That impression moved him even further away from his criticism of modern society and ever closer to a reconciliation of his Christian convictions and liberal democracy, based on a democratic interpretation of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. Neo-Thomists usually interpreted Aquinas as an opponent of democracy, because of his political treatise De Regno (1979, originally published 1267), in which he defended a mixed constitution with not only democratic but also aristocratic and oligarchic elements. Maritain, however, came gradually to

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the conclusion that Aquinas could not be said to have been for or against modern democracy, because that would be an anachronism. What Maritain did read in the spirit of Aquinas’ work was that political legitimacy rests with the people. How that is to be institutionalized is subject to historical evolution (Mancini 1987, 151). This development of his thought culminated in a reformulation of his political philosophy in Man and the State (Maritain 1998), which would become a standard book of Christian democratic theory (Amato 2002, 155–58; Hittinger and Fuller 2001, 1–8; Perreau-Saussine 2011, 203–6). In this text, Maritain sketches out the terms of a personalist democracy as a political means to pursue an ideal society. This idea was not entirely new. In Humanisme Intégral he already made a brief reference to the idea of a personalist democracy as an implication of his philosophy. This personalist democracy would be characterized by equal political rights for everyone, with participation not restricted to the right to vote, but involving every citizen in an active way in the political life of the community (Maritain 1936, 180). After the war, personalist democracy became a central concern in Maritain’s political philosophy. The systematic construction of Maritain’s argumentation in Man and the State starts with some distinctions (Maritain 1998, 1–27). The first distinction is between communities and societies. Communities are a given with a certain natural fact (language, region, class, etc.) as object. Societies are a product of human reason, freely constituted in order to realize a certain goal, even when the pursuit of this goal is a natural necessity, as it is for a family, but also for a political society or body politic. Maritain had a very lofty idea of political society. The primary condition for the existence of a body politic is justice, but the essential constitutive element is friendship, a feeling of devotion, and mutual love as the foundation of shared citizenship: 10 “[The body politic] tends toward a really human and freely achieved communion. It lives on the devotion of the human persons and their gift of themselves. They are ready to commit their own existence, their possessions and their honor for its sake. The civic sense is made up of this sense of devotion and mutual love as well as of the sense of justice and law” (Maritain 1998, 10). Within the body politic is a pluralism of many kinds of communities and societies that all have their autonomy, while the body politic as a whole is, at the same time, directed toward a shared bonum commune. This bonum commune consists of all public goods—material, juridical, moral, as well as spiritual—that support the person in the development of his freedom. Next to the body politic the state also comes under the heading of “society.” If the body politic is the whole, then the state is the superior part, a collection of institutions aimed at the interests of the whole; the state has an instrumental status. It serves the public interest, in the service of persons. As such, it has an irreplaceable task. Given the complexity of modern society, the growth of the state machinery is a normal phenomenon in light of its task, hence a

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necessary evil. However, Maritain stated that the problem of the twentieth century was the fact that this process underwent a degeneration through which the state became overpowering and meddled in domains that were supposed to be beyond its limits. That totalitarian tendency of the modern state can only be kept in reign by a truly democratic re-evaluation of the state that arms the citizens to keep the state under control. The people have to dispose of the will and the means to exert control. Only then can they talk about true democracy. In his explanation of what he then means by the notion of democracy, Maritain started with a distinction between democracy and popular sovereignty (Maritain 1998, 28–53). The notion of sovereignty was according to him incompatible with democracy. Sovereignty, as it was defined by Jean Bodin (1530–1596), implies that the sovereign is transcendent with regard to the political society. The sovereign is not a part of society—not even the superior part—but is a whole in itself, above the whole, indivisible and irresponsible. The state cannot be sovereign, because that would shut the door on accountability, while democracy demands that the people are able to pass the ultimate judgment. But neither are the people sovereign, because they have to be accountable to themselves as opposed to transcendent and irresponsible. Therefore, democracy is not equal to popular sovereignty. Maritain described democracy rather as a matter of the moral rationalization of politics, in opposition to a technical, Machiavellianist rationalization of politics. In the latter case, politics is a technique for obtaining power that in the long run comes at the expense of the body politic. In a moral rationalization of politics, the relation between the goal of politics (the bonum commune) and the means to attain that goal is not a technical matter, but rather a moral matter that takes into account the moral foundations of the body politic, namely justice and mutual friendship. Democracy is the only possible translation of such a moral rationalization of politics, a politics that pursues freedom and justice by moral means. Hence Maritain used a moral interpretation of the notion of democracy, but he clearly distinguished his interpretation from “political hypermoralism” and “Pharisaical purism.” Democracy should not break the distinction between public ethics and personal ethics, neither should it be afraid of dirty hands. The means have to be good and proportionate, but one should not fail to act out of fear of doing something wrong (Maritain 1998, 54–64). Personalist Democracy and Active Citizenship The message of Maritain’s post-war political philosophy was quite simple up to this point: Politics is oriented toward the bonum commune; democracy is the only good way in that direction, and democracy demands that the citizen checks whether the state does what it is supposed to do and does not do what

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it is not supposed to do. The question is how one can put this into practice. Since the nineteenth century, most European political regimes were democratic in name, but this did not prevent the socio-political catastrophes of the twentieth century. The then-prevailing interpretation of democracy was, hence, largely insufficient. The core of the failure of “bourgeois democracy” was, according to Maritain, to be found in the liberal focus on neutrality. This neutrality concerned even the recognition of freedom and democracy itself, which sowed the seeds for totalitarianism. Therefore Maritain’s personalist democracy questioned this neutrality. This does not mean that he disputed the separation of church and state. In Humanisme Intégral he already emphasized that the pursuit of the common good is necessarily a secular matter in the modern age. However, he argued that this does not imply that a democratic society does not need a shared faith. Only this faith can no longer be a religious faith, but rather a Christian-inspired “secular faith” in a democratic charter that can be shared by nonbelievers as well. This “creed of freedom” was described by Maritain in quasi-Rawlsian terms as practical conclusions that are to be distinguished from their divergent theoretical justifications. 11 The content of that creed is a collection of rights, liberties, and responsibilities, but also values such as equality, justice, fraternity, sense of public responsibility, and solidarity with mankind as a whole (Maritain 1998, 108–14). The enforcement of this democratic charter was something Maritain considered to be threatened by two sides. On one hand there was the totalitarian inclination of the state, while on the other hand there was the threat of antidemocratic political agents. In both cases active citizenship offers the way out. Only the citizenry’s vigilance and willingness to act can force the state to fulfill its duties and to decline the assumption of illegitimate domination (Maritain 1998, 18–19, 24–27). The state itself can stand up to the enemies of liberty, but there is a serious threat that in so doing, the state strengthens itself, endangering democracy for its own purposes. Here also the citizens are the first and most important enforcers of the democratic charter when they direct their political action against antidemocrats (Maritain 1998, 114–19). The person is, hence, the axis of a personalist democracy: politics is in service of the people, and the people have to place themselves in the service of democracy. As a person they have a vocation that transcends politics, while it is also based on politics because it is responsible for the framework that allows people to develop their personal vocation. Therefore, Maritain’s democracy is humanist and Christian at the same time, since it attributes an autonomous importance to the political, while the Christian, as a citizen, eventually has to regard politics in light of his ultimate ends. The worldly duty of the Christian is the realization of freedom as a binding but subordinate goal, for man is more than a political creature (Schall 1998, 59–63, 99–117). Freedom, however, has to be given the right interpretation.

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The personalist conception of freedom is not the negative freedom of choice of liberalism but positive freedom: the liberty to find and do what is good, the liberty to discern and pursue one’s own vocation in life. The crucial role of the citizenry requires that they dispose of the necessary structures and means to fulfill their task. First and foremost this demands a virtuous civic education. Maritain argued that education is, in the first place, a responsibility of the family, while the state and the education system have an additional task. This additional task goes beyond the gathering of knowledge and capabilities. The youth also has to be educated to responsible citizenship. According to Maritain, this required education on a religious or philosophical basis. He was convinced that young people would commit themselves to democracy in a more firm manner when they were not only equipped with practical knowhow, but also with theoretical understanding (Maritain 1943; 1998, 119–26). Yet although citizens must enter the political forum with the necessary tools, the proper institutions must be in place in order to fulfill their role. In that regard, Maritain stressed the insufficiency of conventional channels of participation (Maritain 1998, 64–68). In his time, he had learned that elections and parliamentary representation are important but inadequate and that lobbyists and other noninstitutional means of subgroups within the body politic can also make a valuable contribution. However, these groups present a risk of political agitation and propaganda, particularly when a subgroup claims to represent the voice of the people. Inspired by the American radical activist Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), among others, Maritain pled for grassroots politics and active involvement from all citizens. The key word in the elaboration of his personalist democracy is subsidiarity, the principle that all that can be done by the free initiative of organs smaller than the state has to be left to these organs and that politics has to be structured from the bottom up instead of the top down: Let us conclude, first, that according to the pluralist principle everything in the body politic which can be brought about by particular organs or societies inferior to the State and born out of the free initiative of the people should be brought about by those particular organs or societies; second, that vital energy should unendingly rise from the people within the body politic. In other words the program of the people should not be offered from above to the people, and then accepted by them; it should be the work of the people. This means that at the very bottom, at a level far deeper than that of political parties, the interest and initiative of the people in civic matters should begin with an awakening of common consciousness in the smallest local communities, and remain constantly at work there. (Maritain 1998, 67–68; original italicization)

Maritain also emphasized the importance of spiritual means in politics, denoting Gandhi (1869–1948) as an ultimate example. Spiritual means refers

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to the courage to endure suffering in defence of just claims. Maritain also talked about the role of “prophets” in democracy, individuals or small communities that constitute catalysts of emancipation during pivotal moments in time by awakening people to their social responsibility. At the same time, he warned of the danger of false prophets who deceive the people. Prophets have an important role to play in history, but they can never be a replacement for generalized, active citizenship. The difference between false and real prophets can only be revealed in a thriving, participatory democracy (Maritain 1998, 68–71, 139–46). Democracy, Human Rights, and Natural Law In the elaboration of his mature political philosophy Maritain remained loyal as ever to the Neo-Thomist paradigm. This should come as a surprise. A Thomist theory of liberal democracy might at first sight appear to be a contradiction in terms. The principles of modern democracy, with their focus on fundamental rights, stem from a theory of natural rights that historically and theoretically replaced Thomist theory of natural law. Hence, the cornerstone of Maritain’s political philosophy was the integration of human rights in natural law theory. The starting point was criticism of natural right theory. He argued that this modern thought had exalted the individual to a divine position, with an absolute right to develop himself without the slightest objective standard (Maritain 1998, 80–84). Framing natural law as the foundation for human rights provided Maritain with the opportunity to safeguard the rights from arbitrary interpretations and curtailments by an authoritarian government, but also the opportunity to underline a necessary balance between rights and responsibilities (Fay 1991). Human rights as a part of natural law is a significant renewal of the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. Maritain justified this step by making a distinction between an ontological and an epistemological approach to natural law (Maritain 1998, 84–94). On the ontological level Maritain posited the existence of human nature as an ontological structure that contains the “normality of functioning,” a must that for mankind is not only metaphysical, but also moral. As a free creature a human person must stick to the rules of nature. Natural law is present and has always been present, but our eyes are limited and blurred, for we can only know natural law by means of our inclinations, which do not excel in clarity or structure. Hence, on the epistemological level Maritain pointed out the imperfect and evolutionary character of our knowledge of natural law. Thus he explained that medieval interpretations underlined duties, while people in the modern age began to discern more and more rights as part of natural law. 12 The focus on rights in modern philosophy is criticized as neglecting duties and perverting rights. The task of Neo-Thomist philosophy was then to

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combine the medieval and modern knowledge of natural law into a balanced moral philosophy that does justice to both rights and duties. In that regard human rights emerge as inalienable, but linked to the common good. Some rights cannot be restricted without damaging the common good, other rights sometimes need to be restricted to protect the common good. Moreover, rights that cannot be restricted as to possession can still be restricted as to exercise, either because of criminal behavior, or because of the fact that the underdeveloped nature of society does not allow for full exercise of one’s rights. The latter is then according to Maritain a crucial incentive for social evolution (Maritain 1998, 101–3). The Neo-Thomist framework did not only play an important part in the foundation of human rights, but also in Maritain’s theory of political authority. Although he emphasized the role of the citizens, he nevertheless did not meddle with the authority of the state. The state cannot carry out her assignment in the service of the common good without recognition of her authority. Authority, the right to order, issued by natural law, was according to Maritain to be distinguished from power, that is, the ability to coerce. Authority relies on power, but power without authority is tyranny. In that regard power can only be wielded by people who—within certain boundaries—have received authority on the basis of a temporary appointment by the people, during which time the people keep supervising the exercise of authority. Maritain explained this theory by means of the concept of “vicariate” in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. This concept on the one hand entails that the appointment of a leader does not imply a renunciation of the right to selfgovernment by the people. The exercise of this right is transferred, but the people remain in possession of the right. On the other hand, it does not leave the appointed rulers as a mere instrument of the people. They are a living image of the people and, accordingly, they have to make decisions in their own good conscience, in connection with the people, but without playing up to the crowd (Maritain 1998, 126–39). In sum, Maritain’s political philosophy turns out to be a singular reconciliation of traditional Christian thought and modern society. The person and her integral development as a unique social and spiritual being are at the center. Gradually, Maritain came to recognize liberal democracy as the appropriate political framework for supporting the development of every human being. However, liberal democracy was given a personalist interpretation and a Neo-Thomist foundation. Democratic politics is, hence, revealed as the striving of a body politic for the bonum commune by means of a state that exercises delegated power and active citizens that vigilantly supervise.

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EMMANUEL MOUNIER A Personalist and Communitarian Revolution Emmanuel Mounier was probably the most popular personalist in France. This is largely explained by the fact that he was more of a public intellectual than an academic. Quite some years younger than Maritain, Mounier was strongly influenced by the elder’s integral humanism. It was, however, mainly Henri Bergson and Charles Péguy whose mark became most prominent in Mounier’s brand of personalism. The example of Péguy led Mounier to abandon his academic career and to devote his life to changing society by means of the journal Esprit, of which he was founder and editor-in-chief, and the intellectual community that went by the same name, and included Paul Ricoeur (Amato 2002, 91–124). Hence, the personalism of Mounier was less a philosophical doctrine than a philosophical “matrix,” an overarching project of a personalist civilization in the making that allowed for different philosophical elaborations (Ricoeur 1964e, 138). Compared to Maritain, Mounier’s personalism was also less exclusively Christian in nature (L. Bouckaert 1992c, 24–25; Opdebeeck 2000, 248–49). Esprit attracted both believers and nonbelievers, since Mounier explicitly stated that a new civilization could only come about through the agency of believers and nonbelievers working together (E. Mounier 1961b). 13 Esprit saw the light of day in 1932 and after a precarious starting phase in which he sometimes came close to totalitarian and purist ideas (Le Goff 2003, 172–74), Mounier completed a manifesto five years later. This Manifeste au service du personnalisme (E. Mounier 1961c) stated the clear foundations of the “personalist and communitarian revolution” of the Esprit community. Ultimately, it stood as a plea to uphold the dignity of the person against the threatening ideologies of the time. A criticism of bourgeois capitalism, fascism, and communism was the starting point. Each in their own way, these doctrines were accused of oppressing the human person. Bourgeois capitalism was, according to Mounier, the result of the growing individualization of society since the Renaissance, which gradually perverted spiritual values. Human beings without love or meaning, solely driven by a desire for property and comfort, were the consequence. Fascism did reject these excesses of individualism, rationalism, and liberalism, but it did so in the wrong way. Fascism narrowed spiritual values down to vital values, and consequently changed the primacy of the spiritual for the primacy of power. This primacy of power was founded on contempt for reason and the total subjection of the person to the state or the nation. With regard to Marxism, Mounier acknowledged many valuable insights in its social criticism and theory of alienation. However, the materialist foundations of Marxism deny the autonomy of the spiritual. That is why Marxism ends up just like fascism:

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in the oppression of the person in favor of the collective (E. Mounier 1961c, 491–520). Mounier considered that restoring respect for the dignity of the human person would require nothing less than a social revolution directed toward a personalist and communitarian civilization. Such a civilization would enable everyone to live their lives to the fullest and recognize natural communities in their own purpose, although these communities would also have to be directed toward the full development of every person. This personhood was described by Mounier as follows: “Une personne est un être spirituel constitué comme tel par une manière de subsistance et d’indépendance dans son être; elle entretient cette subsistence par son adhésion à une hiérarchie de valeurs librement adoptées, assimilées et vécues par un engagement responsable et une constante conversion; elle unifie ainsi toute son activité dans la liberté et développe par surcroît à coups d’actes créateurs, la singularité de sa vocation” (E. Mounier 1961c, 523). 14 In sum, the person is essentially characterized by the positive liberty to discover one’s own vocation in life and to commit oneself to its actualization. The heart of Mounier’s manifesto was the description of the institutional preconditions to make this personhood possible. He charged the institutional framework with a triple task: (1) eliminating oppression, (2) safeguarding a margin of independence, and (3) making responsibility the foundation of life in society. He made this concrete in several domains, like education, family, and culture. Special attention was also devoted to the economy. He formulated a personalist alternative to capitalism and communism, in an attempt to develop an economic model that that would prioritize individual needs and valued labor over capital in a kind of economic democracy (G. Bouckaert 1992a; L. Bouckaert 2000). Next to the aforementioned, Mounier’s primary concern was the political domain. A key element of his political theory lies in his criticism of statism, or the coincidence of state and society. Such a model, he argued, could only result in the absence of any intermediary between the state and the individual, thus subjecting the individual to the will of the state. Mounier tried to explain the problem by referring to the basic elements: Political reality consists of persons and communities. He argued that one’s country is the primary, most instinctive kind of community. The nation is the collection of all communities under a common historical tradition and culture. The state, however, is not a spiritual community and, thus, does not stand above country or nation, and certainly not above the person: “[L’état] est un instrument au service des sociétés, et à travers elles, contre elles s’il le faut, au service des personnes. Instrument artificiel et subordonné, mais necessaire” (E. Mounier 1961c, 615). 15 In his homage to Mounier at the UNESCO conference in his honor in the year 2000 Paul Ricoeur strongly emphasized this point: The state is artificial and subservient, a necessary instrument for conflict adjudication, safety and

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support, and the coordination of communities that allow the person to prosper (Ricoeur 2003b, 249–50, 256–57). Consequently, the coercive power of the state has to be restricted to those situations when the material or spiritual freedom of a person is threatened or when someone refuses the social duties that the political community imposes. This restriction of state power has to be guaranteed from the top-down, by the supreme authority of a high court, but also bottom-up, by the social fabric of communities that together constitute the nation (E. Mounier 1961c, 615–19). The bottom-up restriction of power brings us to the second key element in Mounier’s reflection on politics in his manifesto: his criticism of liberal parliamentary democracy and the joined plea for personalist democracy. He stated that liberal democracy is founded on the idea of popular sovereignty, which in turn is based on the myth of the popular will. The popular will was, for its part, obstructed by parliament. Parliamentary will, then, took the place of the popular will without any guarantee of authentic representation of the interests and convictions of the people. Although circumstances differ, we are still confronted with this same problem, as can be seen in the gridlock of the U.S. Congress. The source of this problem was a distortion of the overall meaning of democracy, erroneously equated with majority rule and, hence, quantitative power. In contrast, Mounier—like Maritain—argued in favor of an ethical interpretation of democracy: “La démocratie n’est pas la suprématie du nombre, qui est une forme d’oppression. Elle n’est que la recherche des moyens politiques destinés à assurer à toutes les personnes, dans une cité, le droit au libre développement et au maximum de responsabilité” (E. Mounier 1961c, 623). 16 This requires, on the one hand, that politics, led by a spiritual elite, can exert power for that purpose with authority, but on the other hand that sufficient guarantees are built in, so as to prevent the political elite from establishing dominance. Clearly, Mounier’s personalism implies a fundamental distrust of power. Hence, the essence of personalist democracy is the struggle against domination and the check on power through the law, or “systematic resistance” (E. Mounier 1961c, 619–24). In a personalist democracy, the state is seen as a risky but necessary instrument with a strictly limited task, and under supervision of the people, given the distrust of power. With regard to the supervision of power, Mounier held parliament liable. Like others of his time, he had lost faith in parliamentary democracy. He recognized that the voice of the people had an important role to play, but that one had to ensure that it was really the will of free persons that was expressed, instead of stirred up passions leading to dictatorship. On that account, elections had to be paired with the independent dissemination of information and direct democracy. Parliament would still be responsible for the nomination of the executive, but by means of referenda on popular initiatives, the government, would no longer answer to parliament but directly to the people. Such a concrete execution of personalist democra-

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cy was something Mounier considered as only being possible in a small political community. Larger nations can only realize this by dividing and mutually balancing power, through federalism and subsidiarity. This leaves the state with a limited role, to take care of coordination and adjudication, and to be the external representative of the nation and the internal resort of the person against the abuse of power on lower levels (E. Mounier 1961c, 624–26). An Existential Personalism: Portrayal of Man and Conception of Liberty As Mounier’s personalist manifesto allowed him to reflect on the social project for a new civilization, so his philosophy gradually took on greater depth. During the 1940s, he framed his thought in terms of the rising existentialist philosophies, resulting in the presentation of personalism as a unique kind of existentialism. Moreover, he tried to connect it with the human sciences (Amato 2002, 10–28; Ricoeur 1964e). The defining characteristic of Mounier’s mature thought was the idea of responsible freedom, based on what he defined as an intrinsic paradox in human existence. This paradox consisted of the fact that personhood was the true mode of human existence, while that mode is always in the process of being achieved. The realization of personhood was not a matter of self-centeredness, but something Mounier called—as borrowed from Gabriel Marcel—disponibilité, which we can possibly translate as “availability” or “willingness.” In other words, the ultimate concept of personhood is to exist for another. This implies the cooperative creation of a society in which the norms and institutions are pervaded by mutual emancipation and recognition. In that regard, every human being has to pass through a series of stages. First and foremost one has to learn to step outside of oneself, after which one can learn to imagine oneself in the role of another. That is the necessary condition for empathy, which is the foundation of generosity. The last and ever unaccomplished step is loyalty to this availability for the other, which requires a continuous revival of personal commitment (E. Mounier 1962b). With an eye toward the foundation of his personalism Mounier tried to accomplish a mutual confrontation between his ethical principles and the human sciences, which made a “hybrid genre” of his philosophy (Barreau 2002, 41). In Traité du Caractère (E. Mounier 1947), his most academic work, he made ample use of insights from depth psychology. He acknowledged that man is by nature egocentric. The task of the human person is then to turn this egocentrism into full personhood. Many do not succeed, and their egocentrism becomes a self-destructive egotism. Mounier linked this peculiar psychology to his analysis of society, describing social evolution from the renaissance until the twentieth century as an evolution from egocentrism

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toward egotism (Amato 2002, 14–28). He outlined the transition from egocentrism to egotism by means of three dimensions: interiority, exteriority, and transcendence. The dimension of interiority concerns the inner quest for one’s own identity and vocation in life. This dimension cannot stand alone, without the dimension of exteriority, the dimension of human action in the material world. Mounier’s portrayal of mankind emphasized a double incarnation: in a body and in a community (G. Bouckaert 1992a, 129–30). As such he explicitly rejected idealism and the modern separation of body and mind. Human existence is to be understood as a tension between the internal and the external, between looking inward and acting outward. Personhood, as the authentic form of human existence, requires that these two dimensions are balanced with a third dimension, that is to say transcendence. Transcendence signifies the continuous surpassing of oneself in the pursuit of higher values. In that regard Mounier argued paradoxically that the person can only find herself when she firmly loses herself, not in a mystical way, but in the world, for the others (E. Mounier 1947, 565–75; 1962b, 462–97). Mounier’s philosophical anthropology lacks clarity and rigor, but the continuing thread is clear, namely, that human existence is characterized by freedom to commitment. This freedom is not a directionless freedom of choice, but a freedom situated in the world, dictated by conditions and with regard to a horizon of values. Consequently, before hastily declaring freedom in name, we must first guarantee its common preconditions: biological, social, economic, political, and moral, together which allow people to discern and gradually realize their own vocation. Hence, the public dimension of the human vocation consists, in the first place, of “the spirit of liberty,” or personal dedication to the safeguarding of liberties: “On ne donne pas la liberté aux hommes, de l’extérieur, avec des facilités de vie ou des Constitutions: ils s’assoupissent dans leurs libertés, et se réveillent esclaves. Les libertés ne sont que des chances offertes à l’esprit de liberté. . . . [La] bataille de la liberté ne connaît pas de fin” (E. Mounier 1962b, 483; original italicization). 17 Fundamental liberties have to be incorporated within the institutional framework of society. In and of itself, however, this is insufficient. The relation between individual rights and the common good always remains a subject of discussion. That is why Mounier stressed the fact that political declarations, such as the then hot-off-the-press Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can only be effective if they are embedded in a society that does not merely provide the necessary institutional guarantees, but also the sufficient commitment and “untameability” of its citizens (E. Mounier 1962b, 470–84). Mounier was fully aware of potential pitfalls, if the discourse on human rights became disconnected from the concern for the common good and a sustained public vigilance. An important motivation behind the journal Esprit was precisely to spread the awareness that adopting fundamental val-

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ues was a sterile enterprise if not supported by an open and dynamic debate (Villela-Petit 2003, 155–56). Mounier’s existential personalism emphasized that freedom had to be not only accepted but defended. The free human being is responsible for upholding the framework of liberty for herself, others, and what she does with her own freedom. Departing from a situation of uncertainty, each person has the duty to make a creative choice that advances the world and shapes the individual. However, such a choice is only meaningful if it is a total commitment. The person is essentially marked by commitment, and, given the need for the “spirit of freedom,” commitment is necessarily political in nature. The theoretical development of these core intuitions was based on the outlines of a theory of action. A Personalist Theory of Action That human existence is “active” was a core idea of existentialism, as opposed to Neo-Thomism or Neo-Kantianism, and played a central role in Mounier’s development of personalism. Consequently, he devoted much attention to the formulation of criteria for authentic human action. He rejected the prevailing theories based in materialist and determinist doctrines of human action and intended to rehabilitate the idea of the human being as free and responsible. His theory of action was based on three pillars: (1) without freedom, action is stuck in fatalism, (2) isolated action is fruitless in light of the pursuit of truth and justice, (3) without value patterns, action is directionless, resulting in arbitrariness, inertia, or delirium. Therefore, action presupposes freedom, cooperation, and a horizon of values if it is to avoid insignificance (E. Mounier 1962b, 498–500). Mounier’s personalism also made four demands on action: (1) to intervene in the external world, (2) to mold the person, (3) to establish rapprochement to others, and (4) to enrich our value universe. Not every instance of action contains all of these elements to the same extent, but collectively, our actions should realize each of these elements in a harmony. In that regard, Mounier made a classic distinction between different kinds of action, so that every kind provided a dominant input on a certain level. First, there is economic action (poiein). This kind of action concerns our interaction with matter in order to impose our will on nature. The core criterion for economic action, its objective and standard, is efficiency. The second kind of action is ethical (prattein). This kind of action is not directly aimed at realizing something in the external world, but at the formation of the acting person. Here, the core criterion is authenticity. Finally, Mounier mentioned contemplative action (theorein). This kind is not only an intellectual or spiritual affair, but also concerns the individuals as incorporated in the entire community, for it involves the exploration of deeper values and their dissemination among

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mankind. The objectives and standards of this kind of action are nothing less than perfection and universality (E. Mounier 1962b, 500–503). What is more important than distinguishing these kinds of action is their mutual dependency and interaction. Economic activity is not satisfactory if one cannot find dignity, friendship, and higher purpose in one’s labor. This is why economy needs politics, to bridge the gap between economic and ethical action. Ethics cannot remain absent in the economic sphere as a relationship among men can never lie on solely technical grounds. If productivity is favored in lieu of the individual, then the long-term result is compromised as well because the oppression of human beings will eventually cause repercussions, even on productivity itself. Therefore, ethical considerations are as important as technical calculations. Apoliticism on the side of economic action leads to an impersonal technocracy, while in terms of ethical action, it leads to spiritualism or even a complete desertion of reality. In both cases, it comes at the expense of the actual purpose of the action. In principle, contemplative action is not directed at material or social realizations, but, in a special form, intended to jolt economic and ethical action awake. Mounier called this “prophetical action,” which connects contemplation to the economic and ethical practice, just how politics connects economics to ethics. Examples of this were the nonviolent resistance of Mahatma Gandhi and, in France, Émile Zola’s famous open letter “J’accuse” (1898), in which he disclosed and condemned the anti-Semitically inspired false accusation of espionage against a Jewish army officer in the so-called Dreyfus affair. Based on the necessary interaction between different kinds of action, Mounier described the appropriate society as an interplay between political and prophetic poles. The political pole stands for an inclination to settle and compromise, while the prophetic pole stands for courage and reflection. Not everyone can unify these two poles in a single personality. That is why society needs a mix of persons with different qualities, in accordance with the entire spectrum between the political and prophetic. The general result of this interaction is a state of critical vigilance, where people are willing to dirty their hands, knowing that while perfection is not of this world, the dignity of the person and the underlying values must be defended. In harmony with the work of Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, as we will see, Mounier used commitment as a key term in this context, referring to the tragic dimension of action in concrete situations, where reality forces us to look for the golden mean between fanaticism and opportunism (E. Mounier 1962b, 503–6). The interplay between the political pole and the prophetic pole, however, required a clear understanding of the autonomy of the political. Through his theory of action, Mounier tried to provide every sphere with its proper place and role in human existence. Nevertheless, he maintained a clear dissymmetry between the political and the spiritual, insofar that the spiritual was to be seen as a metapolitical sphere, the horizon that oriented political questions in

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order to incorporate criticism into political practice (Le Goff 2003, 177–78). That is why citizenship, for Mounier, was intrinsically linked to personhood. The concept of citizenship belongs to the political sphere. As a citizen, I carry part of the responsibility for the functioning of the state. However, it is only as a person that I can make a full value judgment, according to the criteria of the good and the just that transcend the political. Hence, the political judgment of a citizen, whether it be in court, governance, etc., has to be understood as situated by ethical judgments by and for the person (VillelaPetit 2003, 159). The framework within which the person has to employ his political capacity to judge is something Mounier further explored in a political theory. This political theory explains the personalist manifesto’s proposals with regard to political reform. A Personalist Political Theory A personalist vision of politics, in the first place, implies that politics serves the person. In Mounier, this came to the fore in a severe distrust of the state and an extended criticism of parliamentary democracy. These are elements that Mounier already underlined in his manifesto, but they received further elaboration in his mature philosophy. Designing a political framework entirely at the service of the person is an ultimate, though not fully attainable, goal in itself. The first matter that brings this to the surface is the place and role of the state. Mounier envisioned a pluralist state, meaning “un État articulé au service d’une société pluraliste” (E. Mounier 1962b, 521). 18 This was supposed to be a state that does not put itself in the place of the nation and that does not centralize all power; a state that, rather, works through a diverse host of communities and institutions that both constitute the political community and serve to balance each other. In elaborating this idea of the state, Mounier appealed to the definition of the French sociologist Georges Gurvitch (1894–1965). Gurvitch put the sovereignty of the state in perspective with regard to the plurality of smaller and bigger communities. The limited, but important, task of the state was described as a powerful and concentrated objectification of justice that spontaneously stems from the social life of communities in which the law serves as institutional guarantee of the person (E. Mounier 1961c, 616; 1962b, 518–19). Hence, the state is there for the person, and not the other way round. The state can only fulfill its task if it has the necessary power at its disposal. On the basis of its task, this power can only be legitimate if it is at the service of respect for and promotion of the human person. Inspired by the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), Mounier emphasized that the person always needs protection against power because every unchecked power provokes abuse. He thought that anarchism “throws out the baby with the bathwater,” since the common good cannot be realized without

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placing restrictions on people. He retained from anarchism, however, the important lesson that power always leans on oppression and that a legitimate personalist politics is a fragile undertaking: Pour promouvoir le bien de tous et la liberté de chacun, pour coordonner les moyens d’action quand la divergence des initiatives risque d’en neutraliser l’efficacité, pour protéger chaque personne contre ceux qui seraient tentés d’user d’elle comme d’un moyen, une contrainte est nécessaire: La liberté qui traite la liberté d’autrui comme une chose n’est plus liberté . . . ; et même dans son bon usage, la liberté doit sacrifier à nos communautés imparfaites qui ne peuvent intégrer toutes les possibilités de tous. La frontière est toujours incertaine, la mesure toujours difficile, entre la contrainte qui sert la personne et celle qui commence à la brimer, entre la liberté qui l’exprime, et celle qui la compromet: la cité personnaliste est une cité fragile, comme un corps vivant, comme la grace est fragile, et c’est sa grandeur. . . . L’État personnaliste est un État faible, au sens où l’humanité est faible devant la violence, où la loyauté est faible devant le cynisme, où la vérité, parfois, est faible devant le mensonge. (E. Mounier 1961a, 680; original italicization) 19

As part of the theoretical elaboration of the fragility of politics, Mounier introduced a distinction between three kinds of power: authority, power, and force (E. Mounier 1961a, 675–81). Authority (autorité) refers to the actual foundation of power: the superiority of the human person and spiritual values. Power (pouvoir) is the tangible instrument of authority that, if necessary, restricts people. Force (puissance) is what is left of power when it is detached from authority. Legitimate exercise of power, therefore, requires that power remains subjected to authority. At the same time, though, there is a continuous threat to the contrary, a threat that power tears itself loose from authority and is relegated to mere force. Authoritative exercise of power means that politics is directed by values and aimed at the promotion of humanity. What power can never oppress is the person and her liberty. This liberty is, however, not indifferent: “Être libre, c’est se libérer en s’engageant dans les voies qui libères” (E. Mounier 1961a, 677). 20 Authoritative exercise of power has to safeguard and indicate the ways of freedom, i.e., of the full development of every human person. In other words, politics has to create the appropriate framework for human freedom, without ever overtaking the person (E. Mounier 1961a, 693). The creation of this framework is, then, the bonum commune, the goal of politics, which is not the mere sum of individual interests. Power may be allowed to step over individual interests, but never at the expense of the spiritual freedom of the person. Once that happens, power loses its authority and degenerates into an oppressive, alienating force. The question that was left for Mounier to answer was how authoritative exercise of power could be guaranteed given the inclination to perversion.

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His answer, of which the outlines were already present in the personalist manifesto, contained two components, namely, constitutional restrictions and the pressure of the people. The first component implied the safeguards of a constitutional state, such as habeas corpus, independent administration of justice, and strict regulation of the police force. Moreover, it also concerned the basic structure of the political system, for which Mounier consulted Proudhon and Gurvitch. From these authors, he used the federalist ideas based on subsidiarity and mutual checks and balances. Due to these principles, the polity has a responsibility to uphold a dynamic balance between freedom and authority through a decentralized, pluralist hierarchy in which the components govern themselves. This concerns territorial (e.g., municipalities) and functional (e.g., trade unions) unities, as well as free associations. The central government, then, only retains a coordinating and arbitrating role. It has to protect the person against abuse of power by lower political entities, but it also needs functional division within itself, so that the different institutions can control each other and, as such, guarantee that power does not betray its own goal (E. Mounier 1961a, 692–95; 1962b, 518–19). As was already clear from his concept of freedom, Mounier was convinced that constitutional safeguards for personal autonomy were fruitless if they were not supported by the citizenry’s vigilance and willingness to act. The constitutional control on power may be like a horse collar, but the people are also needed as whip. This implies the framework of the personalist democracy that Mounier had already chalked out in his manifesto. As we have stated above, this personalist conception of democracy does not rest on the right of the majority, but on the legitimacy of the exercise of power as the collective establishment of liberties and institutions that support every human being in taking on their individual responsibilities. The people have to direct this undertaking, with two channels at their disposal. The primary channel is indirect: normal democratic representation, which has to be serious and efficient, in contrast with the parliamentary regimes Mounier was familiar with. As preconditions for the success of representation, Mounier mentioned profound political education for all citizens, but also guaranteed respect for minorities. However, the possibility that representation still fails has to be kept in mind continuously. In that case, citizens have to be prepared to put pressure on the government in a direct fashion. Next to the conventional forms of direct democracy suggested in his manifesto, he also explicitly talked about manifestations, strikes, and even civic rebellion as control mechanisms in the hands of the citizens. After all, since the person is the focus of politics, participation and control are inalienable rights of the person as a citizen (E. Mounier 1961c, 619–26; 1962b, 519–21). Despite clear differences in the foundation and elaboration of their philosophy, Maritain and Mounier were remarkably concordant in their personalist social and political thought. Both philosophers were as Catholic intellectuals

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involved in the quest for the task of man in society, and they both came to the conclusion that the vocation of man always implies a social and political component. The complete development of the human person requires a social framework, which is the common good politics is supposed to realize. Both Maritain and Mounier refer, however, to the intrinsic danger of the requisite political power. Sound personalist politics needs, therefore, alert and active citizens who keep the political authority on the right track. Whereas Maritain gradually sympathized with liberal democracy as the adequate political constitution for this civic component of personhood, Mounier’s interpretation of personalist democracy retained a more radical nature, as is shown in his extreme ideas concerning grassroots democracy. PAUL-LUDWIG LANDSBERG Scheler and the Phenomenological Foundation of Personalism Personalism was not an exclusively French affair. In Germany, Catholic intellectuals like Romano Guardini (1885–1968) and Max Scheler (1874–1928) developed a personalist moral philosophy even before the breakthrough of personalism in France. Scheler would also significantly make his mark on French personalism, with the help of Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, one of his pupils who ended up in Paris on the run from the Nazis. In Paris, Landsberg blossomed as the Esprit movement’s primary theoretician until the war, where Landsberg died in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. Nevertheless, although his life was cut short, he was able to make a special contribution to French personalism, not only by means of the dissemination of Scheler’s thought, but because of his own continuation of this legacy in Esprit. Landsberg enriched French personalism with Scheler’s thought, which consisted of an existential personalism, elaborated as a phenomenology within a Catholic framework. In that way, he helped to broaden personalism and to base the Esprit movement on a different philosophical perspective than Maritain’s Neo-Thomism. Moreover, he developed an existential personalism of his own that concurred with Mounier’s, due in no small part to considerable mutual inspiration (Keller 2003; Lacroix 1952). To understand the philosophy of Landsberg we unavoidably have to pass through the philosophy of Scheler; that much is already obvious. Max Scheler was one of the most important Catholic intellectuals in the German Weimar Republic. He was, next to Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), one of the founding fathers of phenomenology. The individuality of his work was the result of the introduction of the phenomenological method into the framework of a Catholic personal ontology and moral philosophy (Dunlop 1991, 9–18). His oeuvre is rather whimsical, but, nevertheless, there is an overarching project. His work was directed to the elaboration of an ethical personal-

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ism as alternative to the Kantian moral philosophy that had dominated philosophy for more than a century (Spader 2002). The core of this project is Scheler’s magnum opus, Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Scheler 2000). The target in that work is the formalism of Kant that supposedly neglects the essential role of love and happiness in ethics. Ethical personalism is the alternative that Scheler put forward: a philosophy that awards the ultimate moral value to the being and the goodness of persons. In that respect the person should not be understood as an isolated individual, but as essentially linked to God and connected in love and solidarity to the world and humanity. 21 Scheler was concerned foremost with the foundation of ethical personalism. Since Kant, the idea was that all non-formal ethics were doomed to lapse into subjectivism and relativism. Only universal reason was supposed to guarantee objective morality. Scheler, to the contrary, wanted to show that a non-formal ethics can be objective as well. He considered phenomenology as the appropriate method for uncovering an objective order in reality. The idea that there is a (moral) order present in reality, not to be invented, but to be discovered, is an old idea, which we can also find in Neo-Thomism, for example. But taking phenomenology as instrument is the innovation in Scheler’s approach (Landsberg 1952a). His phenomenology of moral experience presented an objective, universal system of values as a foundation for moral judgment. These values are an “emotional a priori.” They are not merely logical or linguistic abstractions, but material qualities of things that are grasped in an intuitive and irreducible manner via emotional insight that precedes intellectual understanding. Moreover, the values in themselves are not only intuitively given, but arranged in an immanent hierarchy that ensures the proper apportionment of each value. 22 In that manner, the system of values that we feel intuitively, rather than abstractly, makes up the necessary and sufficient foundation for moral action (Dunlop 1991, 19–30). Scheler’s value objectivism does not imply that we have to realize the entire hierarchy of values. Every person has to look for her own vocation and should realize the values that come with that vocation. Scheler described this as the realization of one’s own Wertwesen (value essence), which one gradually has to discover in life (Scheler 2000, 481–86). This value essence is objective, but not universal. The moral vocation of the person consists in directing one’s love to what is one’s own objective good, for love—interpreted as a spiritual movement from given values to potentially higher values—is the central feature of the person. The content of the objective good at which love is supposed to be aimed will partly overlap with that which is good for every human being, but it will also be personal in part (Dunlop 1991, 24–28). The dynamic guiding principle for the pursuit of this vocation is made up of fictional and non-fictional models who represent certain values (Scheler 2000, 558–68). These Vorbilder are for Scheler’s ethics what norms

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are for Kantian ethics, in accordance with the fact that ethical personalism is not as much focused on individual actions, but rather on the person as a whole, as an axiological orientation that unites actions (Spader 2002, 7–8). The person is driven toward the realization of a particular value for love of the model person that embodies this value. This is, nevertheless, not a matter of imitation, but rather a matter of feeling true self-actualization. Scheler considers this to be the essence of becoming a human person. Cross-Border Social Criticism Scheler’s personalism also contained a social and political theory that was based on the unique dignity and intersubjective nature of the person (Schneck 1987, 1–12). His ideas on the development of the person were coupled with reflections on the social and political conditions wherein the individual’s realization of their vocation could fully occur. He formulated the ideal of the collective person (Gesamtperson), a community where every human being was recognized as unique (Scheler 2000, 509–48). In the hierarchic pattern of Scheler’s thought, this ideal community was the highest form of intersubjectivity and political order. With regard to intersubjectivity, the Gesamtperson embodies Christian love, which Scheler described as sharing the value of the experience of the other, which was necessary to develop a mutual pursuit of the highest values for every individual. Hence, the collective person embodies a love that is characterized by the exploration and actualization of the essential value of other individuals. With regard to politics, this ultimate intersubjectivity is translated into a political order that highlights the uniqueness of every person, rather than their equality. This is a crucial point as any equalization implies a kind of objectification, while Scheler’s personalism emphasizes that the person must transcend all objectification. Thus, Scheler reached further than socialism and liberalism in the sense that he saw the unique dignity of individuals as lying beyond equality (Schneck 1987, 45–84). Scheler’s vision of the political community, of course, is not a given, but a high ideal that requires ongoing development. Just like the development of the person, each step in the development of the community depends on the preceding one: Just as the individual person has roots in an infant’s unity with the experiential world of the mother and in a long developmental process is able to first identify and rejoice in its self, ideally, to overcome the self in order to responsibly join in the company of others, so too the polity may be seen to emerge through a sequence of transformations which point toward a possible culmination in a political community which celebrates the uniqueness and plurality of its citizens while forgoing the egocentric limits of merely a multiplicity of selves. (Schneck 1987, 132)

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Reaching this ideal community is dependent on politics that is defined as “a pursuit of power . . . aimed at the sovereign realization of values in the political community within the boundaries of the value hierarchy” (Scheler 1973, 12). The values concerned are, in the first place, vital values that are related to the preservation and well-being of the community, but politics goes further. Scheler’s phenomenological anthropology recognized that power relations are a fundamental feature of being human. Consequently, politics is connected to every human concern for values, and power is revealed as a necessary condition for the pursuit of any value (Schneck 1987, 84–90). Hence, political responsibility is inextricably bound up with every person’s responsibility to realize the value essence of herself and others. The exalted image of politics that we find in the thought of Scheler may be distant from reality, but it contained a strong critical potential. Scheler experienced a large contrast between politics as it should be and the politics of the bourgeois societies in the Europe of his time. He thought that politics had fallen into decline in mass society because of the dominance of economic concerns. He saw democracy as trapped between the pitfalls of self-interest and irreconcilable mystical ideologies that make the citizenry betray their political responsibilities. From Scheler’s perspective, bourgeois society was characterized by a complete reversal of his order of values, as the higher were neglected in favor of pleasure, utility, and control. While Scheler did not identify this alienation as completely fatal, the relationship between man, reality, and God, he thought, had to be restored. On the socio-political level, a personalist democracy and personalist socialism were supposed to provide the necessary impulses for this restoration. The foundation for this new politics was solidarity, which was to go far beyond overlapping interests by relying on the love that Scheler recognized as inherent to every person (Dunlop 1991, 31–39; Schneck 1987, 90–97). We can conclude that Scheler’s personalism was characterized by a particular social criticism that resembled French personalism. The same ideas— personalist social criticism on the basis of a phenomenological ontology of the person—returned in the work of his pupil, Paul-Ludwig Landsberg. For the core elements of his theory—the criticism of bourgeois society, the restoration of the relationship between man, God and reality, a community ideal with an eye for the singularity of everyone—Landsberg depended directly on Scheler, but he linked these ideas with the personalism of Mounier and Esprit (Landsberg 1952c). For that is where he ended up after fleeing Nazi Germany and the Spanish Civil War. Landsberg on Commitment Landsberg clung to the tradition of personalism, but greatly enriched it with his own input. This theoretical input especially concerned his Schelerian

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notion of commitment as the axis of a personalist ethics (G. Bouckaert 1992a, 129–33; d’Oliveira Martins 2003). Landsberg’s version of personalism would have a profound influence on Mounier and Esprit, but, more importantly from our point of view, also on Paul Ricoeur, who considered the philosophy of Landsberg as the most sustainable elaboration of personalist principles (Ricoeur 1983b, 116). The starting point of Landsberg’s reflection was the human condition, which he stared in the face without any naiveté. He acknowledged the tragedy of a world full of contradictions that inclined us to keep to ourselves, but at the same time evoked a kind of historical conscience. In that regard, he talked about a living historical conscience, the unfolding of which ongoingly revealed new ways in which our actions connect with human destiny. In other words, historical conscience confronts us with our responsibility. This is why Landsberg characterized personhood as a matter of commitment or “l’assumation concrète de la responsabilité d’une oeuvre à réaliser, d’une direction définie de l’effort allant vers la formation de l’avenir humain” (Landsberg 1952f, 29). 23 Hence, he kept away from abstract personal ontologies that needed metaphysical spinning to distinguish the person as an ontological entity from the individual. For Landsberg, personhood referred to a particular attitude, a way of life that transformed historical conscience into concrete commitment. The commitment that Landsberg emphasized was historical and critical. Assuming our responsibility as individuals was something he considered to be inextricably bound up with the historical community we live in; individual and collective futures are bound together. This does not mean that we need to get involved in every historical trend, but neither does it mean that we should abstain from involvement in a cause because it does not measure up to an abstract ideal. According to Landsberg, we can only commit ourselves to real and hence imperfect causes. Commitment is something other than a theoretical choice between abstract principles. To commit oneself is, consequently, a difficult and often tragic undertaking. Nevertheless, it is this productive tension between the imperfection of the cause and the definite character of the commitment that constitutes the value of the commitment, for the awareness of imperfection implies that loyalty is accompanied by a critical stance that prevents fanaticism. This “uneasy conscience” spares us the illusion of absolute and integral truths, but unfortunately also implies that commitment is always a risk and a sacrifice, perhaps up to tragic proportions. By means of our commitment, we identify ourselves with a transcendent historical development by which we put our own personhood on the line (Landsberg 1952e, 100–107; 1952f, 28–31). This awareness of the tragic dimension of commitment, the fact that our commitment is both necessary and risky, is Landsberg’s main contribution to personalism and a core conviction that Ricoeur inherited from Landsberg (Dosse 2008, 45).

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His focus on responsibility and commitment, however, did not deny human freedom. On the contrary, the committed person remains free, the commitment itself being a continuous liberation. Freedom, then, is not to be understood here in the negative sense; Landsberg’s conception is unambiguously positive: Pour la personne humaine que nous sommes, être libre c’est pouvoir vivre dans la direction de la formation propre; c’est pouvoir lutter sans cesse contre toutes les résistances qui s’opposent à la vie proprement personnelle. . . . Étant donné que la personne, en tant qu’unité qui devient, vit dans chacun de ses actes comme dans leur totalité succesive, la fidélité à une direction choisie est la forme d’existence essentielle à la constitution de cette vie personnelle, pourvu qu’il s’agisse de la fidélité à un acte de décision qui était lui-même authentiquement libre et personnel. (Landsberg 1952f, 33; original italicization) 24

Hence, commitment constitutes freedom as long as the choice that is at the basis of the commitment is a genuine personal choice. It should not be an arbitrary gamble or blind incorporation, but rather the discernment and choice for one’s own unique vocation in life. Everything starts with knowing and deciding who you are. That is where Landsberg looked for the value of philosophy. Philosophy transforms events into experiences through thought. The totality of these experiences allows us to discern a universal ethics that is the framework for every vocation and that enables us to better distinguish our vocation from temptations. Likewise, it teaches us to be aware of the fact that there will never be a final doctrine to ascribe to and that any commitment involves a risk (Landsberg 1952e, 100–107). With regard to universal ethics, we come to the central question in Landsberg’s theory of commitment: How can we know that we are committed to true values, especially given that certain values are irreconcilable? Landsberg’s answer to this question was strongly dependent on the work of his mentor. He shared Scheler’s criticism of value subjectivism, but he made his value theory less vulnerable to the criticism that it would entail an inclination toward Platonic idealism. Landsberg emphasized that the “transsubjectivity” of values is not the same as their having an independent, pure being. Values only exist as far as they are incarnated, and they are in that sense historical, without being subjective. The person realizes herself by values that are given, but which need her intervention to really exist. This explains the value judgment that is the basis of our commitment: it is not merely a logical deduction, deduced from eternal axioms, but neither merely inductive, induced from particular human action and interaction, because the values are given in our value experience as universal, although they only come about by our choices and actions. The categories of subjectivity and objectivity are thereby inadequate. Therefore Landsberg used the aforementioned third category, transsubjectivity. Thus, moral education does not require teaching universally

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applicable principles, but rather an education of the capacity to make responsible decisions in every particular case. Following Scheler, Landsberg also thought that such an education eventually comes down to the development of a capacity for sound judgment in light of beloved and studied examples (Landsberg 1952f, 40–45). Whether a value subjectivist could be convinced by his theory is something Landsberg left aside. However, he thought practice was much more convincing than theory. His ultimate reply can be seen in the following: “Décide-toi, engage-toi, et tu verras que nous vivons en regard de valeurs transsubjectives” (Landsberg 1952f, 46). 25 Without transsubjectivity, values are arbitrary and arbitrariness is refuted by the lived experience of commitment. The earnestness with which we commit ourselves is inextricably bound up with the transsubjective nature of values. In that regard, we should not be distracted by what others (should) do. It is a matter of your personal vocation, which is not devalued in light of the vocations of others, in the same way that a religion is not worthless because there are other religions. That values come and go is not a rebuttal. New values can be discovered, while old ones are discarded, but this need not mean that they are subjective. Underlying the particular vocation is a transsubjective duty. It is not a matter of ascribing to a uniform vocation, but rather pursuing one’s own personal vocation. Underlying all of these personal vocations is a duty to commit oneself. That is the primitive phenomenon (Urphänomen) that guarantees the transsubjectivity of values (Landsberg 1952f, 45–48). A Political Vocation Just like Scheler, Landsberg was convinced that every person’s vocation contained a political component. In the framework of a phenomenology of lived time and space, he equated political awareness to a shared awareness of a situation with others; of being situated in an “us,” here and now. Accordingly, political action was described as action that relates to the living community we belong to. However, we do not choose whether to act politically or not. Based on a double incarnation, in our body and in a materially, temporally, and spatially ordered world, we are automatically situated in a polis. This situation immediately orients the political action of the individual as the defense of her particular community and the realization of the value potential that is incorporated within it (Landsberg 1952e, 108–19). Landsberg also mentioned that the state had a collective vocation, the model of which was analogous to that of the personal vocation. Both the state as a collective and the person as an individual have to commit themselves to the realization of values. The state cannot remain neutral, just as the individual has to commit herself and cannot be satisfied with passive intellectualism. At

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the same time, Landsberg warned against a blind pursuit of ideals, which according to him was the recipe for totalitarianism (Landsberg 1952f, 48). The heart of the political vocation is justice. Landsberg described a just state as one that governs in light of the values that constitute the raison d’être of the state: the foundation of peace in justice and authentic freedom for all citizens (Landsberg 1952f, 48). This implies a collective responsibility, a bonum commune that transcends individual interests but, at the same time, serves them: “On doit se souvenir que, pour l’individualisme, le plus grand mal est le malheur individuel et, en dernier lieu, la mort. . . . Pour le personnalisme, au contraire, le plus grand mal temporel est l’esclavage d’une communauté et des personnes qui la composent, c’est à dire un état des choses politiques qui prive les personnes de la possibilité d’accomplir leur vocation en les empêchant de devenir elles-mêmes” (Landsberg 1952d, 158–59). 26 Hence, the bonum commune, according to Landsberg, is peace and freedom. This is vastly dependent on the absence of domination, not because the political community should be free for the state’s purposes, but because the persons that are part of the community can only fully develop—realize their “Wertwesen” Scheler would say—in a political system that is oriented toward that goal. Just like Maritain and Mounier, Landsberg thought that such a political system had to be based on principles of federalism and subsidiarity, so that every person and every community can take responsibility for their own development while at the same time actualizing the common vocation (Landsberg 1952d, 158–64). The value focus of politics—peace and liberty on the basis of justice— implies that the state should pursue ever more harmonious cooperation with its citizens. Although this pursuit is first directed at the historical community, Landsberg also stressed the transnational dimension of this task, without any naiveté. He realized that integration on an international level can never go smoothly. Just before the outbreak of World War II, he wrote the prophetic words: “Ainsi il est concevable que, par exemple, l’Europe constitue, à un moment donné de son histoire, une unité de collaboration et de paix analogue à celle d’une nation actuelle. Mais il paraît extrêmement vraisemblable que seule une voie tragique peut mener à un but de ce genre” (Landsberg 1952d, 146–47). 27 The awareness of this tragic dimension made Landsberg reject the naïve pacifism that was all around him in Paris. Our actual situation requires thinking and acting, and hence more than a desire for an abstract ideal. Landsberg recognized without a blush that violence is a duty when it concerns the protection of the values of our vocation. Peace is of course the ideal, but that does not mean that we have to neglect our actual historical situation. When the political autonomy that enables the actualization of the vocation of a community is threatened by arbitrary domination, there is a right and even a duty to resist. At the same time, the spirit of Landsberg’s personalism re-

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mained pacifist, aimed at the cooperation of persons and communities. His conception of peace implied more than the absence of war. Peace eventually meant for Landsberg a universal Schelerian Gesamtperson, a situation of coexistence where everybody helped each other with the realization of his or her value essence, hence, with respect for everyone’s uniqueness (Landsberg 1952d, 136–68). Landsberg may have developed a sharp vision of what politics was supposed to be, but in the Europe of the 1930s, he saw very little of that vision realized. He considered so-called “mythologism” to be the major culprit, referring to the socio-political mechanism of unifying the masses by means of appealing to unconscious desires through mythical imagery. He saw this as largely characteristic of fascism, where class warfare and individual human dignity were obscured behind a mythical image of the nation or the state. Landsberg considered the criticism of mythologism to be a necessary complement of the reflection on commitment, because we can only engage with historical reality insofar as we are free from ideological myths. Instead of the political myth, Landsberg proposed a conception of truth, not as a definite and unchanging system, but as a matter of permanent criticism and doubt. Instead of mythologizing the present and the past as a foundation for our vision of the future, he acknowledged that choices and risks are an inevitable part of anticipating the future (Landsberg 1952b, 49–68). The alternative for myths are plans, based on expansive knowledge of the present, the past, and the possibilities for the future. The viability of any political system, then, was its ability to combine values with realistic planning. In that regard, Landsberg made use of conceptions of his compatriot, the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). Weber distinguished two kinds of political ethics. On the one hand, there is an ethics of conviction (Gesinnungsethik) that puts the execution of ideal principles first. On the other hand, there is an ethics of responsibility (Verantwortungsethik) that focuses on the real consequences of political action (Weber 1992, 237–52). Landsberg emphasized the fact that the tension between both politico-ethical perspectives, and the tension between purity and commitment, is not a question for political leaders alone. In a democracy, every citizen faces this dilemma. Following Scheler, Landsberg stated that love inclines us to act for our neighbors and the common good, but the borderline between responsibility and culpability is faint. Political commitment in Landsberg’s personalism requires one eye on values and the other on historical reality. Our incapacity to realize values in a pure, not mutually contradicting manner, however, cannot paralyze us, but rather yield a continuously critical reflex. A sound tension between Gesinnungsethik and Verantwortungsethik is a necessary element of personalist citizenship. There is no alternative to this tension in the pursuit of our political vocation (Landsberg 1952e, 100–107). 28

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CONCLUSION The French Christian elite went through an intellectual crisis during Ricoeur’s younger years. With ups and downs they looked for the place of the Christian in the modern social and political landscape. Just like elsewhere in Europe a “Third Way” was envisioned, a new social guideline that would turn around the prevailing malaise without lapsing into alternatives that are just as detrimental. This was the breeding ground for the intellectual movement that would be known by the name of “personalism.” Spurred on by a shared aversion to what was branded as the “bourgeois society,” Christian intellectuals pursued a new society. They rejected the liberal individualism that dominated the failing societies of which they were part, but they also disapproved of the collectivist alternatives of communists and fascists. The reactionary nationalism of the Action Française was not an option in light of the papal condemnation of 1926. Christian thinkers from all corners gradually came to similar ideas about the right alternative. The core of this alternative was a vision of mankind that did not reduce human beings to selfsufficient individuals or subservient parts of a larger entity, but rather took stock of the entire human being, with both a temporal and a supratemporal dimension. Moreover, this vision of mankind attributed to every human being an absolute dignity as a person, that is to say as a social and spiritual being that depends on a moral community for its flourishing, but that transcends the community and the common good on the basis of its personal vocation in life. The essence of the person is, then, her relationship with the other. It is in that regard that one tried to answer the question of the task and responsibility of the person as citizen. It is this answer that would have a profound influence on the political thought of Ricoeur. The personalists did not stop at the formulation of this abstract ideal of the human person, but they translated their vision into a blueprint for a better society. Next to their pleas for social, economic, moral, and spiritual reform in function of the human person, they aimed to a large extent at the political dimension of the envisioned new renaissance. In the context of the failing democracies during the interbellum period, the Esprit movement saw the need to develop a personalist democracy. What that meant exactly and how far this was in line with what we understand today as a liberal democracy are subject to some debate. It is clear that Mounier was less favorable toward liberal democracy than Maritain eventually was. 29 But in any case, democracy received an ethical interpretation, which took it as more than the right of the majority. Personalist democracy was, in essence, a political system that was to create a framework for freedom, responsibility, and justice in which every human being could discover and realize her vocation, fostering her development into a fully fledged person. This is the bonum commune that politics has to aspire to, and it means that democracy has an exalted mission.

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At the same time, however, personalism was well aware of the frailty of the democratic system. This is why personalist democracy is also characterized by a fundamental distrust of power, as without boundaries, power lapses from support of the person into oppression. The sustainability of true democracy is not only dependent on a constitution that formulates boundaries and checks and balances, but especially on a vigilant and active citizenry that reins in political power. This focus on the political responsibility of every individual is characteristic of the political theory of French personalism. It is part of the positive conception of freedom that constitutes the guideline of personalist discourse. Freedom is, for them, not negative, meaning that one can do whatever she wants as long as she does not harm anyone. Rather, it is the liberty to do good; the liberty to find your personal vocation in life and to commit yourself to its actualization. And while personalist democracy is responsible for the conditions of this liberty, every human being, as a citizen, is responsible for the functioning of that democracy. We can also state this the other way around: the person has to serve the common good, but the common good serves the person and her liberty. In that way, person and community are related in a personalist and communitarian ideal that establishes an inextricable link between freedom and commitment for the common good. Freedom presupposes taking on responsibility in the struggle against political domination and the abuse of power. Only then is it possible for the political community to approach the level of a Schelerian Gesamtperson where everyone can truly live out their freedom. The need for active citizenship inspired personalists to a radical reformulation of political practice, on the institutional as well as on the ethical level. On the institutional level, Maritain, Mounier, and Landsberg pled for federalism and subsidiarity. Classical parliamentary representation was under fire and while most personalists acknowledged the role of the parliament, they considered the events of their time to be an indication of its shortcomings. Citizens had to be able to contribute to the political process in a more active manner. Therefore, personalism wanted to establish extensive forms of bottom-up politics and to keep politics close to the people by giving communities the largest political autonomy possible. As such, they sought to guarantee maximal participation and control by the citizenry. On the ethical level, the personalists—and Landsberg in front—emphasized the need for commitment. In light of the build-up to World War II, this also implied resistance against naïve pacifism. Throughout the personalist political theory is the idea that we should not be paralyzed by a desire for purity. Politics is a risky but necessary occupation. Although we have to be led by the good, in practice this sometimes amounts to having to choose the lesser evil. We have to commit ourselves to the good despite the shortcomings of every historical attempt to put values into practice. That is why the

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political ethics of Maritain, Mounier, and Landsberg contained an essential bipolarity. Jacques Maritain referred to prudentia politica, Mounier talked about a prophetic and a political pole, and Landsberg referred to Weber’s distinction between an ethics of responsibility and an ethics of conviction. In each case, the same interpretation of historical commitment is in play: an interpretation that underlines, on the one hand, that we have to aim at certain values, but on the other hand, that acknowledges that we have to take into account the possibilities, risks, and limitations of the historical situation at hand. Given the need for generalized active citizenship, this is not a dilemma reserved for political leaders, but a task for every human person. Nobody escapes this rather tragic responsibility. Although the ideas were shaped in different ways, on the basis of a NeoThomist or existential-phenomenological paradigm, we can talk about a shared and distinctive personalist political philosophy. Shaped by its own historical context, the personalism of Esprit was very influential in the midtwentieth century. The political theory remains relevant, however, also in contemporary society. Although the circumstances have changed, the personalist ideas on the development of democracy still have something to say on issues of institutional reform. Looking for answers to present-day discontent concerning over-centralization, as it is reflected in the United States in the success of the Tea Party movement, but also in Europe in growing antiEuropean and regionalist discourse, we can still benefit from personalist reflections on the principle of subsidiarity and grassroots politics. However, the core of the political theory of personalism is a particular perspective on individual political responsibility. What personalism clarifies is that politics concerns us all, but not because politics is a lofty affair in the Aristotelian sense. Personalists focused on the dark side of politics, power play, oppression, and the pretence of democracy, but recognized that politics is necessary to build and safeguard the framework for our development as human persons. The only way to make politics live up to its task is for citizens to assume their own role. This duty of vigilant and active citizenship remains an important corrective to the hegemony of a liberal concept of man and society that dissociates liberty from responsibility. As we will see, this contemporary relevance is amplified if we take into account Paul Ricoeur’s elaboration of personalist political thought. Ricoeur grew up during the heyday of personalism. The core ideas of personalism had an enduring influence on the development of his moral and political philosophy. However, first, we need to have a look at Ricoeur’s own input in the personalist movement.

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NOTES 1. Earlier versions of parts of this chapter have been previously published in Deweer, Dries. 2014. “Mounier and Landsberg on the Person as Citizen. The Political Theory of the Early Esprit Movement.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 88 (3): 487–510; Deweer, Dries. 2013. “The Political Theory of Personalism: Maritain and Mounier on Personhood and Citizenship.” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 74 (2): 108–26. (www.tandfonline.com) 2. French personalism does not necessarily refer to the nationality of the concerned thinkers, but rather to the fact that this current of thought proceeded from a debate that predominantly took place in France. This does not prevent us from classifying participants with a different nationality—such as the German Paul-Ludwig Landsberg (1901–1944), the Swiss Denis de Rougemont (1906–1985), or the Belgian Louis Janssens (1908–2001), as representatives of French personalism. 3. “Personalism” as a term is not only used for the French—and by extension European— personalism that begins with Renouvier. Next to a broad reference to any philosophy that aims at the absolute value of the person, it also specifically refers to an American current in metaphysics, with Borden Parker Bowne (1847–1910), Albert C. Knudson (1873–1960), and Edgar Sheffield Brightman (1884–1953) as main representatives, and Martin Luther King Jr. as a disciple. This American personalism differs from French personalism by means of its focus on metaphysics, rather than on social and political philosophy, and by its outspoken idealism, in contrast to the realist assumptions of French personalists (G. Bouckaert 1992b; De Tavernier 2009; Yandell 2005). 4. Simone Weil aimed in particular at the personalism of Jacques Maritain (Springsted 2005, 209–18), but by extension the criticism is also directed against the broader personalist movement. For a contemporary restatement of Weils criticism against personalism, see Kraynak 2004. 5. The principle that Christian philosophy has to consist of a return to Thomas Aquinas was characteristic for Neo-Thomism as Pope Leo XIII envisioned it, and it was the dominant approach in among French Neo-Thomists. The Louvain school of Cardinal Mercier, however, used a more open interpretation of the Neo-Thomist paradigm. There the aim was not exactly to return to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, but rather to practice philosophy like Aquinas practiced it. In other words, the return to scholasticism was for Mercier not the return to one particular system, but a return to a broad tradition since Aristotle, a tradition in which scientific observation and analysis go hand in hand with metaphysical synthesis. Hence, tradition was not to be admired as an ideal to be repeated. Tradition rather had to be developed and renewed, in particular in order to integrate the merits of modern science (Steel 1991). 6. These factors are definitely not the only difference within French personalism. They are, however, the crucial factors for understanding the differences within the core of Fench personalism. This core, of which Maritain and Mounier are the most prominent representatives, was the most influential, not only in French society as a whole, but on Paul Ricoeur in particular, the latter being the reason of my focus. Nevertheless, there are also side branches of French personalism, such as the more right wing, federalist personalism of Alexandre Marc and Denis de Rougemont or the ecological personalism of Jacques Ellul and Bernard Charbonneau (Loubet del Bayle 2001; Roy 1999). 7. “The political society is essentially aimed . . . at the development of the environmental conditions that bring the people to a level of material, intellectual and moral life that corresponds to wellbeing and peace for everyone in such a way that every person is positively assisted in the continuing conquest of a complete personal life and spiritual freedom.” 8. “Quaelibet autem persona singularis comparatur ad totam communitatem sicut pars ad totum” (Summa Theologiae II-II q. 64 a. 2) and “Homo non ordinatur ad communitatem politicam secundum se totum et secundum omnia sua” (Summa Theologiae I-II q. 21, a. 4 ad. 3). 9. For the foundation of the personalist view of mankind in the work of Thomas Aquinas, see Maritain 1946.

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10. Ricoeur would later criticize this view by focusing on the particularity of institutional relations. 11. John Rawls’ “political liberalism” founded liberal democracy in an “overlapping consensus” on fundamental rights and liberties that are a part of everyone’s conception of the good. Every individual can justify his support for the consensus on the basis of their own particular conception of the good, but that conception of the good itself stays out of the public domain (Rawls 1993). Although Maritain’s formulation of the democratic charter as shared practical conclusions from different philosophical angles displays a resemblance to the ideas of Rawls, there are also significant differences. Maritain underlined the originally Christian nature of the values concerned and, hence, remained much more open to religious input in the public domain. He thought that the Church had a permanent active role to play as spiritual source of democracy (Maritain 1998, 147–87). This superficial difference is based on a fundamentally different point of departure. Maritain had a “comprehensive” vision of democracy, which implies that democracy is oriented toward the good, while Rawls stands by a minimal conception of democracy that presumes the priority of the just over the good (Woldring 2001). 12. For a recent continuation of Maritain’s personalist foundation of human rights, see Williams 2005. 13. All the same, Mounier was a devoted Christian with a strong conviction that personalism and the implied notions of vocation and transcendence can only be fully grasped by Christians. See, for example, E. Mounier 1962b, 467–68, 87. The openness of Esprit toward nonbelievers was nevertheless an important reason for Maritain’s gradual disassociation, despite his initial support for the journal of Mounier (Hellman 1980, 152–66). 14. “A person is a spiritual being constituted as such by a way of subsistence and of independence in her being; he maintains this subsistence by his adhesion to a freely adopted, assimilated and lived hierarchy of values, by means of responsible commitment and constant conversion; hence, he unifies all of his actions in freedom and, moreover, develops the singularity of his vocation on the basis of creative actions” (own translation). 15. “[The state is] an instrument in service of communities, and through them, or if necessary against them, in service of the persons” (own translation). 16. “Democracy is not the supremacy of the number, which is a kind of oppression. It is nothing but the search for the political means destined to guarantee all persons in a community the right to free development and maximum responsibility” (own translation). 17. “One does not give freedom to people from outside, by means of living conditions or constitutions: they would doze off in their liberties, and wake up as slaves. Liberties are no more than opportunities given to the spirit of liberty. . . . The struggle for liberty knows no end” (own translation). 18. “[A] state articulated at the service of a pluralist society” (own translation). 19. “[R]estriction is necessary: Freedom that treats the freedom of someone else as a means is no longer freedom . . . ; and even in its good use, freedom has to make sacrifices in our imperfect communities that cannot integrate all possibilities of each one. The borderline is always uncertain, the measure always difficult, between the restriction that serves the person and the one that begins to torment her, between the freedom that expresses itself, and the one that compromises itself: the personalist city is a fragile city, like a living body, like grace is fragile, and it is her greatness. . . . The personalist state is a weak state, in the sense that humanity is weak with regard to violence, or that loyalty is weak with regard to cynicism, or that truth, sometimes, is weak with regard to lies” (own translation). 20. “To be free is to free oneself by taking up the ways that liberate” (own translation). 21. For a recent analysis of the core elements of Scheler’s complex conception of the human person, see Gescinska 2011. 22. Scheler categorized the values from low to high as hedonist values, vital values, spiritual values (among which aesthetic values, justice, and pure knowledge of the truth), and holiness (Scheler 2000, 122–26). 23. “[T]he concrete assumption of responsibility for a work to be done, of a certain direction of the effort toward the formation of the human future” (own translation). 24. “For the human person that we are, being free is to be able to live in the direction of our own formation, it is to be able to fight against all resistances that are opposed to a really

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personal life. . . . Given the fact that the person, as a unity in the making, lives in all of his actions as well as in their successive totality, the loyalty to a chosen direction is the essential way of life for the constitution of this personal life, on the condition that it concerns loyalty to a decision that was itself authentically free and personal” (own translation). 25. “Decide yourself, commit yourself, and you will see that we live in light of transsubjective values” (own translation). 26. “One has to remind oneself that, for individualism, the greatest evil is individual unhappiness and, eventually, death. . . . For personalism, on the contrary, the biggest temporal evil is the enslavement of a community and the persons that constitute the community, that is to say, a political state of affairs that deprives the persons of the possibility to accomplish their vocation by preventing them from becoming themselves” (own translation). 27. “It is conceivable that, for example, Europe will constitute on a given moment in its history a unity of collaboration and peace that is analogous to an actual nation. But it seems extremely plausible that only a tragic path can lead to such a destination” (own translation). 28. Following Landsberg, the tension between Gesinnungsethik and Verantwortungsethik will also play an important role in Ricoeur’s moral philosophy. Mounier had similar ideas under the heading of the tension between a prophetic pole and a political pole in the public role of the person. Accordingly, Maritain talked about the need for prudentia politica (cf. supra). 29. Mounier, especially, was and still is regularly criticized for implicitly supporting totalitarianism. This is mainly due to his attempts to try and translate his social ideas according to the political spectrum of that time. See Hellman 1973; Judt 1992; Sternhell 1995.

Chapter Two

The Young Ricoeur’s Personalism

RICOEUR’S COMMITMENT Paul Ricoeur was a child of his time. 1 He grew up as a war orphan in a strict Protestant family, Protestants being a small minority in France. Under the influence of these circumstances, his younger years were dominated by an intense intellectual quest to find his vocation as a Christian in modern society, a quest shared by many in the interbellum years, as we have seen in the previous chapter. Ricoeur met many mentors along his journey. At the University of Rennes, he came into contact with the thought of Jacques Maritain through his teacher, Roland Dalbiez, but quickly rejected what he considered to be Neo-Thomist dogmatism. Under the influence of theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968), he also questioned the ambition—whether explicit or not—to devise a rational foundation for Revelation (Sohn 2013, 161–64). It was Gabriël Marcel, rather, that led him in the direction of existential phenomenology and the more modest perspective of an open personal ontology, without the ambition of uncovering a fixed foundation for human existence (Dosse 2008, 19–37). 2 In Paris, he came into contact with the personalist Esprit movement and its founder Emmanuel Mounier, whose Christian and philosophical activism strongly attracted Ricoeur. On a political level, he found guidance from André Philip (1902–1970), whose Christian socialism showed how to combine Protestant Faith with leftist political commitment (Dosse 2008, 38–54; Ricoeur 1993a, 9; 1995h, 18–19). Although Ricoeur has accumulated a huge oeuvre over his entire career, his output was initially very modest. An important reason for this was the confused phase that he went through in his twenties. His first publication was a political and moral theological reflection in the peculiar journal Terre Nouvelle, that tried to reconcile Christianity and Marxism (Ricoeur 1935). He 39

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was also involved in the journal ÊTRE, a short-lived initiative by protestant intellectuals who were inspired by the theology of Karl Barth, but whose beliefs spanned the entire range of the political spectrum. In ÊTRE, Ricoeur also defends a Christian interpretation of Marxism (Ricoeur 1937, 1938). His experience as a prisoner of war during World War II and the further development of his thought brought about not only more depth but also political moderation (Dosse 2008, 54–63). After the war his academic career gradually got going. In 1948 he was appointed to the University of Strasbourg, in 1957 to the Sorbonne. But his social commitment also took a more definite shape. He became a regular contributor to two influential journals, the pluralist journal Esprit of Mounier and the leftist-Protestant Le christianisme social, where he played an important role in their revival after the war. Particularly during his Strasbourg period Ricoeur was an active member of Esprit, mainly thanks to his close connection to Emmanuel Mounier. For Ricoeur was deeply impressed by the personality of Mounier, and Mounier in his turn considered Ricoeur as the ideal successor of Landsberg as “philosopher in residence” of Esprit: La personne de Mounier m’avait vraiment conquis, moins ses idées que luimême: j’étais déjà suffisament structuré philosophiquement pour ne pas être un de ses disciples; mais j’en ai été tout de même le compagnon. Lui-même était d’ailleurs en quête d’un philosophe professionnel pour l’épauler; il avait perdu son “bon” philosophe en la personne de Landsberg puis de Gasset (sic), fusillé comme résistant en Bretagne. Mounier aurait voulu que je prenne leur suite, ce que j’acceptais volontiers. (Ricoeur 1995b, 41) 3

After his appointment at the Sorbonne Ricoeur even took up residence in the estate Les Murs Blancs, just outside of Paris, where Mounier had founded a community of personalists intellectuals. Ricoeur would spend the rest of his life there, although the ties with the journal Esprit loosened since then. The internal discord among the editorial staff and a mutual intellectual estrangement made Ricoeur choose to focus more exclusively on his academic career. However, his involvement with Le christianisme social lasted longer. In fact, from 1957 until 1970 he was editor-in-chief. Ricoeur’s publications in both journals are our main source in this chapter where we investigate how he himself contributed to the development and dissemination of personalism during the first phase of his philosophical career. This phase is situated between the end of World War II and 1968, when the events in Paris— Ricoeur, who was dean of the university of Nanterre at the time, took some hard knocks during the student revolt—marked a new phase in his life and thought. Ricoeur’s involvement with personalism fits in with his existential quest for his place and task as a Christian in modern society. Among the gathering of personalists around the journals Esprit and Le christianisme social he

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found kindred spirits, people who struggled with the same questions. People like Mounier and Landsberg with Esprit and André Philip with Le christianisme social were a source of inspiration and clearly left their mark on Ricoeur’s own reflections. However, Ricoeur himself developed gradually into one of the most important theorists of personalism. Two elements characterize his work in this matter. First, it is remarkable that Ricoeur published both philosophical and moral theological essays, while treating the same topics and defending the same positions. Although he made it his aim to keep the distinction between philosophical and theological reflections, it is often hard to talk about a purely philosophical discourse in the journal articles in question. Religious convictions were continuously active, always as motivation and inspiration, but often in the arguments as well. We will have to return to the implications of this later on. Second, it is astonishing how broad Ricoeur’s range of subjects was. He wrote personalist reflections on education, 4 on international relations, 5 and on history and historiography. 6 His main topics, however, were the relationship between personalism and existentialism, the possibility of a Christian socialism, and the dangers and responsibilities of politics. These three topics through which Ricoeur set his seal on personalism are the subject of investigation in the present chapter. As an introductory remark it suffices to say that the multiplicity of topics is not held together in an overarching system. Ricoeur’s personalist thought is by no means a strict deductive system. We can, nevertheless, discern a clear continuing thread. He himself described his work as the project of a social ethics that is neither more nor less than a coordination of multidimensional and discontinuous reflections in different spheres (Ricoeur 1974b, 169–75). This coordination ensues from a continuous basic question for what he described in the preface of Histoire et Vérité—a collection of his essays—as a personalist “political pedagogy.” With this term he referred to the intellectual quest for the vocation of the person. Although this quest was the shared ambition of personalism, Ricoeur gave it a particular meaning, following an analysis of the role of history and truth— not by coincidence the title of the aforementioned publication—in understanding the human person. Therefore the basic question of Ricoeur’s personalism can be described as how to reach a true fulfillment of our task as a workman of history (Ricoeur 1964o, 12). That is the practical concern between the lines of the reflections that we will now lay on the table. PERSONALISM AND EXISTENTIALISM Influences on an Ontology of the Person Although personalism saw a strong revival after World War II, it was, nevertheless, overshadowed by a much more prominent philosophical current,

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namely the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and others. Hence, it should come as no surprise that the relationship between personalism and existentialism was a topic of primordial importance in Ricoeur’s personalist circles. Along with Emmanuel Mounier, Ricoeur tried to bring existentialism into dialogue with Christian faith, which implied that personalism gradually took the shape of a Christian version of existentialism. 7 Ricoeur found the guiding principle for this intellectual exercise in the work of Gabriël Marcel and Karl Jaspers. These authors taught him an existentialism able to enter into dialogue with Christian convictions, in contrast with Sartre or Heidegger, because they did not focus on existence as such, but on the relationship between freedom and transcendence and on commitment as a way to bridge both (Ricoeur 1947b, 32–39). 8 That way Ricoeur put forward a strong analogy between his Christian faith and existentialist thought, namely in their vision of human existence as a matter of vocation. Neither shows human life as an objective datum, but rather as a task to be fulfilled along the way. Moreover, this analogy was potentially beneficial for the Christian outlook, for whereas faith all too often relies on harmonious representations, Ricoeur found a solid counterweight in existentialism and the way in which it does justice to the tensions and the evil that characterize existence (Ricoeur 1949c, 1951c). 9 Ricoeur studied Karl Jaspers while in captivity in Germany, together with his fellow inmate Mikel Dufrenne. After the war this collective study resulted in the book Karl Jaspers et la philosophie de l’existence (Dufrenne and Ricoeur 1947). In the same period Ricoeur also made a comparative study of the work of Jaspers and Marcel, the Christian existentialist who had been an important mentor for him in the years before the war (Ricoeur 1947b). Jaspers tried to connect the radical intuitions of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard with the intellectual clarity of reason. Those intuitions concerned the focus on existence, that is to say on man, not as a biological creature or as the subject of knowledge, but as the free individual that constructs his meaning in time and, hence, discovers himself or not. What struck Ricoeur in Jaspers is his eye for the fear of existence, for being as possibility, without solid ground, in combination with the conviction that fear is only the counterpart of joy (joie de surgir à la liberté) (Ricoeur 1947b, 24). This is also the reason why the philosophy of Jaspers is a philosophy of paradoxes, where joy and fear are inextricably bound up with each other and where the irreconcilability of existence and transcendence remains. Ricoeur wondered whether it is appropriate to stop at the paradox. His own thought showed a permanent inclination toward reconciliation and dialectics. This reflected the connection between Ricoeur’s faith and philosophy, as he said: “Peut-être que l’essence de la foi est de croire à la primauté de la conciliation sur la déchirure, et peut-être que la possibilité de la philosophie repose sur

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cette foi en la conciliation primordiale” (Dufrenne and Ricoeur 1947, 388–89). 10 Jaspers’s holding on to the paradox of existence and transcendence distinguished him from the Christian existentialism of Gabriël Marcel, who reconciled the contradiction between existence and transcendence by means of his concept of “mystery.” Ricoeur clearly sympathized with the idea of mysterious reconciliation in Marcel, although he, nevertheless, emphasized the need to recognize the tension. Moreover, Ricoeur also noticed that Marcel focuses less on freedom and more on participation, in comparison to Jaspers. He shared Marcel’s concern about the egocentricity in philosophy. Marcel’s ambition to recover the active connection to the other and/or the Other is something that would occupy Ricoeur as well (Ricoeur 1947b, 39–47). Generally speaking Ricoeur retained three core elements from the existentialism of Jaspers and Marcel. The first element was shared by the entire existentialist movement, namely the emphasis on the situatedness of human existence. In opposition to the abstract thinking of modern philosophy the facticity of the social and historical context became the starting point of reflection on humanity. Ricoeur also took this starting point to heart, which is especially clear in the expanding role of hermeneutics in his philosophy. The second element is something we have already brought up, namely the way in which Jaspers and Marcel have distinguished themselves from Sartre, according to Ricoeur. The relationship with transcendence was central to their philosophy of human existence. As such existentialism was seen in a different light, in comparison with the nihilism in Sartre’s philosophy of “le Néant.” Both Jaspers and Marcel looked for back-ups, for experiences of transcendence as something to hold on to in an existence that remains basically groundless. Marcel found this transcendence in fidelity, hope, and love, while Jaspers created the notion of limit situations (Grenzsituationen) to describe the experiences in which a person can overcome nihilism. This pursuit is something Ricoeur took up in his philosophy of the human person, the pursuit—ambitious and modest alike—of an ontology of the person that acknowledges the lack of fixed foundation, but, nevertheless, keeps ontological ambitions as it attests to anchors for human existence. The third element that Ricoeur took up was the recognition of communication as the crucial structure of being human. This implies that the identity of the self can only come about in relationship to the other, in a mutual creation of freedom. 11 Although Ricoeur struggled with opacity and paradoxality of Jaspers’ descriptions of the actual functioning of communication and recognition (Dufrenne and Ricoeur 1947, 161–68), he shared this basic point of departure. Despite the existentialist influence of Jaspers and Marcel we would be mistaken to characterize the young Ricoeur unilaterally as an existentialist. His philosophy was much too diverse and responsive to other evolutions in philosophy for this to be the case. He took up the aforementioned elements

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from Christian existentialism, but he combined these with a phenomenological methodology, indebted to Husserl, into a reflexive philosophy that, with regard to its general outlook, is indebted to Jean Nabert (Michel 2006, 21–35). Just like Nabert, Ricoeur tried to acquire understanding of the subject, but without the illusion of the immediate coincidence of consciousness with the self that characterized modern philosophy of the subject. Philosophy, then, concerns man as “shattered cogito,” who needs to be reclaimed from himself, or at least reconciled with himself in a context of hope. In that regard a crucial role was reserved for the concept of “original affirmation,” which Nabert used to refer to the “jouissance de l’être” to which our actions attest, despite experiences of mistake, failure, and loneliness (Nabert 1962; Ricoeur 1992f). This concept would play a leading part in Ricoeur’s philosophy, which connected the original affirmation of Nabert to the philosophical methodology of primary and secondary reflection of Gabriël Marcel (Ricoeur 1992b). Primary reflection is the analytical reflection that considers reality in abstracto, as a problem to disentangle. Secondary reflection is the recuperative reflection of philosophy that, after analysis, ties back in with the unity of experience. Marcel himself summarized this philosophical method in a concise way: “Ma démarche consistera invariablement . . . à remonter de la vie vers la pensée et ultérieurement à redescendre de la pensée vers la vie pour tenter d’éclairer celle-ci” (Marcel 1951b, 49). 12 In a published dialogue with Ricoeur, Marcel explained that secondary reflection implies an awakening to what is left behind in the analytical approach of primary reflection, but without relapsing into a subjective or intuitive approach. In other words, secondary reflection remains on the level of reason (Plourde 1985, 436–39; Ricoeur and Marcel 1968, 46–47). The result of this secondary reflection is what Ricoeur connected to the well-considered and, hence, non-dogmatic original affirmation. The particularity of Ricoeur’s adoption of this framework is, however, the far-reaching introduction of phenomenological methodology. This method of philosophy as “rigourous science” comes down to the description of the things themselves, exactly as the subject experiences them intentionally. In order to achieve this, all presuppositions (for example on the existence of external reality) have to bracketed in the so-called phenomenological reduction (Husserl 1913, 48–119). Ricoeur used his own version of phenomenology as a continuation of primary reflection, in other words, as a deepening of analysis to the limit, and in that sense as a correction of Marcel (Blundell 2010, 62–65; Michel 2006, 33–35). He got his inspiration especially from Husserl, whose work he had translated into French, but also from Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Ricoeur even considered his own phenomenology of the will as a complement to MerleauPonty’s phenomenology of perception (Dosse 1997, 128–35). 13 This mix of influences on Ricoeur resulted in a philosophy that portrays man as a fallible creature that, nevertheless, succeeds in exchanging fear for

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hope, based on the original affirmation of his existence. This brought him very close to Emmanuel Mounier, a kinship that he fully acknowledged (Ricoeur 1964e, 135–38; 1964o, 7, 12–15; 1995h, 18). The way in which Ricoeur considers the tensions between these different philosophical influences as a constructive precondition for a militant philosophy bears the marks of Mounier, especially with regard to the implied parallellism between philosophy and faith, the prominence of the concept of the person, the relationship between person and community, and the concern for the political implications of his thought (Agís Villaverde 2012, 65–66). In the preface of Histoire et Vérité, Ricoeur expressed his approval of Mounier’s general project: a pedagogy of life in community and of a revival of the person, in which the development of the person is explicitly linked with the embedding in communities. They both aimed at a Christian-inspired project of civilization, based on a view of mankind that is characterized by generosity and mutuality. This practical nature of the project constituted the particularity of their personalism. The core of this project consists of a “tragic optimism,” an awareness of the tragic dimension in human existence without falling into despair. Following Mounier, Ricoeur looked for clarification of the concept of the person and the related concept of situated and created liberty. He tried in particular to adjust something that was neglected in Mounier, namely the role of the will (Ricoeur 1964e, 156). In that regard, we now need to have a look at Ricoeur’s three-volume Philosophie de la Volonté, his early magnum opus, for this work prepares the ground for his personalist criticism of existentialism, which was one of the main topics in his input on the development of personalism. Philosophy of the Will To understand the human person, we need to understand his freedom. Personalism, in other words, to a great deal consists of a particular view of human freedom. Ricoeur attempted to underpin this view with a phenomenology of the will. He meant to not just redress the scant amount of attention Mounier paid to the will, but also add to the work of Husserl and MerleauPonty, who focused their phenomenology on human perception. Phenomenology implies the abandonment of a Cartesian reference frame and consequently the subject’s self-foundation for a phenomenological description of the things themselves. Ricoeur focused this phenomenological view on the relation between the voluntary and involuntary in the first part of his Philosophie de la Volonté, originally published in 1950. He argued that this relation manifests itself as a dramatic conflict. Unlike Husserl however, Ricoeur took a Marcelian approach in which the primary description needs to be followed by a secondary reflection, a deeper look at the more fragile, but also more essential connections. Like Marcel, Ricoeur clarified that rather than analyz-

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ing the human will as a problem, he meant to contextualize it as a mystery. This mystery was to be understood as a reconciliation, a rehabilitation of our self-awareness in relation to our bodies and the world, without devolving into a self-foundation made impossible. This secondary reflection reveals that the structures behind the voluntary and involuntary hold a paradox of freedom and nature. Such a paradoxical ontology is only possible after a deeper reconciliation, one that ultimately remains a question of an “espérance” with religious connotations (Ricoeur 1950, 7–23). The question on Ricoeur’s mind was what this meant for human freedom. He distinguished between three “moments” of freedom in his analysis: freedom of choice, freedom of movement, and freedom of consent. For the first two, there is no absolute involuntariness. There is for the third, but only to the extent that one needs to adjust to the absolutely involuntary. His most important conclusion, however, was that this is no absolute distinction. Freedom, after all, is never free from the involuntary: C’est pourquoi on peut bien finalement mélanger les expression qui conviennent à ces moments différents et dire que le vouloir qui acquiesce à des motifs consent aux raisons de son choix; inversement le consentement qui réaffirme l’existence non choisie, son étroitesse, ses ténèbres, sa contingence, est comme un choix de moi-même, un choix de la nécessité, tel l’amor fati célébré par Nietzsche. Audace et patience ne cessent de s’échanger au coeur meme du vouloir. La liberté n’est pas un acte pur, elle est en chacun de ses moments activité et receptivité; elle se fait en acceuillant ce qu’elle ne fait pas: valeurs, pouvoirs et pure nature. (Ricoeur 1950, 454, original italicization) 14

Initiative and dependency of the will thus always come together in freedom. The only thing that changes is the meaning of that dependency. 15 The relation between the voluntary and involuntary in other words is no dualism, but rather a paradox of three types of initiative and three types of receptivity. Our freedom is consequently a human freedom, something Ricoeur highlighted through a confrontation with the liminal concepts of freedom. The ultimate liminal concept is the idea of God as absolute freedom. Human freedom is then its image insofar in terms of any initiative, but is different from it to the extent that receptivity plays a role. In addition, there is also the idea of complete reasonable freedom, which human freedom is different from by virtue of its temporality. That is why human choice will always remain a risk. Through this confrontation with these liminal concepts, Ricoeur places human freedom in perspective. Human freedom is no transcendence in the absolute sense, he argued, thus confirming the paradoxical nature of his human ontology, which connected freedom and nature (Ricoeur 1950, 453–56). The phenomenological reduction of the first part of Philosophie de la Volonté made abstraction of human failure. Ricoeur abandoned this abstrac-

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tion in the second part, Finitude et culpabilité, originally published in 1960. Over time, however, he realized that phenomenology does not suffice to penetrate the human subject and his free will. To understand the dimension of evil, he saw no other option but make a hermeneutic detour. He examined the “insertion point of evil,” namely human fallibility, in the first book of the second part, L’homme faillible. He held that only an indirect discourse on evil was possible, a hermeneutics of the symbolism of evil, which he deferred until the second book, La symbolique du mal. His framework for this undertaking was an ethical world view in which freedom is a precondition for evil, but recognition of evil is also a precondition for consciousness of freedom. His ambition was in other words to understand freedom through insight into evil. Ricoeur acknowledged his debt to Nabert in this since the latter also sought for awareness of the original affirmation of our existence via evil (Ricoeur 1960a, 9–17). Ricoeur’s starting point in L’homme faillible was the “pathology of misery,” which he applied a transcendental reflection to, to use his own words. He went looking for the conditions of possibility for the human experience of misery, so that he could conceptualize the fallibility manifested in it (Ricoeur 1960a, 21–34). As a concept, fallibility needed to express the disproportion between the finite and infinite qualities of a human being. According to Ricoeur, this disproportion manifests itself at three levels, which he goes on to discuss one by one. The first level is that of knowledge. Finitude here appears in the form of the human body as viewpoint and medium. Ricoeur saw infinitude in language: in naming something (signifier, vouloir-dire) my point of view is transcended and connected to all the points of view on the thing being named. It is moreover possible to confirm or deny something, or even falsely confirm or deny something, which implies an even greater transcendence. Ricoeur thus saw a disproportion between language that speaks being and truth with the related risk of errors, and the limitations of our bodily perspective. This implies a problematic transition, a transition that is a matter of pure imagination for Ricoeur (Ricoeur 1960a, 35–63). The practical level is the second synthesis level of finitude and infinitude. Here finitude lies in the character, and infinitude in happiness. The constitution of a person by means of respect then forms the weak mediation (Ricoeur 1960a, 64–96). Ricoeur uses “character” as an umbrella term for all practical urges and receptivity, so the opacity of our affects, the limitations of our abilities, and the definite nature of our habits. This character is immutable and imposed, but not predetermined by fate. To use Ricoeur’s words: “l’étroitesse donnée, factuelle, de ma libre ouverture sur l’ensemble des possibilités de l’être-homme” (Ricoeur 1960a, 81). 16 It is the unchosen starting point for all my choices and (in line with the ideas of Le volontaire et l’involontaire) an inheritance that produces a certain dependency in all autonomy. Ricoeur saw happiness in the Aristotelian sense as the formal

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totality of the completion of human existence, as opposed to the endpoint of singular desires. If character was ground zero for the existential human project, then happiness was its infinite target. Ricoeur saw this target as a dual concept since it simultaneously involved a demand of reason and instinct. A person is the synthesis of character and happiness, not as a given, but rather as an assignment, as a project. That project is one’s own humanity, one’s own existence as a goal in and of itself. Ricoeur thus interpreted our selfconsciousness as an “is to be” (à-être). In a Kantian manner, the person more concretely surfaces as a way to treat oneself and others, namely humanely. This represents a synthesis of the person as a goal and actuality, with respect the specific moral feeling that achieves this synthesis. This means that respect is to practical synthesis what pure imagination is to synthesis at the level of knowledge. Still, this is but a weak synthesis since respect belongs to two orders—that of reason and that of feeling. Morality consequently must have an impact on feeling, but a receptivity of feeling to morality thus also exists. The relation between morality and feelings takes us to the third step, the one that follows the fragility in consciousness and self-consciousness, namely the fragility of the level of feelings, which he identified with the Platonic concept of thumos (Ricoeur 1960a, 97–122). Situated between the lower and higher feelings, thumos was the junction point for human disproportion in Ricoeur’s eyes. This means the most fundamentally human feeling is a polar one. To clarify his position, Ricoeur recalled the distinction the ancient Greeks made between happiness (no longer understood in the formal sense, but rather as the factual completion of the human destination) and pleasure (completion of a particular desire). Reason is what ultimately distinguishes the perspective of happiness from that of pleasure. As openness toward totality, reason produces feeling and feeling interiorizes reason as my reason, as my personal destination. Part of the quest for happiness, these ontological feelings are characterized by a duality, of joy on the one hand and fear on the other. Still, only joy ultimately represents the true ontological affectivity. Fear is but its shadow, but the tension between fear and joy constitutes the most fundamental human fragility: “Que l’homme soit capable de Joie, de Joie par l’angoisse et à travers l’angoisse, c’est là le principe radical de toute ‘disproportion’ dans la dimension du sentiment et la source de la fragilité affective de l’homme” (Ricoeur 1960a, 122). 17 Human fallibility consequently relies on disproportion, on the limited ability to converge with oneself. This was the philosophical category in which Ricoeur placed the human experience of trial. Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology was characterized by a fixed pattern of original affirmation, existential difference and human meditation. He saw the dialectic between these elements in knowing, acting, and feeling, with the latter expressing actual humanity (Ricoeur 1960a, 149–57). This dialectic first of all signifies

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that the finitude is not primary, but instead the original affirmation. This original affirmation manifests itself in the affirmation of concepts in knowledge, in the idea of happiness in acting and as eros in feeling, i.e., happiness the way it is experienced in thumos. Only in eros do we confirm ourselves. We confirm that x is x in the affirmation of a concept, but this is no confirmation that we are that consciousness. We are focused on the idea of full humanity in acting, but this is no confirmation that we are this humanity in thinking. In anticipating happiness, only eros offers self-confirmation: “Seul le sentiment, par son pôle d’infinitude, m’assure que je peux ‘continuer mon existence dans’ l’ouverture du penser et de l’agir; l’affirmation originaire y est ressentie comme joie ‘d’exister dans’ cela même qui me permet de penser et d’agir; alors la raison n’est plus un autre: je la suis, tu l’es, parce que nous en sommes” (Ricoeur 1960a, 153). 18 The primary affirmation, however, needs to brave the existential negation that manifested itself as perspective, character, and lower feelings. Ricoeur insisted that this negation should not be made absolute. Instead of Sartre’s radical distinction between en-soi and pour-soi, he saw a dialectic. Anything other than that ignored the conatus essendi, the primary affirmation. This negation simultaneously amounted to a distinction between I and the other, between I and myself, and a “tristesse du fini” (Ricoeur 1960a, 154). Based on our perspective, there is a distinction between myself and the other in knowing. In acting, a distinction exists between me and myself, between one’s own person as a destination and one’s own contingency; the fact that I exist in spite of myself and that I might as well have not existed or have existed with a different character. Sorrow is the affective implication of that contingency and every other form of negation, suffering in particular. The third element in the dialectic is the human person itself, the human fragility that is born from the confrontation between primary affirmation and existential negation: “L’homme, c’est la Joie du Oui dans la tristesse du fini,” is how Ricoeur summarized it (Ricoeur 1960a, 156). 19 Consciousness represents the synthesis in knowing, but this is no self-consciousness just yet. The person is the synthesis in acting, but here too there is no self-consciousness just yet since the person is an assignment here, which is the reason the human person never converges with himself. This disunity, this non-convergence is captured in a conflict of feelings, of joy and fear at the level of feelings. The person is the ultimate fragile synthesis. Ricoeur came close to developing a comprehensive philosophical anthropology in L’homme faillible. Still, he mostly emphasized the limitations of his undertaking. The fallibility he had mapped after all merely represented the opportunity to do evil. A gap between possibility and reality remained. To bridge this gap, Ricoeur needed to shift from an abstract philosophical anthropology to an ethics that takes the concrete person who does evil, the

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already “fallen” human as its starting point. Ricoeur here reached the limits of phenomenology and came to the conclusion that a methodological jump from phenomenology to hermeneutics was called for. The subject of the second book of the second part of Philosophie de la Volonté, this detour via the symbolism of evil was necessary for Ricoeur to be able to continue his philosophical anthropology and understand the transition from fallibility to failure (Ricoeur 1960a, 157–62). More concretely, Ricoeur looked for this insight through the religious “confession” (aveu) of evil, which he divided into three expositions—speculation, myth, and symbol. Speculation (thirdorder exposition) is too far removed from philosophy, but we find primary symbols (first-order exposition) through a hermeneutics of myth (secondorder exposition). These do not tell us anything in terms of explication (primary reflection), but they do in terms of concept (secondary reflection) (Ricoeur 1960b, 11–17). The question ultimately remained: What was the philosophical relevance of this symbolism? How could the symbolism of evil be tied to the phenomenology of fallibility? Ricoeur did not think it useful to give the reflections equal importance, nor did he favor an allegorical interpretation. Under the motto “The symbol gives rise to thought,” he instead opted for the middle ground as he so often did. He aimed to respect the enigma of symbolism, but acknowledge the impulse for meaning that could be understood. This calls for a position that is both dependent and autonomous. Ricoeur emphasized that symbols are also a form of language and thus susceptible to hermeneutics. The result of such a hermeneutic thought exercise is no longer the initial naivety of symbolism, but a posterior, post-critical naivety in which we are able to hear how the symbol gives rise to thought through critical interpretation. To do this, we need to pierce through the monopoly of critical reflection, but also figure out the rationality of the underlying existential structures beyond the symbols’ contingency (Agís Villaverde 2012, 47–49). Through the symbols, Ricoeur this way arrived at stain, sin, and guilt as categories to understand human failure (Ricoeur 1960b, 25–30, 323–32). This allowed him to demonstrate that evil is indeed situated in human freedom, but that it at the same time depends on a temptation that precedes the human subject (Dosse 2008, 279–83). Ricoeur’s Philosophie de la Volonté offered the theoretical framework for his contribution to personalism. First of all, it formed the foundation for a fundamental dialogue with existentialism. The fairly abstract human ontology of his Philosophie de la Volonté, however, for the most part aimed to lay the foundation for a practical philosophy. The personalist social ethics Ricoeur developed in for instance his Esprit and Le christianisme social essays were consequently a direct extension of this human ontology. This was especially evident in L’homme faillible, in which Ricoeur emphasized that human fal-

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libility reveals a different relation to the world and others since the tension between finitude and infinitude concretely manifests itself in economics, politics, and culture. In the economic realm, the world appears as an ensemble of available goods and the human subject as a worker. The interiorizing of our relation to the available goods implies feelings that are tied to possession and distinction vis-à-vis the other, who in principle cannot possess what I possess and vice versa. This structure carries human fallibility in it, but Ricoeur underlined that the economy nonetheless is not necessarily of an evil nature. He believed a form of good property relations to be possible in a personalist and communitarian utopia (Ricoeur 1960a, 129–32). The political realm is based on power relations. Again, Ricoeur did not see this realm as evil by default, even if it was associated with violence. There is after all the idea of power without violence, of power that services the education of individuals toward freedom. This idea reveals politics to be something that is quintessentially part of humanity, but humans become estranged from themselves when politics become estranged from this idea (Ricoeur 1960a, 132–36). The cultural realm on the other hand is dominated by an urge for recognition. Though estranged forms exist here too, Ricoeur sees this as a fundamental urge to exist as person and to be recognized as such by others. Consciousness only becomes true consciousness in the esteem of others, in the sense of esteem for myself as for another person. 20 This self-esteem is ultimately very vulnerable since it is based on a conviction that may be denied, contested or humiliated by the opinions of others. Yet we can only understand these pathological forms from the non-pathological form. As with the economic and political realm, Ricoeur concluded that the non-pathological form preceded and was constitutive to human existence (Ricoeur 1960a, 136–41). Ricoeur’s human ontology can in summary and in line with Mounier’s personalism be described as a “tragic optimism” in reference to Ricoeur’s own description of Mounier’s thinking (Ricoeur 1964e, 168–72). Its central focus is on human fallibility and fragility, though it does not devolve into despair. In Ricoeur’s view, the joy of being survives unscathed the clash between the original affirmation of our existence and the confrontation with our own finitude and suffering. He does not offer a philosophical footing for this position. Ultimately, this synthesis flows from a Christian-inspired form of hope. Ricoeur did mean to demonstrate that this hope is at least “attested.” 21 In other words, the philosophical contemplation reveals that our actual existence and more precisely the manner in which we approach evil and suffering show that hope is more powerful than despair and joy more powerful than fear. This offers the groundwork for Ricoeur’s approach to existentialism.

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Ricoeur and Existentialism With the development of his own theory in Philosophie de la Volonté in the back of his mind, Ricoeur put his pen at the disposal of the personalist movement in order to confront the popularity of existentialism. In a broad collection of essays and commentaries Ricoeur made it clear to what extent personalism and existentialism are complementary, but also where they part ways. Existentialism is in essence a philosophy of human liberty. It is exactly this vision of human liberty, and in particular the relationship between freedom and nature, that differs fundamentally from the personalist vision. From a personalist point of view Sartre’s distinction between freedom and nature was too strict. Nature is for Sartre the domain of being “en-soi,” the domain of things in which essence precedes existence. Freedom is, then, the domain of self-consciousness, of being “pour-soi,” in which existence always precedes essence. As existence always precedes essence Sartre could only characterize humanity as negativity, as permanent distanciation: “I am what I am not and I am not what I am” (Sartre 1943, 97). Ricoeur acknowledged the role of Sartre’s existentialism in the rebuttal of essentialism and in the shift of focus toward existence, but at the same time he pointed at a crucial mistake. First I will give a succinct explanation of this fundamental criticism. Afterward we will see what implications this has for important topics in existentialism, such as fear and historicity. At the heart of Ricoeur’s response to existentialism was the idea that human liberty is a positive liberty, based on an original affirmation of our existence that is stronger than any distanciation. By means of the thorough analysis of the relationship between finiteness and infinity in human being in L’homme faillible he concluded that awareness of our finiteness is not only an experience of limitation, but at the same time a transgression of the limitation. This movement of transgression is grounded on the will. It is in our will to say, to act, and—most fundamentally—to live that we transcend our perspectiveness, our character, and our primal desires and fears. This transcendence is, however, a kind of denial and distanciation. Transcending my perspective in the will to express something is based on a negation: I am not my perspective. Also the will to live is based on a distanciation, namely on the ethical ability to judge and, hence, to act counter to one’s desires. What Ricoeur wanted to show is that the negativity in transcendence is not a simple negation, but rather a negation of negation. It is not signifying above perspective or judging above the will to live that is the original distanciation, but rather the perspective and the will to live itself. For preceding the negation in the transcendence is the negation in finiteness, that is to say the contingency of our existence. The relationship between the contingency as original negativity and the negativity of transcendence is a matter of thinking and acting

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despite the contingency. In that sense it is a negation of a negation. Hence, it is possible to interpret it as an affirmation (Ricoeur 1964g, 337–50). The task that Ricoeur set himself was to show that we must interpret the negativity in contestation, doubt, and the like as an affirmation, in opposition to Sartre, who had used these “actes néantisantes” to argue for nothingness (in the sense of bottomless liberty) as the core of existence. Therefore he had to demonstrate that even in the most powerful self-distanciations an affirmation is at work, not only as the logical possibility of a double negation, but also in fact. Sartre emphasized that nothing in my past shapes or justifies me. Ricoeur raised the objection that the distanciation in the relationship of existential choices to the past and to the future does not come from nowhere. Sartre’s emphasis on the negative side of freedom implies a break between the decision and the motives. However, our freedom implies only that motives do not equal causes. Even in radical changes of course we can still discern a reliance on motives that were already there. It always is at the very least about a dimension of the self that used to be suppressed, but that is now uncovered. That is on one hand a distanciation from the self, but on the other hand it is at the same time an acceptation of the self. It is this acceptation that according to Ricoeur marks the affirmation that breaks through in the philosophy of emptiness. In the relationship between our choices and the future Ricoeur also recognized a hidden affirmation. My project for the future is always an attempt at filling a void. Ricoeur argued that every contestation of the present is also an affirmation, for one appeals to a certain value. This value is not just a lack, but a recognition of the existence of the other as correlative to my existence. In the appeal to a value I attest at the same time to an “I am,” without this necessarily being an essentialist statement (Ricoeur 1964g, 350–56). This is what Ricoeur also made clear in a review for Le christianisme social of Albert Camus’ treatise L’homme révolté. Camus tried to liberate existentialism from nihilism by means of the concept of revolt, for revolt is supposed to always imply a volitional affirmation of a certain universal value. Ricoeur shared the idea that every revolt is based in a human value, namely a Kantian respect for human dignity, but he criticized Camus’s point of view. The emphasis on revolt reveals the value as a negation, as a distanciation from the existing situation. Ricoeur, however, argued that it is not the revolt that grounds the value, but rather the value affirmation that grounds the revolt. For, without this original affirmation that there is something beyond the absurd, every revolt would be self-destructive and excessive, which would make us slip back into nihilism (Ricoeur 1992g). What Ricoeur eventually reproached Sartre with is the inadequacy of his ontology, for this ontology is at the basis of his empty conception of freedom. According to Sartre, the only alternative for being as emptiness (néant) is essentialist being. Sartrian nothingness is the counterpart of an objectified

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notion of being as a thing. Sartre was right in proving that freedom implies not to be a thing, but not being a thing is not the same as being nothing (Ricoeur 1964g, 356–57; 1974a, 31–32). After all, behind existential desperation Ricoeur recognized the affirmation of personhood as an act of being without essence. The original affirmation of our existence is not an affirmation of a being “en-soi”; it is the affirmation of being as action, as conatus. Under the pressure of the negative we have to rediscover the power of being (Ricoeur 1964g, 360). The negation of being a thing, hence, only comes after the affirmation of existing. With this ontology of the person Ricoeur went along in the intellectual exercise of existentialism, through the philosophy of emptiness, to arrive in the end at the philosophy of the person. Freedom no longer appears, then, as the empty freedom of constant self-distanciation. In Le volontaire et l’involontaire, Ricoeur had already explained that there exists nothing like a pure freedom, distinct from nature. In his criticism of Sartre, Ricoeur clarified that freedom is essentially not negative, but affirmative. It is not in the first place a “freedom of” a given essence, but a “freedom to” exist, which is primarily expressed as conatus essendi. Ricoeur’s concept of liberty had a Kantian base. Liberty ensues from the recognition of the equal right to existence of the other, by which I simultaneously affirm my own existence, while still refusing to be pinned down as a particular essence (Ricoeur 1964g, 350–56; 1974c, 61–63). At the same time Ricoeur highlighted that liberty has a history, in other words that liberty develops itself in a Hegelian sense. Liberty expresses our ability to act, in such a way that whatever comes out of our actions bears the mark of our freedom. Human freedom is only expressed in the work done by human hands making nature into culture. This culture shapes the framework for further action, in the multiple meaning of condition, limit, and standard for our actions. Culture is, however, always a going together of nature and freedom. Whether it is the genealogy of morals or the psychoanalysis of culture, on further consideration culture always proves to be a natural dynamism mixed with the dynamism of freedom (Ricoeur 1974a, 38–45). This cultural mediation of freedom has, then, two important implications. First, it is the ultimate refutation of the dichotomy of freedom and nature. Second, it is the basis for Ricoeur’s political philosophy. As we will see in more detail further on, this political philosophy focuses on the ambiguity of the relationship between politics and freedom: “Ricoeur’s concern with the articulation of the view that the State allows the expression and development of individual freedom through and by societal institutions must be seen as an extension of his lifelong endeavor to integrate and explicate the concept of freedom as it is both embodied and attenuated in man’s social activities” (Stewart and Bien 1974, 10). Ricoeur put not only freedom in another light, but also other core concepts of existentialism, such as fear and historicity. He did this in such a way

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that these concepts became compatible with the basic principles of personalism. With regard to fear, Ricoeur argued that Sartre and other existentialists have excessively used existential fear as the standard for understanding the human experience of finiteness (Ricoeur 1964g, 346–50, 56). This does not imply that Ricoeur considered fear and despair as side issues. To the contrary, he recognized that fear of the abyss of pure possibility and despair in light of the infinite distance to ourselves are, since Kierkegaard, the preeminent questions for a philosopher in search of understanding mankind (Ricoeur 1992h). However, he was convinced that we always conquer fear by means of understanding, because in the analysis of the different kinds of fear a more primary affirmation keeps floating to the surface. At the lowest level, he talks about the fear of death and the related fear of the contingency of our existence, the brute fact of being, while we could just as well not be. The original affirmation reveals itself at this level as will to live, which lies under the surface of all disparate objectives we set for ourselves in life. Willing life demands, however, finding meaning in life. According to Ricoeur, the values that make up the meaning of one’s life are what transcends life and death, as it is the case in a complete way in self-sacrifice. In other words, man can only conquer fear by devoting oneself to a task, that is by committing oneself to a project that—bearing Emmanuel Mounier in mind—is both personal and communal (Ricoeur 1964i, 317–23). On a higher level we find historical fear. This is no longer a matter of individual mental health, but rather a matter of the fate of communities and of mankind as a whole. Historical fear ensues from the fact that our awareness of our time contradicts Hegelian idealism: history shows a lack of meaning, while it is our commitment in history that is supposed to give meaning to our lives. In reference to Emmanuel Mounier Ricoeur argued that this fear is overcome by elevating the will to live to a communitarian and social level. In other words, politics is responsible for overcoming historical fear, by expressing the choices of a community without the ambition of absolute knowledge, and in acceptance of the whimsical course of history. Choice is what brings us to the level of actual existential fear. Ricoeur considers the basic existential fear to be the tragic fear of guilt, the “vertigo of seduction” of bringing about evil by our own free choice. But Kant’s reflection on evil provides him with a way out, because it does not only consider fear, but at the same time also a more original source of action. That is, then, the original affirmation that man is prone to evil, but oriented toward the good. Yet, beyond existential fear Ricoeur talks about an ultimate fear, namely the metaphysical fear: Is God an evil god? This fear ensues from the experience of the suffering of the righteous, the experience of evil for which we are not to blame, but that hits us all the same. Up to this point Ricoeur always knew a way to conquer fear, by uncovering a more original affirmation. With

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regard to the metaphysical fear, Ricoeur had to admit that neither knowledge nor intuition provide a way out. Only a leap of (eschatological) hope enables us to face this fear, not in the sense of a lifting or reconciliation, but merely as a consolation that remains linked to the fear itself. This is despite the fact that hope carries all kinds of original affirmation. For it is hope that constitutes the ultimate basis for self-confidence, tragic optimism, and the will to live (Ricoeur 1964o, 323–35). In sum, whereas existentialism stopped at ambiguity and fear, Ricoeur went a step further, on the basis of a Christian outlook. He shared existentialism’s emphasis on historical situatedness, but he gave meaning to this historicity on the basis of his religious background. He discerned three levels in our relationship to history: the abstract level of progress, the existential level of ambiguity, and the mysterious level of hope (Ricoeur 1964j). The abstract level of the idea of progress is tied up with a reading of history that only takes into account what can be seen as an accumulation of achievements, which implies that the coming and going of people is bracketed. Progress is much more ambiguous when we confront it with actual human beings, on the second level, which is the existential level. All progress appears, then, as a mix of opportunity and risk. Whereas history appears as a unity at the abstract level, at the concrete level it is inevitably plural. Moreover, the latter level brings human guilt to the surface. Man leaves his mark on history, but at the same time he makes mistakes. It is this ambiguity that bridges the existential level and the theological level, for the theological outlook focuses on the connection of greatness and culpability, or optimism and tragedy. The Christian idea of history shares the emphasis on decision and crisis with the existential level, but it does not stop there. What it adds, according to Ricoeur, is the element of hope. The Christian can look beyond the absurdity of history to another history, a history that is not completely beyond our grasp and of which the connection to profane history will be revealed. It is this religious perspective that motivates the principles of Ricoeur’s philosophy: the courage to believe in a deeper meaning without losing sight of the tragic, and an open mind that takes the mystery into account that would otherwise be lost in rigid thinking. PERSONALISM AND SOCIALISM Economic Concerns As already mentioned, the young Ricoeur was already a leftist activist before the war. This activism was directly connected to his Christian conviction. The capitalist shrug with regard to poverty was according to Ricoeur completely contrary to Jesus Christ’s concern for the weakest. 22 Whereas before the war he took the side of Marxism in a rather straightforward way, after the

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war he displayed a more nuanced approach. He remained in agreement with Karl Marx’s criticism of alienating labor and the need to collectivize the means of production, but he understood more and more that atheism was not the only thing with which Marxism was to be reproached (Ricoeur 1964k, 117–18; 1974d). Ricoeur definitely did not stand alone in this struggle with the relationship between Christian faith and leftist social criticism. This debate received ample treatment in the journals Esprit and Le christianisme social (Crespin 1993, 59–80; Grémion 2003, 104–9). Ricoeur’s writings on socialism, which we will now discuss, are, then, to be seen against this personalist background. He had a deep admiration for Emmanuel Mounier’s attempt to reconcile an open Marxism with personalist realism, including a sound balance between the “temporal” and the “spiritual.” It is this same pursuit of a “Third Way” by introducing personalist preconditions into the socialist framework that is the continuing thread in Ricoeur’s post-war political writings (G. Bouckaert 1992a, 138–39; Dauenhauer 1998, 79–88; Michel 2006, 358–63). These personalist preconditions touched concerns of an economic, cultural, as well as political nature. In the economic domain Ricoeur remained loyal to what he considered to be the skeleton of socialism: “Par socialisme nous entendrons le passage d’une économie de marché à une économie de plan, subordonnée aux besoins humains et accompagnée d’un transfert de la propriété des moyens de production à des entités collectives ou publiques” (Ricoeur 1961, 451). 23 Three elements were to be distinguished in this definition that already gave a personalist turn to the general characteristics of socialism. First, socialism stands for economic planning. Socialism does not leave the economy to an invisible hand and it also goes beyond a mixed economy that limits itself to correcting market distortions. From the outset the economy must be subject to rational planning in light of the common good, that is to say the maximal satisfaction of needs in accordance with their level of urgency. Second, the needs that are taken into account are not the given or created needs, but the real needs of the human person. Rational planning starts, in other words, from an ethical vision of man and his needs. Third, socialism demands that the means of production are in collective hands. Collective property was for Ricoeur, however, not a goal in itself, as it was for Marx. In line with Christian social teaching, Ricoeur did not consider private property as unjust in itself. Collective appropriation of the means of production was, then, for Ricoeur only a means, because rational planning is difficult to sustain otherwise (Ricoeur 1961, 451–54). Despite his loyalty to the core of socialism, Ricoeur was well aware of the evolutions in society since Marx wrote down his ideas. Adapting leftist thought to contemporary society is what Ricoeur considered to be the core of his political vocation. The main evolution in the economic domain was the rise of the consumer society, where the misery of industrial society was

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partly offset by a generalization of access to consumer goods. The indirect consequence of consumer society was a major value shift. Not only old aristocratic values were destroyed, but also proletarian desires for justice, dignity, and recognition. Although the consumer society was able to satisfy more needs, it was also responsible for a continuous creation of new needs and desires. Hence, the pursuit of the good life was gradually replaced by the pursuit of consumption, comfort, and luxury. Property integrated the proletariat into capitalism and broke the revolutionary zeal. All of this resulted according to Ricoeur in a new kind of alienation. It was no longer so much as workers that people became alienated from themselves and others, but rather as consumers. 24 Ricoeur considered it as socialism’s biggest challenge to make itself relevant in light of this new issue (Ricoeur 1959b, 695–98). Two elements were of central concern in Ricoeur’s attempt at bringing socialism economically up to date. Both elements bear the marks of personalism and its pursuit of the well-being of mankind as a whole and the development of every individual into a complete person. First, he considered it necessary to broaden the scope of the socio-economic problem. The moral foundation of socialism is to voice the grievances and the hopes of the weakest. Keeping this moral footing alive implies, according to Ricoeur, that solidarity and the pursuit of social justice should cross national borders. The aim of socialism is, then, to create a fair global economy, with an eye toward the Third World. Amid the decolonization era, this implied among other things that political decolonization was to be supplemented by economic decolonization (Ricoeur 1959b, 698–702; 1961, 460; 1964d, 307–16; 1965b). Second, Ricoeur pled for an ethical orientation of economic planning. The consumer society was no less in need of a planned economy, but it had to be a planned economy with a personalist and communitarian orientation. In other words, the investments need to be directed at caring for every human person. That is why he called for attention to investments in health care, services for the elderly, urban quality of life, and the prison system. The focus of the economy also needed to be shifted from consumption to production, in order to restore the meaning of labor, beyond the cost of leisure. Referring to Max Weber’s distinction, Ricoeur argued that economic planning therefore requires balancing between the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of conviction. This means, on the one hand, that one has to bear social reality in mind, but, on the other hand, that one should never lose sight of the ideal of the flourishing of every human being (Ricoeur 1959b, 698–702; 1964d, 307–16; 1965c, 18–21; 1991b, 250–57). Cultural Concerns Personalism was from the outset an attempt at creating an alternative for the division between individualism and collectivism. The alliance of personalism

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and socialism brings, then, a big question mark to the fore: Do not the collectivist foundations of socialism imply a serious impediment? Along with Jean-Marie Domenach, the later editor-in-chief of Esprit, Ricoeur tried to clarify the relationship between the masses and the person (Domenach and Ricoeur 1951). They thought of the rise of mass society and mass culture as a sociological pattern in need of an ethico-pedagogical adjustment. Hence, they did not outrightly reject collectivism, at the very least because they considered it as inevitable, but their personalist principles challenged them to combine the valuable in collectivism with the valuable in individualism. That is why they distinguished between a valuable and an objectionable kind of collectivism. The latter kind is the collectivism where the masses represent a phenomenon of mental regression, conformism, and propaganda-driven control. The first kind is about the masses who gather around shared complaints, where the collective dimension is responsible for the generation of awareness of vitality and willpower with respect to emancipation. Ricoeur and Domenach admitted that this distinction is not a pure one. In fact, history only displays hybrid kinds of collectivism. Nevertheless, they recognized the importance of the positive and active kind of massification as a source of authentic progress in the direction of personalist values, as long as the recognition of the dignity of the individual person continues to expose the dark side of collectivism. This way Ricoeur and Domenach showed the ambiguity of personalism. Personalism cannot be fully detached from individualism. Mounier’s “new renaissance” demands that we hold a firm grip on this valuable heritage of modern history. But the flourishing of every individual cannot be fully detached from massification. Domenach and Ricoeur considered it as their personalist duty to engage in the emancipation of the masses, but to pursue the recognition of the person within that framework and, hence, to warn of the totalitarian inclination in Marxism-Leninism and other kinds of socialism. Collectivism was to be tolerated—that is in its valuable form—insofar as human emancipation can only come about through community, but the human person must remain on top, based on her absolute dignity, which is independent of the community. Therefore, socialism was to be detached as far as possible from mass culture, in order to be imbued with humanism. The concept of humanism is in danger of being one size that fits all, but Ricoeur discerned three interpretations of humanism that were to orient the cultural dimension of personalist socialism. In a first interpretation humanism is connected to respect for European heritage. In this narrow interpretation humanism refers to the opposition against the inclination of modern man toward detachment from cultural heritage. A second interpretation sees humanism as a response to the danger of human objectification in labor and consumption. Here, objectification refers to a cultural kind of alienation in which man is absorbed by his work and/or consumer behavior. The humanist response

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advocates, then, the necessity of room for disinterested cultural activities as a way of reflection and contemplation. In the third and most profound interpretation Ricoeur uses humanism to refer to a basic trust in the critical and poetic role of what at first sight appears to be the useless cultural activities of man. Culture safeguards and renews the values that are embedded in the community, either by means of criticism of civilization or by means of the opening of a horizon of new possibilities. In this fundamental interpretation humanism is all about the orientation of society through the projection of a new man and a new community in symbols and representations (Ricoeur 1974e, 68–80). The question remains what these rather abstract remarks actually imply for the development of socialism. Ricoeur gave some clues in that regard. Socialism is basically about lifting the alienation in labor. Humanism colors this basic goal. Capitalism reduces labor to a commodity, which implies the destruction of its deepest human significance. The goal of socialism must therefore be to restore purpose in labor. The humanist perspective teaches that this requires more than the rejection of wage work and the establishment of collective management of the means of production (Ricoeur 1961, 457–58). One also needs to pay attention to the technological form of labor, as technological progress and the joint extreme division of labor create as much misery, in the form of feelings of boredom and emptiness. Labor continues to be alienating in a socialist system if it remains only as the social cost of consumption and leisure time: Le propre du travail est de me lier à une tâche précise, finie: c’est là que je montre qui je suis, en montrant ce que je peux. . . . [M]ais ce même mouvement qui me révèle, me dissimule: qui me réalise, me dépersonnalise aussi. Je vois bien, par l’évolution des métiers . . . , qu’il y a une limite vers laquelle tend ce mouvement d’objectivation: cette limite c’est ma perte dans le geste dénué de sens, dans l’activité au sens propre insignifiante, parce que sans horizon. Mais être homme, c’est non seulement faire du fini, c’est aussi comprendre l’ensemble. (Ricoeur 1964m, 226) 25

Hence, socialism must not be too easily satisfied. Next to socio-economic alienation, the cultural alienation in labor also requires attention. From the attention for the cultural alienation in labor results a second implication of the humanist perspective. In the struggle against alienation, socialism must steer clear of absolutizing labor. Ricoeur saw great danger in the pursuit of a so-called labor society. 26 The risk is that the glorification of labor no longer keeps capital as its sole target, but also takes aim at contemplation. In other words, socialism goes astray when being an intellectual becomes shameful. Ricoeur emphasized that a labor society must remain a logos society as well. Socialism must therefore leave the Marxist framework in order to rethink the relationship of economy and thought. Instead of the

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pattern of infrastructure and superstructure, which reduces culture to an epiphenomenon of production relations, we must see the relationship of labor and thought in a dialectical way. Ricoeur based this on a phenomenological analysis of labor and language that shows how both intersect in human existence. The analysis shows that language does something, but in a different way than labor. Language is to be seen as something that guides and anticipates praxis. From the outset words exceed deeds, or more specifically, they precede action by signifying the deed: “Prise au ras du geste, la parole devance tout geste en le signifiant. Elle est le sens compris de ce qui est à faire” (Ricoeur 1964m, 214, original italicization). 27 Ricoeur came to the conclusion that the history of labor is crossed and borne by the history of logos. It is for example the abstract language of history that enabled technology. Hence, there is an original link, but as much an original tension between labor, on one hand, and language and culture, on the other hand. Labor annexes language as a means, but language precedes it as signifier. Language develops in multiple ways self-consciousness and selfexpression, whether it concerns decisions or questions, statements or evocations. Each time there is a mutual fertilization with labor, while an underlying distinction remains. Language is in a sense part of labor insofar as it produces useful effects, but this is inessential. The essential of language is that it gives meaning, not that it produces effects in reality. A labor society is therefore impoverished if it is not a logos society as well (Ricoeur 1964m, 213–23). Ricoeur made clear that a labor society should not downgrade culture to a celebration of technology. Culture should also not become an ideological instrument in the hands of the apparatus of government. Although it is a legitimate aim to revitalize culture on the basis of labor and workers, the dialectics of labor and culture, including the necessary critical and poetical role of culture, must not be lost. Ricoeur distinguished four core functions in this dialectical relationship. First, language and culture are a correction for the so-called objectification in labor. Only language and culture grasp the connection among the divisions of labor and make it possible for people to change tasks. Moreover, only language and culture give labor its social meaning. Second, language and culture constitute a compensation for labor during leisure time. Third, language and culture must found praxis on theory. This is only possibly if there is room for fundamental research. Finally, language and culture have a creative function. In art and literature new understandings of human existence come about (Ricoeur 1964m, 227–33; 1974e, 80–87). In analogy with his plea for a global perspective in the economic domain, Ricoeur also paid attention to the global implications of socialism in the cultural domain. Given the importance of the dialectics of labor and culture, he was confronted with the problem of the plurality of cultures in opposition

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to the unity of technological progress and the beginning of economic globalization. The question that Ricoeur raised was how cultures can retain their particularity in the context of globalization, as the globalization of science, technology, and economy turned out to involve the generalization of a cheap consumer culture. Globalization develops at the expense of cultural roots, and mass access to culture is shown to involve a replacement of high culture by low culture, as if nihilism is the price to pay for a worldwide better standard of living. However, if cultures are to be saved from destruction, we need to know what it is that needs saving. Therefore, Ricoeur looked for the core of a culture. He came to the conclusion that there is no fixed core, but rather a creative core. A culture basically consists of values that constitute a people, and their attitude toward others, toward strangers, toward nature, and so on. These values are actually embedded in different levels, ranging from customs to institutions to symbols. But Ricoeur situated the actual core of a culture on a deeper level, in a way of dealing with time that is founded on a combination of loyalty and creativity. The next question is then how this creative core of loyalty and creativity can be sustained. Ricoeur emphasized that cultures can resist the pressure of globalization only if they succeed in giving scientific rationality and anthropocentrism their due place. Finally, he also raised the question under what circumstances a fertile encounter of culture can come about, without putting one’s own values on the line. Referring to the creative core of a culture, he argued that only a dynamic culture is able to cope with intercultural exchange. In that case, the encounter is even a source of creativity. This presupposes that the encounter is not based on vague universal convictions, but rather on an awareness of one’s own roots: “[P]our avoir en face de soi un autre soi, il faut avoir un soi” (Ricoeur 1964n, 299). 28 Ricoeur consequently emphasized that globalization was not to result in a vague syncretism, but rather in genuine communication on the basis of sound self-awareness (Ricoeur 1964n; 1991b, 256–57). At the heart of all these warnings and adjustments concerning the cultural aspects of socialism was actually the same ethical message that grounded Ricoeur’s economic reflections. In essence it is time and again a reminder to respect the moral foundation of socialism as a collective project of solidarity. Whereas this resulted at the economic level in an appeal to adopt a global point of view and to take personalist priorities into account in economic planning, at the cultural level this came down to resistance against the reduction of socialism to an optimal technique for welfare creation. Solidarity had to inspire socialists to add permanent resistance against the hedonist or even nihilist morality of consumer culture (Ricoeur 1961, 459–60). Hence, the ambitions of personalist socialism extend beyond the welfare state. Ricoeur’s concern was a humane society, a society that allows every individual to flourish, not as an average human being, but as a unique person with a particular vocation in life.

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Political Concerns The pursuit of a personalist socialism requires attention to the political dimension of socialism. This political dimension is at least as important as the socio-economic and cultural dimension. Ricoeur already reached this conclusion shortly after the war, under the influence of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Humanisme et terreur (1947), which was written as a reaction to the consternation caused by the renowned novel Darkness at Noon, by HungarianBritish writer Arthur Koestler, and his explanatory essay The Yogi and the Commissar. This novel about a Bolshevik who is impeached for treason played a major role in the awakening to the true nature of Stalinism. Koestler explains that communism imposes a choice between the yogi—the symbol for a merely inner revolution and escape from reality—and the commissar— the symbol for a relentless activism that reduces people to mere instruments in service of the revolution. In other words, he criticizes communism for being a totalitarian system in which morality is by definition eclipsed by efficiency, as is demonstrated by the terror under Stalin (Koestler 1941). Merleau-Ponty wanted to adjust this bleak picture by clarifying the nature of political terror in the Soviet Union in light of the humanist undercurrent in Marxism. In Humanisme et terreur, Merleau-Ponty presents Marxism as a philosophy that goes beyond the division between the yogi and the commissar. He stresses that the Marxist philosophy of history concerns the realization of human values in such a way that morality and efficiency go hand in hand. However, given the insights of existentialism, he adds that history is contingent; that is, that the actual course of history depends upon individual decisions. If no decisions ever had to be made, then no violence would ever take place. The realization of the proletarian revolution depends upon actual decisions, their effect on the revolution—and hence on guilt and innocence— only becoming clear in hindsight. That is why Merleau-Ponty held onto Marxism, in spite of the terror. In his view, it was Stalinism, not Marxism that deserved criticism because under Stalin, it was not the emancipation of the proletariat, but the communist party itself that was exalted to the absolute. Stalinism replaced the proletariat with the party commissar and thereby obscured the actual goal of the revolution (Merleau-Ponty 1947). Ricoeur wrote two critical reviews of Merleau-Ponty’s book. In these reviews, he expresses his sympathy for Merleau-Ponty’s criticism of Stalinism, while he also questioned whether the problem is not more deeply ingrained in Marxism itself. More specifically, Ricoeur questions whether Marxism is sufficiently immune from the slippery slope toward the primacy of the commissar. He considers proletarian humanism itself to be the source of terror, since it is an attempt to constitute humanism without the transcendent, without a transhistorical morality. According to Ricoeur, Marx’s mistake was to think that the socio-economic circumstances of the proletariat

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would suffice to produce compelling universal values, without any reference to the transcendent. Marx neglects the importance of the prophetic appeal and the possibility that the oppression of the proletariat makes them susceptible to a prophetic appeal to fraternity and justice. 29 The pursuit of fraternity and justice is not guaranteed by the passage of history. Without any reference to transcendent values, says Ricoeur, the ability of indignation and the sense of duty to keep the means and ends in balance fails: La pathologie du marxisme est aujourd’hui aussi importante pour la compréhension de l’histoire que la pathologie de la société libérale. Elle permet de repérer une nouvelle forme de “mystification,” celle qui se cache dans l’idée même du prolétaire, quand on en évacue la visée prophétique. Une doctrine qui méconnaît la dimension transhistorique de l’histoire, une doctrine immanentiste de l’histoire, est menacé d’autodestruction; elle ronge sa propre puissance d’indignation et d’exigence et se perd dans les “détours” mêmes qui devaient la porter à ses fins à travers une histoire effective. (Ricoeur 1992c, 154) 30

Ricoeur argues that Marxism implies that the primacy of the proletariat gradually lapses into the primacy of the commissar. Nevertheless, he emphasizes that this criticism should not be mistaken as a plea for the yogi. In other words, his case against the totalitarian inclination in Marxism is not a plea for an apolitical attitude. Even if we should not limit ourselves to the values of history, like Marx, we still have to be concerned with the effectiveness of our values in history. That is why Ricoeur makes an additional distinction between the category of the yogi and the category of the prophet. The yogi withdraws into himself and, hence, is rightly subject to the Marxist reproach of mystification. The prophet, on the contrary, wants to affect history. Hence, what Marxism lacks is the input of the prophet. This directly implies a critical perspective on Christian faith as well. Although Ricoeur acknowledges that Christianity does not imply one specific political program, he emphasizes that a Christian cannot withdraw from political life. He argues for a prophetic Christianity by which Christians intervene in society in order to keep the appeal of transcendent values alive, thereby contributing to a nontotalitarian socialism (Ricoeur 1948a; 1949a, 38–54; 1992c, 153–56). The political implication for personalist socialism was summed up as the need for permanent anti-totalitarian vigilance, by grafting political liberties onto the socialist demands of justice and by ensuring political education for the masses, so that people are actually able to assert their political rights (Domenach and Ricoeur 1951, 15–18). 31 Democratic legitimacy has always been a primary concern within Ricoeur’s socialist thought. The period between 1955 and 1956, however, saw a significant deepening of his insights in the political realm, boosted by personal experience from that time. 32 First, there was the impact of his offi-

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cial visit to China as a member of a delegation of the French Ministry of Education. Although his reports of the visit retrospectively display a disconcerting naïveté concerning the socio-economic and cultural realizations of the Chinese communist revolution, he also expressed grave concern with regard to the political regime and its bureaucracy, centralization of power, and “monopoly on truth”: “[Le] paradoxe de la Chine, c’est qu’on puisse admirer les réalisations de son socialisme en demeurant réservé et même hostile sur le plan proprement politique et doctrinal” (Ricoeur 1956a, 6). 33 He denounced, among other things, the oppression of intellectuals, the infringements of religious liberty, the lack of independent administration of the law, and the large-scale brainwashing. Thus, he emphasized that his sympathy for the socio-economic revolution did not justify in any way the political evil, as he was convinced that there is no necessary connection between economic planning and dictatorship, however efficient the latter may be. The dictatorship resulted according to Ricoeur from the pretension of one ideology that wants to suppress all others. Hence, it was not directly related to the planned economy. This awareness was at the basis of the understanding that socialism needed to be combined with a new kind of political liberalism. The more planning, the more need for democratic control, independent administration of justice, freedom of information, and cultural and religious tolerance (Ricoeur 1956a; 1956b). Second, the Soviet Union gradually showed its true colors. In February 1956 came Khrushchev’s denouncement of Stalin’s tyranny at the XX Congress of the USSR Communist Party, which spurred the debate on the relationship between communism and tyranny. In November of the same year, even the most stubborn adepts sobered when the Soviet tanks crushed the uprising in Budapest along with the hope for a more humane and free communism. For Ricoeur, the outcome of the Hungarian uprising was the ultimate proof of the continuity of the problem of political power and its independence from socio-economic revolutions. If socio-economic revolutions succeed in lifting socio-economic oppression, then the risk of political oppression still remains. The problem of communism is just the fact that political oppression is reduced to an epiphenomenon of socio-economic oppression. As such the problem of surveillance on government power is brushed aside. Marxist discourse argues that the state will come to an end once the revolution is finished. Hence, it holds out the prospect of the end of political evil in an indefinite future, instead of limiting evil here and now. That is what left the door wide open for totalitarian dictatorship. Ricoeur argued that the state simply cannot disappear. There is no public management of resources possible without power over people. Moreover, communism implies more opportunity for abuse of power, because of the centralization of economic power and the indoctrination of a monopolized truth. That is why Ricoeur deemed it necessary to examine what elements of liberal democracy have

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nothing to do with the domination of one class over another, or, in other words, what elements are purely linked to the universal problem of abuse of power. Examples are independent administration of the law, freedom of information, trade union freedom and the right to strike, and, last but not least, free elections in a multi-party system (Ricoeur 1964a, 260–61, 75–85). Ricoeur did not lose faith in socialism, but he made it an issue to stress at every occasion that socialism must go hand in hand with political liberalism. He remained as convinced as ever of the planned economy, but he argued that personalist socialism must stand for more than just the end of destitution. It should also strive for the conquest of a positive liberty that includes participation in political decision-making. The idea is that central planning is vital, but it should happen in such a way that autonomous secondary choices remain possible. In other words, bureaucracy has to be compensated for by bottom-up forms of democratic control and corporate management has to be supervised by the workers (Ricoeur 1961, 454–57). Ricoeur considers socialism to open up a new dimension of social ethics: a dimension of collective choice and responsibility. As Ricoeur sees it, the far-reaching social planning that socialism requires expands both freedom and responsibility. In the circumstances of collective planning, freedom cannot be reduced to individual freedom as simply the government’s non-interference in the lives of its citizens. Collective choices have to be based on each individual’s free participation. This positive liberty requires an adequate form of political education. The meaning of the idea of the prophet, as opposed to Koestler’s concepts of the yogi and the commissar, becomes clear in the context of this personalist political education, as Emmanuel Mounier had already expressed the idea that political responsibility is dependent on a balance between a political and a prophetic pole. Ricoeur distinguishes between three different priorities for a political education program. Firstly, he indicates that the individual must be made aware of the ethical implications of collective choices. Collective planning expands power, which makes the question of the ends of the use of power even more pressing. Power has to be subservient to the personalist ideal of the full development of every human being, which includes a permanent focus on solidarity, integral well-being, and global justice. This is only possible when power is controlled by citizens with an adequate awareness of the relationship between political means and ethical ends. Secondly, he argues that this plan of education has to be directed toward the realization of true democracy, even in the economic domain, insofar as the shift from individual freedom of choice to collective choices can only be compensated by maximal participation. Thirdly, this form of education is motivated by the notion that collective choices have to maintain a maximal degree of pluralism. Ricoeur criticizes the Marxist interpretation of pluralism as an objectionable expression of class struggle. Public choices have to offer a horizon as wide as possible for the

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development of the individual person, for it is only under such circumstances of pluralism that freedom and responsibility can be secured (Ricoeur 1958b, 32–33; 1964d, 340–46; 1965c, 13–21; 1991b, 250–57). These are the primary elements that Ricoeur attributes to the role of the prophet in the pursuit of a personalist socialism. As such he introduces the core ideas of personalist political theory in the plea for a personalist socialism. PERSONALISM AND POLITICS The Christian as a Citizen As we have seen, Ricoeur’s reflections on socialism already had an eye for the autonomy of the political domain and the permanent risk of domination. These reflections were founded on a theoretical elaboration of a personalist political philosophy in the line of Maritain, Mounier, and Landsberg that is essentially independent of his socialist activism. Hence, we will examine it here as such. In line with the personalist movement Ricoeur reflected on the task of politics and the evil implied, as well as on the resultant responsibility of the person. Initially, Ricoeur considered this issue within the framework of moral theology. That is the subject of the first part of this chapter. The ideas on freedom and responsibility that he developed from within this religious background were later given a philosophical elaboration by means of the notion of the political paradox, which I will discuss in the second part. Finally, I will look at the personalist interpretation of civic duty that ensues from this political paradox. The resulting view of the relationship between personhood and citizenship, with institutional and ethical implications, exposes Ricoeur’s importance for personalism. Already during the interbellum the personalist movement looked for the place and task of the citizen in society. The experiences of the build-up to and the proceeding of World War II formed an additional eye-opener for the political dimension of this question. The separation of ethics and politics has always been a central target of personalist social criticism. The questions regarding guilt and responsibility in the aftermath of the war pushed this issue even more to the fore, especially among Christians, who were confronted with the complete perversion of a Christian civilization (Crespin 1993, 43–58). This was also the case for Ricoeur, who recognized that the horrors of the war served as reminders to Christians that they had a social and political responsibility alongside their inner and private responsibility. They are called upon to actualize the socio-political values of their Christian vocation (Ricoeur 1947a, 320; 1949b, 152–54). It was this moral-theological question that was the initial leitmotiv of Ricoeur’s political thought.

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The Christian’s responsibility as a citizen was a complicated matter. The Bible seldom gives straightforward answers, and definitely not in this matter. Ricoeur recognized the contradiction between the Book of Revelation, which displays a radical distrust of politics, and the Letters of Paul, which paint a more nuanced picture. Paul believes that government is an order established by God and that political authority somehow realizes God’s intentions for mankind. At the same time he acknowledged that politics implies a culpable kind of power. Hence, the only certainty that Ricoeur could find in the Bible was that neither anarchism nor blind obedience were valid options (Ricoeur 1958a, 452–54). Nevertheless, Ricoeur was of firm opinion that any Christian ethics necessarily implied a political component. The exposure of the false distinction between the “neighbor,” as the person that I meet, and the “fellow man,” as the one that I only encounter through social mediation, was the key toward that conclusion. Both in a theological and in a philosophical perspective the neighbor appears to be the opposite of the fellow man. On a theological level the definition of the neighbor is based on the parable of the good Samaritan, in which the question is reversed and we do not learn who is the neighbor, but who acts like one. The priest and the Levite are fully preoccupied with their official duties. Only the Samaritan, which serves as a non-category, is open to the encounter, without institutional mediation. This theological perspective shows the encounter with the neighbor as an event that can only take place independent of mediation. The meaning of this event is totally independent of criteria that are immanent in history. From a philosophical perspective the reflection on the neighbor and the fellow man starts from the inevitable observation that human relations become more and more complex. Modern society is based on increasingly anonymous and dehumanized manners. Therefore the fellow man appears as historical man, while the neighbor appears as nothing but a mythical or nostalgic phenomenon (Ricoeur 1964b, 99–103). Regardless of the apparent discrepancy between the neighbor and the fellow man, Ricoeur wanted to assemble both concepts in his theology of the neighbor, as two dimensions of the same history and the same charity; on the one hand intimate and subjective, on the other hand abstract but more extensive. Thus he wanted to reveal the unity of the intention behind all human relations: the same charity gives meaning to social institutions and personal encounters alike. We have to recognize the love of God in institutions and authority figures as well, albeit in a different manner. Institutions and authorities take on a different countenance through love, namely in the form of justice. The dialectics of order and justice was, according to Ricoeur, part of the larger dialectic of the activity of the love of God in history, despite the fact that this dialectic only appears in a defective manner, amid misery and suffering. If the theme of the neighbor is detached from the social context,

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then it becomes sterile. Ricoeur stressed that it is important to keep an eye on the historical range of charity and to see how diverse the dialectic between neighbor and fellow man really is. Practically no encounter can take place without institutional mediation. Moreover, in some cases the encounter with the neighbor is only tangible in its collective dimension, for example in the experience of shared oppression. Hence, Ricoeur’s conclusion was unambiguous: taking on the demeanor of the neighbor is not restricted to direct relations, but also implies justification, correction, or criticism of institutions. Love of one’s neighbor is, therefore, characterized by a perspective on both immediate and more distant relations. To care for one’s neighbor implies a continuous criticism of social relations that are never personal nor universal enough (Ricoeur 1964k, 112–16; 1964b, 104–11). 34 If the love of one’s neighbor has a political component, this comes down to the task of permeating politics with love. Hence, the Christian’s political responsibility is in line with what Ricoeur considered to be the larger responsibility of the Christian in civilization, namely to incarnate faith in history and thus to involve oneself in the eschatological perspective that reveals civilization as the adumbration of the Kingdom of God (Dornisch 1990, 139–44). The Christian has to “baptize civilization,” i.e., to recreate the values of civilization in the perspective of Christian charity and in the light of eternity. Referring to the personalist vision of Jacques Maritain, Ricoeur made this concrete in the following: “[A]ujourd’hui notre tâche de chrétien est de discerner les valeurs nouvelles de justice et de liberté que les conditions techniques du monde moderne permettent et suscitent, de les reconnaître partout où elles sont, et de les repenser et de les revivre en climat de foi” (Ricoeur 1946, 433). 35 Baptizing civilization or “being the salt of the earth” (Ricoeur 1974f), at the political level, comes down to a political order that performs its holy task, which refers to the utopia of politics as the pure servant and educator of freedom. That is the hope that should direct and enlighten every political authority (Ricoeur 1964k, 126). In line with the personalist movement, Ricoeur acknowledged that the Christian outlook on politics is supportive of democracy. Christianity provides the core values of democracy, i.e., freedom and equality, with fresh motivation and foundation. Equality is founded in the dignity of man as God’s image, for whom Jesus Christ shed his own blood. Positive liberty is founded in human responsibility as co-creator, which implies that man must not hide behind the government, for he is called to actively engage in public life (Ricoeur 1947a, 328–30). Ricoeur did not think of this individual responsibility as being in contradiction with traditional Christian political teachings, which state that authority—insofar as it is in the service of the development of the human person—is divine, and, hence, top-down. The relationship between individual political responsibility and divine establishment of authority was according to Ricoeur analogous to the relationship between freedom

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and predestination. Just as Paul called for us in the Epistle to the Philippians to work out our own salvation for it is God who works in us to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Phil 2, 12–13), so Ricoeur argued that Christians must act in a responsible and just way in the public domain, for it is God who establishes authority in that manner. In other words, we are exactly called to responsibility by the power that appeared to rule it out. Ricoeur, thus, criticized pietism and German Lutheranism, that exclude the state from individual responsibility, as authority is no longer established by God in the service of the common good if it is no longer established by man who is responsible for the historical actualization and continuity of the common good (Ricoeur 1947a, 330–31). The next question is how Christians are supposed to carry out their political responsibility. Ricoeur emphasized first and foremost that his plea for a politically active Christianity was not a plea for clericalism. The Church should not get mixed up in politics, but the faithful should all the more (Ricoeur 1958a, 458; 1974f, 107–8). Second, he recognized that there is not a single, unified Christian politics: Il n’est pas légitime (ni même possible) de déduire une politique d’une théologie; car tout engagement politique est au point de rencontre d’une conviction, religieuse ou éthique, d’une information de caractère essentiellement profane, d’une situation qui définit un champ limité de possibilités et de moyens disponibles, d’une option plus ou moins risquée; il n’est pas possible d’éliminer de l’action politique les tensions qui naissent de la confrontation de ces divers facteurs. (Ricoeur 1958a, 458, original italicization) 36

It is impossible to directly infer political maxims from the Bible. The confrontation of all factors involved implies that political choices can never be absolute and always imply risks. Hence, the political responsibility of the Christian starts with a judgment in good conscience about the best way to apply Christian values in a given situation with what knowledge is available. In other words, there can be as many Christian political actions as there are Christians. Initially, Ricoeur stated that there are broadly speaking two options: either Christians get directly involved in politics to try to introduce Christian values into society or they should found communities outside of society, that embody the Christian values as a way of sending a prophetic testimony to society. Those were the two distinct political vocations for the Christian of the twentieth century: “[P]eut-être que l’Église fidèle a maintenant deux sortes de fils, ceux qui font tous les pactes pour sauver l’homme de l’inhumain, et ceux qui tentent l’aventure du village sur la montagne. Peutêtre que les deux pôles du christianisme pratique au XXe siècle suscitent deux vocations en tension fraternelle dans l’Église: la vocation du chrétien

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dans la politique laïque, et celle du chrétien dans les communautés chrétiennes prophétiquesˮ (Ricoeur 1946, 436). 37 The second scenario, of the prophetic communities, was according to Ricoeur an emergency scenario, when the political actions of Christians are to no avail. Gradually, Ricoeur exhibited more confidence in the possibility of Christian political action, and he began to integrate both vocations into one general conception of Christian citizenship that combined participation in lay politics with prophetic criticism. However, he continued to acknowledge that Christian political action is a course strewn with obstacles. Politics is and remains a game of power, with complex relationships and often evil maneuvers, which makes ethical dilemmas so pressing. A Christian can influence society without necessarily engaging in party politics. One can also exert ideological pressure through non-partisan social movements. But, even then, one has to keep in mind that ideology in itself is slippery ground for Christians. An ideology may well find common ground in the Gospel, but at the same time any ideology remains fundamentally different from faith, as the Christian perspective teaches that access to salvation is eventually only attainable through Christ. Moreover, one has to face the technical and bureaucratic nature of modern society that threatens to deprive every social commitment of prophetical content. Ricoeur was of the conviction that Christians have to accept these circumstances and come to a mature and firm conviction that something good can be done in any situation. Christians have to learn to function in society as it is, not in the sense that they should just play along, but in the sense that they should correct the system from within, for example by protecting personal relationships against the tendency toward anonymity, by keeping an eye on new kinds of poverty and oppression 38 and by pursuing global justice. On the ideological level, moreover, the Christians should play a purifying, truth-loving role that unmasks myths and rejects totalitarian ideologies (Ricoeur 1974f, 105–21). Ricoeur’s moral-theological conclusion was that a Christian has the responsibility to be an active citizen, but in a Christian style (Dornisch 1990, 201–2). He argued for an awareness of the dark side of politics, but also of the crucial influence of politics on society. Hence, he stressed that his political responsibility confronts the Christian with a tricky question. This question is not about keeping one’s innocence, but about limiting one’s guilt. Taking into account the possibilities, a Christian has to be willing to dirty his hands, but with the qualification that he keeps exerting the pressure of evangelical ethics, the pressure of love and nonviolence, on political practice (Ricoeur 1974f, 121–24). Hence politics has to take an important place in the life of a Christian, but not the highest place: “Il faut dire pour finir qu’il y a un style du chrétien en politique. . . . Une unique intention anime ce style: rendre l’État possible, selon sa destination propre, dans cet intervalle précaire entre les passion des individus et la prédication de l’amour réciproque, qui

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pardonne et rend le bien pour le mal” (Ricoeur 1958a, 463, original italicization). 39 The Christian not only has to participate in politics and work for the institutional elaboration of democracy, 40 but he also has to maintain an attitude of permanent and critical vigilance with regard to authority. This critical vigilance implies having an eye for the dangers that come with politics and continuing to confront politics with the Christian values that should ground political authority. That is the foundation of a Christian evaluation of governments and, as Ricoeur added, of illegal actions to right a wrong if necessary (Ricoeur 1958a, 458–63). Crises of Democracy and the Political Paradox In the moral-theological quest for the Christian social task, Ricoeur found a vocation to participate in an active and alert way in the democratic system. This moral-theological concern, however, brought philosophical questions regarding the nature of politics and democracy to the fore. Those questions induced the development of Ricoeur’s personalist political philosophy, which began with an analysis of democracy and its crisis halfway through the twentieth century. The starting point of this analysis was the discovery that democracy is a historical project: “La démocratie est une idée en devenir et en combat. C’est une histoire commencée que nous avons la tâche de continuer” (Ricoeur 1947a, 320). 41 To understand democracy and our actual responsibilities, it is necessary to understand its historical development. Ricoeur stated that the evolution of democracy since the Middle Ages was rooted in a defensive reflex, with the imposition of the legal maxim of Habeas corpus as protection against abuse of power. He emphasized, however, that this originally negative dimension was gradually joined by a constructive dimension, in which democracy also emerged as the project of the construction of a political community, as in many autonomous cities in the late Middle Ages. Hence, Ricoeur described democracy as the historical battle for the elaboration of a constitution that organizes, divides, and balances power and that enables the individual to keep the authority within its boundaries (Ricoeur 1947a, 320–21). The negative and positive dimensions that Ricoeur had discerned in the historical development also surfaced in his study of the fundamental values of democracy, namely freedom and equality. Freedom not only has a negative meaning, as resistance against the abuse of power, but also a positive dimension, as the idea of the active and responsible citizen who participates directly or through representation in institutions. The antithesis of freedom is, hence, not only despotism, but also anarchy and irresponsible liberty. Therefore, the safeguarding of freedom, according to Ricoeur, requires vigilance with regard to both its counterparts. As opposed to the second fundamental value of democracy, equality before the law, he also discerned two counter-

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parts. The first counterpart is the existence of privileges, but beyond this, Ricoeur identified envy as a second counterpart, namely a sterile criticism of the necessary inequalities that result from the organization of power, as the lack of these inequalities would amount to anarchy. In this way, Ricoeur demonstrated a very balanced vision of the foundations of democracy, with an eye for both rights and responsibilities (Ricoeur 1947a, 321–22). Rather than focusing on the theoretical foundations, Ricoeur’s focus was mainly on democracy in practice. The instruments that make democracy work were the core issues for him. He discerned three elements. The first element was the constitution, which he characterized by means of the symbols of the scales and the sword. The scales stand for the balance between government and citizens, in both directions, between the demands of the government and the performances of the citizens and between the demands of the citizens and the actions of the government. In the symbolism of the sword, the constitution stands for the organization of the settlement of differences between the claims of freedom and the claims of authority. In reference to the two dimensions of freedom, the constitution must avoid anarchy as well as despotism. The second element in the armamentarium of democracy is rights and liberties, which Ricoeur considered crucial in the safeguarding of equality, both with regard to privileges and with regard to envy. The third and last element is a style of governing that integrates the constitution as well as rights and liberties. This implies, for example, that there should be an authentic representation of the people and that the majority should take up responsibility in government without hiding itself behind sham maneuvers such as national unity governments, which Ricoeur considered intrinsically oppressive. He stated concurrently that majority rule has to be compensated by liberty and a critical role for minorities. The concrete manner in which these elements are realized was a matter of secondary importance according to Ricoeur, as long as the aforementioned elements are well institutionalized (Ricoeur 1947a, 322–23). With the preceding analysis as a starting point, Ricoeur attempted an evaluation of the democracy of his days. It goes without saying that this evaluation in the aftermath of World War II did not paint a very rosy picture. Ricoeur distinguished two profound crises in the democratic projects. He called the first crisis a crisis of growth, or the socialist crisis. This crisis was the consequence of the bourgeois character of the development of democracy, namely the fact that democratic development was driven by the interests of the bourgeoisie in their struggle with feudal powers. This implied that democratic emancipation got mixed up with class interests. On the one hand, it was a struggle for authentic values, but on the other hand it was also the victory of a distinct social group. In other words, the idealism of freedom and equality clashed with the realism of the class struggle. The rise of the labor class demonstrated that the values of bourgeois democracy were insufficient

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and hypocritical: “Bref, qu’est-ce que le droit démocratique pour qui a faim?” (Ricoeur 1947a, 324). 42 In line with the personalist analysis of Emmanuel Mounier, Ricoeur considered bourgeois democracy as an immoral pact between political liberalism and economic liberalism, which kept democracy on a purely formal level. The reported growth crisis was founded on claims of social justice that Ricoeur saw as the continuation of democratic emancipation. This crisis does not question democracy in itself but concerns the growing pains in the development from a formal to a real democracy. The link between political and economic liberalism had to be cut according to Ricoeur, in aid of a synthesis of political liberalism and socio-economic statism (Ricoeur 1947a, 323–25). Ricoeur called the second crisis a crisis of decadence. This concerned totalitarianism and the human decadence that facilitates it, namely the destruction in every man of the foundation of democracy, i.e., responsible and active citizenship. He thought that the threat of totalitarianism was based on the fact that people give up their negative and positive freedom to immerse themselves in a passive mob that subjects itself to a strong leader. In contrast to the growth crisis, nothing good was to be expected from this crisis of decadence. Ricoeur discerned multiple causes for this serious threat to democracy, ranging from the herd mentality in urbanization to the rise of social sciences, including the resulting optimalization of propaganda mechanisms. Two causes were especially highlighted. The first was secularization. Secularization brought about spiritual emptiness. The need for a new absolute was, then, filled in by politics, with all its consequences. If the absolute is transcendent, then it is liberating, says Ricoeur. But if the absolute is human, as when politics becomes the new religion, then it can only be oppressive, because human limits are by definition no longer recognized. Second, he also considered democracy itself to be responsible for totalitarianism, by means of the passions that it generated. Skirmishes, power games, and political hatred produced an empty rhetoric, penning opportunities for skillful dictators that promised efficiency instead of chatter. The result of this is a democracy that takes itself down, of which 1930s Germany proved to be an outstanding example (Ricoeur 1947a, 325–27). Keeping in mind the distinction between two democratic crises, Ricoeur tried to explain why the political situation of his time was so complex and confused, as they showed that while these two crises were theoretically distinct, they were practically mixed. He found the most manifest consequence of this mixture in the fact that there were two kinds of left and two kinds of right in play, namely liberal and fascist right and communist and socialist left. Ricoeur was of the conviction that the solution for the two crises was to be found in socialism only, by means of the struggle for a new democracy that safeguarded the formal liberties but complemented them with real liberties (Ricoeur 1947a, 327–28). Ricoeur’s awareness of these two dimensions

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developed further under the influence of historical events such as the aforementioned Hungarian uprising in 1956 and his visit to the People’s Republic of China the year before. Both events awakened Ricoeur to the intrinsically totalitarian nature of communism. A revolution that aimed at the abolition of socio-economic oppression of the human person but that denied that there existed something like a political oppression distinct from socio-economic oppression was doomed to fight against one form of oppression by means of another. Ricoeur argued for this statement through an analysis of political philosophy that uncovered the so-called political paradox. As such he placed his analysis of the political situation in those days in a broader perspective, as an impulse to understand the universal and timeless field of tension in politics. In other words, the crisis of democracy was not a historical contingency, but an expression of a structural problem. In the article Le paradoxe politique (1957) Ricoeur stated that political philosophy is all too often reduced to an antithesis between two movements. On the one hand there are political philosophers that emphasize the distinct and autonomous rationality of the political. On the other hand there are political philosophers that stress the link between power and violence. Ricoeur marked Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the prototypical examples of the first kind. In Aristotle he found the first elaborated formulation of the autonomy of the political domain. Aristotle argued that politics should cohere with reason. Whoever wants to understand politics has to understand the particular rationality at play, which Aristotle discovered in connection with its telos: human happiness. In other words, the autonomy of the political domain manifests itself in the way the political telos contributes to humanity. The state fulfills the social nature of the human being, since it is only as a citizen that man becomes truly human. This positive dimension should then be the starting point in the understanding of politics, not its perversion (Ricoeur 1964a, 261–64). According to Ricoeur, Rousseau strengthened our understanding of the autonomy of politics by demarcating between the political and the economic spheres. The social contract—the pact between individuals that constitutes the people as a people by means of the constitution of the state—demonstrates this independence, for it is not about giving up freedom in exchange for security, but about gaining freedom through the law that requires the approval of all and, hence, only demands obedience to oneself. Ricoeur recognized that there are many problems in Rousseau’s theory, but he focused on the essential idea of the establishment of freedom of the citizens as equality before the law. This constitution of freedom and equality in a political community is impossible in an economic dynamic. This places Rousseau in line with Aristotle, with the substitution of the objective ideal of the telos by the subjective ideal of the contract: “Dans les deux cas, à travers le télos

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de la Cité et le pacte générateur de la volonté générale, il s’agit de faire apparaître la coïncidence d’une volonté individuelle et passionnelle avec la volonté objective et politique, bref de faire passer l’humanité de l’homme par la légalité et la contrainte civiles” (Ricoeur 1964a, 267). 43 Ricoeur found the same basic presupposition in Hegel, who considered the state as reasonable and universal organization of freedom, in other words, as the concrete realization of reason by man (Ricoeur 1964a, 264–68). The antithesis of this positive perspective in political philosophy is a perspective that sheds light on the other side of the picture. As politics is an autonomous sphere, it also has the ability to cause a particular alienation according to Ricoeur. Even if the state is reasonable in intention, her historical practice is based on human decisions. Moreover, there are no decisions without political power. The particular nature of the political sphere manifests itself here in the specificity of its means, namely in the monopoly of violence and the power of some over others. The political, in the sense of the development of political rationality, cannot exist without politics, in the sense of the collection of activities that are directed at seizing and retaining power. Ricoeur explained that this is what philosophers such as Plato, Machiavelli, and Marx emphasize, not because power would be evil in itself, but because power is extremely vulnerable to evil. 44 In Plato’s Gorgias the political tendency toward evil was manifested in the analogy of tyranny and sophistry, in which pride and manipulation of the truth appear intrinsically linked to politics. Machiavelli showed that it is not random violence that is the problem of politics, but rather calculated violence aimed at the constitution and preservation of the state. Every state bears the mark of this original violence. The legitimacy of the juridical order that this violence constitutes remains a contingent matter on the basis of this violent origin. Finally, Marx criticized the Hegelian picture of the state, because the reconciliation of antitheses was only realized in a fictitious law that neglects real relations. Behind this illusion lies violence, since the pretence of the law can only become real through a concrete random sovereign. Every political order is based on an external contradiction between the ideal sphere of juridical relations and the real sphere of social relations and on an internal contradiction between the constitution and the actual exercise of power. What Marx expressed in this way was the fact that there was no state without a government, a bureaucracy, and a police force. 45 In sum, Ricoeur used Plato, Machiavelli, and Marx as prototypes of a political philosophy that links politics to power and perversion of power (Ricoeur 1964a, 268–73). Ricoeur refused to align with either of these two sides, but he wanted to combine both perspectives. 46 The approach that puts the particular rationality of politics first showed, according to him, only an ideal conception of politics. Nevertheless, he agreed that this conception is the necessary starting point for understanding politics, for an awareness of political evil should not

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hide the fact that a political rationality is more fundamental. The awareness of the dark side of politics should not lead to pessimism or défaitisme. This dark side has to be considered in the bigger picture of political power. Only because the state has an important role to play in history is it also a potentially major evil: C’est parce que l’État est une certaine expression de la rationalité de l’histoire, une victoire sur les passions de l’homme privé, sur les intérêts “civils” et meme sur les intérêts de classe, qu’il est la grandeur humaine la plus exposée, la plus menacée, le plus encline au mal. . . . Dès lors l’homme ne peut pas éluder la politique, sous peine d’éluder sa propre humanité. À travers l’histoire et par la politique l’homme est confronté avec sa grandeur et sa culpabilité. (Ricoeur 1964a, 275, original italicization) 47

Ricoeur encountered here what he has called the “political paradox.” The positive possibilities of politics carry as many possibilities for corruption with them (Ricoeur 1959a, 51–52; 1964a, 260–62, 74–75). Bernard Dauenhauer summarizes this as “the promise and risk of politics”: Political practice displays progress in rationality insofar as it has developed a constitution that declares the fundamental equality of all the society’s members before the law. And it organizes the people so that they can make decisions together and achieve a historical efficacy that would otherwise not be possible. But politics also always involves the ruling or domination of some by others. This ineliminable domination always tempts those who would rule to make ever greater impositions upon the ruled. (Dauenhauer 1998, 68)

This idea of a paradox at the heart of politics was initially not very elaborate. Little more than the above citation is to be found in the original article. 48 It is, however, the key to Ricoeur’s political thought, and we will see later on that it colored all of Ricoeur’s further reflections on politics and the political responsibility of the person. Political Liberty and Vigilant Citizenship Ricoeur’s finding of the political paradox places all his reflections on politics in a particular perspective. Through politics mankind is capable of both great things and terrible atrocities. This colors the stakes of Ricoeur’s political philosophy: “[L]e problème central de la politique c’est la liberté; soit que l’État fonde la liberté par sa rationalité, soit que la liberté limite les passions du pouvoir par sa résistance” (Ricoeur 1964a, 285, original italicization). 49 The ambiguity of politics implies that freedom is not only about the negative freedom that is guaranteed by the politically established juridical system, but as much about the positive freedom to influence power and to avoid the government’s exceeding of its boundaries. That is why Ricoeur

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thought that freedom is intrinsically linked to active citizenship. This emphasis on a personalist democracy sustained by active citizenship kept him very close to the political ideas of other French personalists, such as Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, and Paul-Ludwig Landsberg. But Ricoeur’s inspiration came also from his contemporary and fellow countryman, Éric Weil (Dauenhauer 1998, 74–78; Dosse 2008, 237–38; Michel 2006, 363–65). Weil was a Hegelian political philosopher who considered the political domain to be the domain of reasonable action in history, or in other words, the domain of the realization of morality in a historical community by means of a state, which he defined as the institutional framework that gives expression to the decision capacity of a historical community in light of its own survival (É. Weil 1956, 131–42). What Ricoeur took over from Weil is an interpretation of the necessary connection between politics and morality. According to Weil the task of politics is to integrate morality, efficiency, and tradition in a given historical setting. Given the situation of a modern efficiency-driven society man is confronted with a crisis of meaning. This results in the temptation to close oneself off from society and to retreat into the formal morality of personal reflection. This would, however, mean that we live for abstract ideals without any hope of actualization. The alternative that Weil proposes is the perspective of “living morality” in which one tries to give meaning to social existence. Politics is a necessary implication of this perspective of living morality. By means of prudent politics, the state has to bridge the gap between morality and society and to educate individuals to reasonable and responsible use of freedom. Politics is thus related to morality as a “morality of virtue in history” (Ricoeur 1991c, 96–109). This approach of politics implies that citizenship is much more than a juridical status. Citizenship is, according to Ricoeur—following Weil—rather about being situated in a historical community and the implied moral vocation to realize reason and to fight evil in history. Although Ricoeur shared this fundamental view on citizenship with Weil, he found that a crucial element was missing in Weil’s political thought. This was exactly the link between power, freedom, and violence that is expressed in the political paradox (Ricoeur 1991c, 103–9; 1991e, 2–7). Given the fact that political power confronts man with opportunity as well as risk, the conclusion is that citizenship first and foremost equals a person’s duty to enact political vigilance and the willingness to act and to enforce their rights in the public domain (Ricoeur 1964a, 275; 1991c, 103–9). The political liberty of the citizen consists of the absence of political alienation, i.e., the absence of a political power that oppresses the individual in his development as a human person. This liberty can only be realized in a democracy that really fulfills the demands of Abraham Lincoln, as “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” Given the political paradox, we cannot expect the total reconciliation of power and the individual. Neverthe-

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less, this should remain a constant objective, by means of two distinct pathways that together make up the content of Ricoeur’s moral concept of citizenship. These pathways consist of, on the one hand, the freedom of contestation and, on the other hand, the freedom of participation (Ricoeur 1959a, 52–55). According to Ricoeur, the freedom to contest was the basic feature of Western democracies of his day. Hence, political freedom was the possibility to check and, if necessary, criticize power. The use of these rights should protect people from the abuse of power. This freedom to contest is the first expression of critical vigilance as an answer to the political paradox. However, as we have seen in his analysis of democracy, Ricoeur stressed the fact that democracy implied more than this defensive dimension. There is also an offensive dimension. Accordingly, he stated that contestation and opposition are essential to democracy, but they don’t constitute a full answer to the political paradox. Whoever observes and checks power from the sidelines renounces at the same time the possibility of actively exercising power oneself. Ricoeur emphasized that a passive attitude with regard to politics, however alert and ready one may be, perpetuates political alienation as much as it diminishes it. That is why political freedom is also about the freedom to participate in political decision-making as an active and responsible citizen, in a way that makes us collectively responsible for the common good. Neither element, positive or negative, is sufficient unto itself. Contestation without participation undervalues politics as a process of deciding together on the future of the community. Participation without contestation undervalues the threat of being dragged into a perverted exercise of political power. Both cases result in political alienation (Ricoeur 1959a, 52–55). In light of Ricoeur’s theory of politics, both institutional and ethical requirements have to be fulfilled. Ricoeur aimed for a new kind of democratic order, which institutionalized positive freedom; in other words, the citizens should control the state. Hence, institutional techniques must be put into place that make the exercise of power possible but the abuse of power impossible (Ricoeur 1964a, 275–76). The exercise of power is a matter of collective choices. The new democracy that Ricoeur wanted to develop had to remove the collective choice from technocrats and lobbyists, those who are the decision-makers in a bureaucracy. A maximal number of people should participate in public debate and public decision-making. Clear ideas on how this should function, however, were something Ricoeur left for others to conceptualize. Undoubtedly, however, he stressed the fact that this would imply a profound civic education, so that citizens would be able to effectively use their freedom to contest and participate (Ricoeur 1964d, 306; 1965c, 13–15; 1991b, 252–53). Next to an adequate institutional framework, a new conception of civic virtue was also needed according to Ricoeur. On this matter he was strongly

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influenced by Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, namely with regard to the assumption of Max Weber’s distinction between ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility. Given the political paradox, citizens should adopt an attitude of political vigilance and readiness to defend their rights. The corresponding civic virtue is not an absolute ethics of conviction that follows an ideal in a manner blind to the consequences of power in the real world. Ethics of conviction has to be balanced by an ethics of responsibility, which stands for reasonable, prudent political action, aware of the dangers of the paradoxical nature of power, without ever losing sight of the ideal. Just like Landsberg, Ricoeur emphasized that the distinction between ethics of responsibility and ethics of conviction is not absolute. On the contrary, political ethics has to maintain a dialectical relation between both poles. Pure ethics of responsibility would end in Machiavellianism, while pure ethics of conviction would lead to oppressive moralism or clericalism. Hence, Ricoeur’s vision of political education was focused on the consciousness-raising and management of the tension between these two ethical poles. Only on the basis of this tension is virtuous political action possible; that is, political action based on practical wisdom that combines awareness of the political paradox and human fragility with a permanent care for the ideals that really matter (Ricoeur 1964d, 313–14; 1965c, 20–21; 1991b, 253–55). Ricoeur read Max Weber in a peculiar way. He stated that Weber’s vision of the political vocation already implied a dialectic between an ethics of conviction and an ethics of responsibility, since the politician has to combine passion for an ideal with a clear and detached view on reality (Ricoeur 1991f, 239–40). Ernst Wolff criticizes this interpretation. First, he refers to the fact that Weber spoke about an ethics of conviction as a possibility, but an inappropriate kind of ethos for politics, while Ricoeur wanted an ethics of conviction to play a role next to an ethics of responsibility. Second, Wolff argues that Weber raised the ethics of responsibility itself to the status of an ideal, while the ethics of responsibility is, according to Ricoeur, always in tension with the focus on ideals in the ethics of conviction. Third, Ricoeur gave the ethics of conviction a different meaning than Weber. Whereas Weber characterized the ethics of conviction as the neglect of consequences of action, Ricoeur changed its meaning into a principle that marked the boundaries of the ethics of responsibility. In Ricoeur’s use, the ethics of conviction operates as an ethics of refusal, which indicates where the limits of the ethically acceptable lie, after the example of Socrates’ daemon. Wolff eventually identifies the big difference between Weber and Ricoeur in the latter’s conviction that a practical reconciliation of both ethics is possible, namely in an ethics of limited violence. This amounts to the exercise of practical wisdom that adjudicates between the practical defectiveness of moral principles and the excessive inclinations of political power (Wolff 2011, 229–32).

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Ricoeur’s appropriation of Weber’s concepts indicates the profound interweaving of ethics and politics in the thought of Ricoeur, despite his attention for the autonomy of the political. Even if the political paradox forces us into an ethics of responsibility, this should never be detached from the ethical ideals that have to found our political actions. As we have seen, Ricoeur identified these ideals in reference to Emmanuel Mounier as the personalist and communitarian utopia of a universal community that allows every human being to develop into a complete person (Ricoeur 1964d, 312–13; 1965c, 18–20; 1991b, 254–55). Ricoeur did recognize that an ethics of conviction should never directly influence political action if it is to avoid moralism. The dialectics of the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility comes down to a permanent pressure of moral ideals on authority, without enforcing any particular policy. The credibility and authority of moral ideals requires that an ethics of conviction is first and foremost borne by individuals and groups that keep themselves out of the struggle for power and send a prophetic message to the rest of society (Ricoeur 1964d, 314; 1991b, 253–54). Hence he generalized the prophetic action that he talked about earlier in a moral theological context. It is then the task of the person as a citizen to keep the tension between prophetic ideals and the burden of responsibility alive. Ricoeur also followed in the footsteps of Landsberg on the matter of a personalist account of pacifism (Landsberg 1952d, 143–68). 50 Just like Landsberg, Ricoeur criticized the passive pacifism that strove for an abstract ideal without taking into account historical reality, insofar that nonviolence could only be valuable if it showed historical efficacy. In that regard, nonviolence has limitations. It is a negative attitude, a reaction to existing authority, but whenever it would build a new positive authority it would relapse into oppression. Nonviolence is also only a gesture and not a lasting institution (Ricoeur 1964l, 237–44). Given the political paradox, politics always goes with violence. This is not without consequences: “That is why the politician is faced by a terrible problem; it is not the problem of maintaining his innocence, but that of limiting his culpability” (Ricoeur 1974f, 121). Ricoeur came to the conclusion that there is a necessarily tragic relationship between prophetic nonviolence and political violence. This means that we have to be able to resort to violence if necessary, while nonviolence has to remain “the prophetic seed” of political movements. Legitimate violence does not rule out the importance of the testimony of nonviolence as a permanent pressure of ethics of conviction on ethics of responsibility (Ricoeur 1964l, 244–45; 1991g, 139–40). In sum, we can state that the political paradox confronts us with a problematic political liberty and responsibility. Because of the paradox, liberty is always a matter of active citizenship and the enclosed responsibility to contribute to the maximization of political rationality and the minimization of political evil. This implies that we have to (be able to) actively use our liberty

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to contest and to participate. This requires both an adequate institutional framework and an appropriate political pedagogy that sheds light on the ethical dimension of this responsibility of every person. A permanent dialectic between an ethics of responsibility and an ethics of conviction has to be the leitmotiv in this effort. Active citizenship also means active participation in the violence that politics brings about. The cooperation of the critical role of ethical ideals and the recognition of the political paradox has to allow us to limit our culpability. The more we bring violence in all its forms into account, the more we are able to push it back. 51 Our political responsibility remains, however, a necessarily tragic task. Ricoeur illustrated this tragic dimension by means of the ultimate case, namely war and the military implications of citizenship. War is unjustifiable, but still it confronts us with a dilemma, because war is at the same time killing and sacrificing oneself for the survival of the state. Either we choose for efficient evil because fighting can be important for the survival of the state and the implied survival of values such as freedom, equality, and justice without this being any justification for the horror of war, or we choose to bear witness to the good, but then our betrayal of the state fails to remedy evil in the long run. As a conscientious objector, one can speak for the good, but one remains guilty of not averting painful consequences (Ricoeur 1964f, 253–59). The ultimate case of war shows political responsibility as a permanent ethical dilemma, an “ethics of distress.” The state has to reduce evil, but is itself based on violence that tends to neglect the boundaries of legitimacy. Ricoeur’s personalist political ethics confronts us with the hard choice between the testimony of the good and the lesser evil. The hard confrontation of the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility is more an explanation of the problem than a clear answer. 52 CONCLUSION Ricoeur’s intellectual contribution to personalism turns out to be multifaceted, but we can consider the implied reflection on politics and civic responsibility as the spearhead. Through his phenomenology of the will Ricoeur brought personalism into dialogue with existentialism, but at the same time he laid the groundwork for a particular vision of society that is the theoretical basis for his conception of the task of politics and the political paradox. Also his ideas concerning the possibility of a personalist socialism were based on the ontology of the person that resulted from his phenomenology of the will, but eventually it is again his political theory that occupies center stage, for it is the keystone of his interpretation of socialism. This focus will become clear in a brief review.

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In his approach to existentialism Ricoeur leaned heavily on the religious existentialism of Gabriël Marcel and Karl Jaspers. After their example he developed an ontology of the person that abandons the quest for a fixed foundation of the subject, but that attests to essential structures of human existence, where it is shown that freedom and nature are not opposites, but rather paradoxically connected. Using Husserl’s phenomenological method Ricoeur developed his own “tragic optimism” in which man is characterized at all levels by a mediation between an original affirmation and an existential difference. Armed with these findings he brought personalism into dialogue with the existentialism of Sartre and Camus. He refuted the dichotomy of freedom and nature by means of his phenomenology of the voluntary and the involuntary. Along the same line, the personalist positive conception of freedom is defended against the emptiness of Nothingness on the basis of the original affirmation of being as act. To conclude, he saved the transcendent dimension of the personalist concept of the person by referring to the victory of hope over fear. More important than the theoretical conversation with existentialism was the foundation that Ricoeur’s ontology of the person provided for the elaboration of a personalist practical philosophy and, more specifically, a personalist political philosophy. The conception of liberty that Ricoeur had developed in his phenomenology of the will emphasized that liberty expresses our capability to act, so that the product of our actions—nature made into culture—externalizes our freedom, while it also makes up the framework for our future actions, and, therefore, for our freedom. This emphasis on the cultural mediation of freedom directed Ricoeur at the ambiguous relationship between politics and freedom, in the sense that social and political institutions both enable and endanger human freedom. The interpretation of this ambiguity was also indebted to the idea of human fallibility as a consequence of the tension between finiteness and infinity in his ontology of the person, for this fallibility returns in the relationship of the person with the other and with the world, as economy, culture, and politics all show a combination of an original goodness and a pathological inclination. In the political domain this tension is about power relations that are supposed to be essentially in the service of freedom, while they imply a risk of alienation that damages not only politics but also the human person. Also the economy bears human fallibility. Our relationship to the world as a collection of available goods results in the problem of property. Property contains original goodness insofar as property relations are at the service of the flourishing of everyone in the community, but it is extremely vulnerable to pernicious deviations in which one’s property goes at the expense of the human dignity of other people. Thus, Ricoeur’s ontology of the person also lay at the basis of his reflections on a personalist socialism that had to ensure that the economy remains at the service of the person instead of the other

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way around. We have seen that the continuing thread in this personalist interpretation of socialism was constituted by a permanent referral to the moral basis of socialism, namely the collective realization of solidarity. At the economic level this was expressed in an ethical perspective on economic planning and in the attention to global justice. At the cultural level this moral basis was translated as opposition to an empty consumer culture, but also to a labor society that looks down on reason and culture. As such Ricoeur turned socialism in the direction of a more profound model of society, a model aimed at enabling every human being to develop as a unique person with a particular vocation in life. Despite the ample attention given to economic and cultural aspects of a personalist socialism it is obvious that the political concern dominates Ricoeur’s reflections. He made it unambiguously clear that his political theory was the necessary keystone in his interpretation of genuine socialism. In dialogue with Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur came to the conclusion that Marxism is not protected against the slippery slope toward political oppression, because it denies the autonomy of the political and because it lacks reference to transcendent values. That is why he argued for a prophetic input into socialism, which emphasizes the actualization of values in history. Concretely, this implies that socialism needs to be complemented with permanent political vigilance, by adding political liberties to the demands of social justice and by making universal political education a top priority. As such Ricoeur integrated the essential characteristics of personalist political philosophy, which we were able to identify at the end of the first chapter, into the personalist interpretation of socialism: the ethical interpretation of democracy as a system aimed at enabling everyone to discern and realize one’s own vocation in life, linked to distrust based on the fragility of politics, as a result of which vigilant and active citizenship is a necessary condition for the actualization of the ethical task of politics. Ricoeur’s input with regard to socialism was founded on his political theory. Initially, this happened within a moral theological framework, in which he argued that the vocation of a Christian always implies a social and political responsibility, for the love of one’s neighbor is not limited to direct encounters, but extends to social institutions. To show charity as a Christian one also has to try to give moral content to institutional relations. Accordingly, Ricoeur argued that a Christian is entrusted with the task of being an active citizen, but in a Christian way. This Christian way stands for critical vigilance in which politics is kept to the straight and narrow path by means of a constant referral to the Christian values that she is supposed to implement. The philosophical foundation of this vision came about in a double analysis, of democracy on the one hand and of the history of political philosophy on the other hand.

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In the first analysis Ricoeur emphasized that the core values of democracy—freedom and equality—imply both rights and responsibilities. Subsequently, he connected this to two crises that he discerned in democracy at the time. Next to the crisis that results from the connection of political liberalism and economic liberalism, his main concern was the so-called totalitarian crisis, which he considered to be the consequence of people ignoring their responsibility as citizens. Moreover, the analysis of the history of political philosophy clarified that these crises of democracy are linked to a paradox in politics. The political is charged with the important task of realizing the rationality of freedom and equality in history, but it can only do so through politics, which consists of the struggle to gain and retain power. The particularity of Ricoeur’s perspective consisted in the combination of these two angles in one and the same outlook. He emphasized that politics expresses both the greatness and the guilt of mankind. The awareness of political evil could not be allowed to obscure the fact that politics is first and foremost the bearer of a noble and important vocation. Ricoeur’s political philosophical reflections eventually enabled him to express his own interpretation of the personalist conception of freedom and citizenship. Inspired by Éric Weil, Ricoeur argued that citizenship refers to our embeddedness in a historical community that implicitly calls us to implement morality in history. Ricoeur tied this idea to the personalist emphasis on the duty of vigilance toward politics. He identified the freedom of contestation and the freedom of participation as complementary elements of real and true citizenship. Contestation without participation ignores the political responsibility for the common good. Participation without contestation ignores the risk of falling prey to degeneration in the exercise of power. In line with personalism, and especially inspired by Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, Ricoeur argued that this outlook calls for both institutional and ethical preconditions. The latter concerns an ethical education that focuses on the dialectical and tragic relationship of ethics of responsiblity and ethics of conviction. Civic virtue, thus, comes down to political action on the basis of practical wisdom that combines awareness of the political paradox with a permanent focus on the personalist and communitarian ideal of a universal community in which every single person can flourish. It is exactly this interpretation of citizenship that was at the heart of Ricoeur’s input into personalist thought. NOTES 1. Earlier versions of small sections in this chapter were previously published in Deweer, Dries. 2013. “The Person and the Political Paradox: The Personalist Political Theory of Paul Ricoeur.” Appraisal 9 (4): 3–12; Deweer, Dries. 2016. “Ricoeur on ‘Humanisme et terreur’: The Case for the Prophet.” Chiasmi International 18: 433–48. 2. Gabriël Marcel’s notion of ontology of the person referred to the fact that his phenomenological anthropology reacted against foundationalist metaphysics, but nevertheless retained

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ontological ambitions, because his “secondary reflection” linked human existence to a transcendent dimension of createdness and implied universal values (Marcel 1951b, 1951a). The way we use the term here refers more generally to a philosophical anthropology that abandons the quest for a fixed foundation of the human subject, but nevertheless attests to deeper structures of human existence. In his later work—Soi-même comme un autre (1990) in particular—Ricoeur named his own reflections on the person “philosophical anthropology,” but the ontological reflections that conclude this anthropology point out the continuity of this Marcelian perspective of an ontology of the person. 3. “The person of Mounier had truly won me over, not so much his ideas as himself. I had already been sufficiently shaped philosophically not to be one of his disciples; but I was nevertheless a companion of his. He himself was, moreover, in quest of a professional philosopher to lend him support; he had lost his ‘own’ philosopher in the person of Landsberg and then of Gosset, executed as a member of the Resistance in Brittany. Mounier would have wanted me to follow in their steps, which I willingly accepted.” Jean Gosset (1912–1944) was a philosopher and member of the editorial staff of Esprit. 4. See in particular his many contributions to the journal Foi et Éducation. 5. For example on the Chinese revolution (e.g., Ricoeur 1956a; 1956b; 1956c), on reconciliation with Germany (e.g., Ricoeur 1949b), on Israël (Ricoeur 1951a), and on the Cold War (e.g., Ricoeur 1951b; 1951d). 6. See in particular the essays collected in the first part of Histoire et Vérité (Ricoeur 1964h). 7. In one of his books Mounier categorized Ricoeur explicitly among the representatives of existentialist personalism, along with, among others, Paul-Ludwig Landsberg (E. Mounier 1962b, 438). 8. For a qualification of Ricoeur’s interpretation of the distinction between Jaspers and Marcel on the one hand and Sartre, Heidegger, and others on the other hand, see Guignon 2005. 9. See also François Dosse (2008, 118–30). 10. “Perhaps the essence of faith is to believe in the primacy of conciliation over rupture, and perhaps the possibility of philosophy rests upon this faith in primordial conciliation” (own translation). 11. This shows at the same time the main difference with the existentialism of Sartre, with his reduction of the relationship to the other to an objectifying look. 12. “My course will invariably be . . . to ascend from life to thought and ultimately to descend from thought to life in order to clarify the latter” (own translation). 13. Ricoeur translated Ideen I (Husserl 1950) to French as part of his doctorate. 14. “This is why we can finally mix the expressions suitable to different moments and say that willing which acquiesces to its motives consents to the reasons for its choice; and, inversely, that consent which reaffirms an existence which is not chosen, with its constriction, its shadows, its contingence, is like a choice of myself, a necessary choice, as the amor fati celebrated by Nietzsche. Daring and patience never cease to alternate in the very heart of willing. Freedom is not a pure act, it is, in each of its moments, activity and receptivity. It constitutes itself in receiving what it does not produce: values, capacities, and sheer nature.” 15. For motivation, this dependency manifests itself in the form of values, for physical spontaneity as organs, and for our character and life itself as necessity (Ricoeur 1950). 16. “[T]he given, factual narrowness of my free openness to the full range of the possibilities of being man.” 17. “If man is capable of Joy, of Joy in and through anguish, that is the radical principle of all ‘disproportion’ in the dimension of feeling and the source of man’s affective fragility.” 18. “Feeling alone, through its pole of infinitude, assures me that I can ‘continue my existence in’ the openness of thinking and acting; the originating affirmation is felt here as the joy of ‘existing in’ the very thing that allows me to think and to act; then reason is no longer an other: I am it, you are it, because we are what it is.” 19. “Man is the Joy of Yes in the sadness of the finite.” 20. Ricoeur would further expand the concept of self-esteem in his later hermeneutic phenomenological anthropology.

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21. As we will see below, Ricoeur more clearly defined the notion of attestation in his later hermeneutic phenomenology. In Philosophie de la Volonté, attestation in any case remained more closely tied to a deeper religious conviction. Phenomenology did reveal an undefined hope, an “empty form” that can only acquire meaning in revelation (Porée 2011a, 202). In this sense, it is possible to question the autonomy of Ricoeur’s philosophical thinking. 22. The Protestant socialist politician André Philip was his main mentor in this area, as he showed, inspired by German theologian Karl Barth, that it is perfectly reconcilable to be a Protestant and a socialist. 23. “By socialism we shall understand the transition from a market economy to a planned economy that is responsive to human needs and that is characterized by a transfer of the ownership of the means of production to collective or public entities.” 24. At the same time this resulted in a lasting alienation of labor, although this alienation took a new shape, in the sense that labor was reduced to the social cost of leisure time (Ricoeur 1964d, 309–10). 25. “The essence of work lies in linking me to a precise and finite task; herein I show What I am by demonstrating what I can do. . . . But this same movement which reveals me also dissimulates me; what realizes me depersonalizes me. One can easily see in the evolution of crafts . . . that there is a limit toward which this movement of objectification is tending: this limit constitutes my destruction in the gesture devoid of meaning, in activity which is literally meaningless because it is without horizon. But to be man is not only to concern oneself with the finite, but it is also to comprehend the whole.” 26. This was subject to a fierce internal debate in the Esprit movement. Together with JeanMarie Domenach, Ricoeur opposed a more radical left faction under the leadership of Jean Lacroix and Henri Bartoli, who considered labor as the all-embracing social category (Dosse 2008, 170–76). 27. “Taken at the level of the gesture, the spoken word outruns every gesture by signifying it. It is the understood meaning of what is to be done.” 28. “In order to confront a self other than one’s own self, one must first have a self.” 29. The reason behind this misunderstanding was according to Ricoeur to be found in the Marxist aversion to the hypocritical bourgeois democracy, where universal values such as freedom, equality, and justice supposedly served as an idealist disguise of class struggle (Ricoeur 1947a, 324). 30. “The pathology of Marxism is nowadays as important for our understanding of history as the pathology of liberal society. It allows us to detect a new kind of ‘mystification,’ the one that hides itself in the very idea of the proletarian, whenever one takes the prophetic outlook away from it. A doctrine that disregards the transhistorical dimension of history, an immanentist doctrine of history, is threatened with self-destruction. It breaks its own power of indignation and demand and loses itself in the very detours that were supposed to take it to its goals through an effective history” (own translation). 31. For further analysis of the influence of Ricoeur’s reading of Merleau-Ponty on his political philosophy, see Deweer 2016b. 32. Ricoeur was not the only one to change his mind. Around the year 1956 a significant part of the French intelligentsia displayed a remarkable sobering with regard to communism (Judt 1992). 33. “[The] paradox of China is that one can admire the realizations of socialism while remaining reserved and even hostile on the properly political and doctrinal level” (own translation). 34. Ricoeur emphasized at the same time that we must not forget that personal relationships have their own evils. Thus, he ran ahead of later work in which he elaborated the dialectics of love and justice. 35. “[T]oday our task as Christians is to discern the new values of justice and liberty that the technical conditions of the modern world permit and arouse, to recognize them wherever they are and to rethink and relive them in a climate of faith” (own translation). 36. “It is not legitimate (nor even possible) to deduce a politics from a theology, for every political commitment is formed at the point of intersection of a religious or ethical conviction with information of an essentially profane character, with a situation which defines a limited

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field of possibilities and available means, and with a more or less hazardous choice. It is not possible to eliminate from political action the tensions which arise from the confrontation of these diverse factors.” 37. “[P]erhaps the true Church now has two kinds of sons, those who compromise to save man from the inhuman and those who take on the adventure of the village on the mountain. Perhaps the two poles of practical Christianity in the twentieth century arouse two vocations in fraternal tension within the Church: the vocation of the Christian in lay politics and the vocation of the Christian in prophetic Christian communities” (own translation). 38. Ricoeur himself had in mind the loneliness of the elderly and the existential situation of the unemployed, who had lost their feeling of purpose in life. 39. “In finishing it is necessary to say that there is a style of the Christian in politics. . . . A unique intention animates this style: to render the State possible, true to its own destiny, in that precarious interval between the passions of individuals and the preaching of reciprocal love which pardons and returns good for evil.” 40. With regard to the institutional development of democracy, Ricoeur linked the Christian vocation to a pursuit of federalism, a dynamic multi-party system, new forms of political participation, and the strengthening of the legislative and executive power over technocrats and lobbyists. 41. “Democracy is an idea in the making and at war. It is a story underway of which we have the task of continuing it” (own translation). 42. “In sum, what is a democratic right for the starving?” (own translation). 43. “In the two cases, with the Telos of the State and the generating pact of the general will, it is a matter of manifesting the coincidence of an individual and passional will with the objective and political will, in short, of making man’s humanity pass through legality and civil restraint.” 44. Outside of philosophy Ricoeur found the same approach to politics in the Prophets of the Old Testament. 45. Ricoeur did not fail to mention that Marx eventually disregarded the gravity of his own understanding because it was subject to his theory of infrastructure and superstructure that considered politics as the expression of socio-economic relations of power. This way Marx kept the illusion alive that the abolition of socio-economic oppression would also abolish political oppression. 46. Ricoeur’s perspective on the history of political philosophy did not only connect the two presented approaches. He also underlined the continuity of the problem, in opposition to the usual distinction between old traditional political theory (nature, teleology, holism) and modern political theory (history, deontology, individualism). According to Ricoeur the traditional and the modern outlook complement each other in one and the same intellectual quest for political liberty (Mongin 1988, 21–37; Monteil 2013b, 48–56; Thomasset 1996, 487–95). 47. “It is precisely because the State is a certain expression of the rationality of history, a triumph over the passions of the individual man, over ‘civil’ interests, and even over class interests, that it is the most exposed and most threatened aspect of man’s grandeur, the most prone to evil. . . . Henceforth, man cannot evade politics under penalty of evading his humanity. Throughout history, and by means of politics, man is faced with his grandeur and his culpability.” 48. For a criticism of the vagueness of Ricoeur’s original statement of the political paradox, see Dallmayr 1993, 188–93. 49. “The key problem of politics is freedom; whether the State founds freedom by means of its rationality or whether freedom limits the passions of power through its resistance.” 50. Ricoeur’s stance on pacifism evolved over time. Influenced by the fact that his father was killed in action during World War I he initially had strong pacifist convictions that were gradually balanced under the influence of Landsberg, Mounier, and Philip, exactly by means of the idea of a necessary balance between an ethics of conviction and an ethics of responsibility (Abel 1993, 365–74; 1996, 17–18; Dosse 2008, 64–73). 51. In that regard Ricoeur emphasized that political violence often has to do with language and discourse. Our language is prone to violence, just like exercise of power is. He illustrated this in different domains. Poetic language opens a reality, but at the same time it captures

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reality, in the sense that things are being forced to speak. Philosophical language looks for a coherent discourse, in which always particular presuppositions and questions are forced upon reality. In the political domain this violent inclination of our language is pre-eminently active, both in extreme cases like tyranny or revolution as in normal political practice, where governments submit individual will to the collective will by means of a discourse of honor and virtue (Ricoeur 1991g, 131–37). In response to this finding Ricoeur attached great importance to awareness of this linguistic dimension of violence and to recognition of the plurality of discourses. As such he sharply criticized every ambition to formulate an encompassing philosophy of history or a total explanation of society as the one and only guideline for political action. Consequently, he underlined the importance of guaranteeing the autonomy of scientific research and rejecting purely apologetic art and literature (Ricoeur 1964c, 183–97; 1991g, 137–40). 52. For a reflection on the contemporary relevance of these ideas, see Deweer 2013a.

Chapter Three

When Personalism Dies, the Person Returns

RICOEUR’S CRITIQUE OF PERSONALISM Cautious Distanciation In the preceding chapter we were able to see that Ricoeur was closely involved in the development of post-war personalism. Nevertheless, the relation between Ricoeur and personalism is not unambiguous. It is remarkable that Ricoeur never explicitly called himself a personalist. He did not hide his sympathy, and he actively participated in the intellectual debate of the personalist movement, but calling himself a personalist was a bridge too far. He was too much attached to independency to put himself into the box of a particular “-ism” (Agís Villaverde 2012, 69; Mongin 1998, 82). In a speech in front of the 1948 conference of the Esprit community he emphasized, accordingly, that his involvement in personalism mainly consisted of a shared concern about certain philosophical and social problems and aporias, rather than of the endorsement of a shared synthesis. Hence, he did not consider his own philosophy as part of a collective project, which he clearly indicated in his opening statement: “La philosophie, en dernière analyse, est oeuvre d’isolé” (Ricoeur 1948b, 837). 1 Moreover, even in the early days, his philosophy had a much broader significance than that which is signified by personalism. Here I can refer, for example, to his important contribution to phenomenology and hermeneutics. His philosophical achievements in those domains are for the most part not directly connected to the personalist project, although the development of his broader philosophy definitely enriched his input into personalism. Hence, personalism is only a partial characterization of Ricoeur’s thought. 91

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Furthermore, Ricoeur also distanced himself of the personalist movement. Between 1969 and 1978 he no longer published in the journal Esprit, and he resigned as the director of Le christianisme social in 1970. There were many reasons behind these decisions. The distanciation from Esprit had much to do with the decline of the personalist movement itself and the intellectual battle within the editorial staff after the death of Mounier, which resulted in a gradual slipping down of the original personalist perspective in favor of a more radical left anti-totalitarian thought. Ricoeur’s place as “philosopher in residence” was, hence, taken over by others, like Ivan Illich, Cornelius Castoriadis, Marcel Gauchet, and Claude Lefort (Boudic 2005; Dosse 2008, 442–43). There was also an important biographical reason behind this turn. As dean of the Université de Paris in Nanterre Ricoeur was deemed responsible for the degeneration of the 1970 student revolt, when the police invasion of the campus resulted in a real battle. After the earlier abuse that fell to his lot in the turmoil after May 1968—a garbage can emptied on his head was the sad climax—enough was enough for an emotionally and physically broken Ricoeur. Frustrated, he withdrew from French academic and public life to find refuge abroad, first in Leuven (Belgium), then predominantly in Chicago. For a long time he chose to keep away from public debate (Dosse 2008, 405–18, 43–54). Later he would refer to the distance between his academic research and everyday personal and social experience as something that distinguished him from personalism (Jarczyk 1991, 231). The main reasons for Ricoeur’s reserve and eventual distanciation from personalism were, nevertheless, intrinsic. The clearest expression of these intrinsic objections is an article from 1983, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Esprit. The telling title of the article is Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne. Along the same line of his earlier refusal to identify with personalism as an ‘-ism,’ he first and foremost criticized the ambition of Mounier and others to frame personalism as a distinct and full-fledged philosophical doctrine next to and in opposition to other doctrines such as existentialism or Marxism. 2 Ricoeur observed that personalism, despite all good intentions, had never reached the same degree of conceptual clarity as the doctrines it was supposed to match. The comparison with the conceptual complexity of the existentialism of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty or the Marxism of Gramsci and Althusser provoked a harsh conclusion, in the words of Ricoeur: “En somme, le personnalisme n’était pas assez compétitif pour gagner la bataille du concept” (Ricoeur 1983b, 113). 3 Moreover, Ricoeur found that personalism, by putting itself in line with doctrines such as existentialism and Marxism, was exposed to the crushing criticism of structuralism. Structuralism characterized all of these doctrines as instances of humanism, in others words as doctrines that see the subject and its history at the source of meaning. This perspective was subverted by the structuralist focus on underlying systems where the meaning of social

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reality is produced by the differential relations within the totality of the system itself, independent of particular persons and the history that is determined by these systems. This new approach to philosophy seemed to make the subject and its history philosophically irrelevant, and with it all preceding philosophical currents that were founded on these elements, such as personalism (Ricoeur 1983b, 114). A third criticism that Ricoeur mentioned in the article in question concerns the dependence of personalism with regard to Christian faith and the related fixed horizon of values. The Nietzschean footing of contemporary philosophy implies a frontal attack on the Christian foundations of the concept of the person and the Christian value of absolutism (Ricoeur 1983b, 114–15). With regard to this criticism, Ricoeur had Jacques Maritain and Max Scheler especially in mind, two personalist philosophers who explicitly characterized their personalism as a Christian philosophy, based on an eternal hierarchy of values, which Maritain based on Neo-Thomist foundations and Scheler on phenomenological foundations. Although Neo-Thomism was the philosophical school of his first education in philosophy, as we have already mentioned, Ricoeur soon explicitly rejected it as an anachronistic kind of dogmatic metaphysics (Dufrenne and Ricoeur 1947, 342–45; Ricoeur 1947b, 272–74; 1974b, 160–69). 4 The phenomenological approach of Scheler was much closer to Ricoeur’s own philosophical stance, but nevertheless Ricoeur thought that Scheler’s phenomenological foundation of an absolute hierarchy of values was essentially quasi-platonic, with a misguided ambition to represent values as fixed entities (Ricoeur 1975a, 319; 1991n, 190–91; 2008, 24). In addition, Ricoeur wrote elsewhere of Landsberg, through whom Mounier was influenced by Scheler, that his philosophy was insufficiently autonomous with regard to his Christian convictions. Ricoeur definitely considered the existential-phenomenological foundation of personalism as a step in the right direction in comparison to Maritain’s Neo-Thomism, but he found that the actual elaboration contained too much of a mix of philosophy and faith (Ricoeur 1992i, 191–94). Ricoeur found the same weak spots in the thought of Emmanuel Mounier, since his personalist conception of mankind was inspired by both Scheler and Maritain. Mounier defended an ontology of human existence, including a reference to a hierarchical order of values and an explicit emphasis on uniqueness and creativity. Although Ricoeur acknowledged that Mounier remained uncommitted with regard to the interpretation of the implied transcendence, in order to allow both Christian and agnostic interpretations, he was convinced that this effort was in vain. One way or another personalism falls victim to the nihilist devaluation of all higher values (Ricoeur 1983b, 114–15). Besides, Ricoeur indicated long before that Mounier remained indebted to Catholic Neo-Thomism, although he had stretched the notion of human nature by means of the concepts of history, crisis, and creativity (Ricoeur 1964e, 143–45).

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Next to the three preceding arguments in the article Meurt le personnalisme, Ricoeur had already long before expressed another criticism of personalism. The personalist and communitarian ideal displayed the inclination to think of communities after the example of direct interpersonal relationships. Mounier and Maritain considered communities to be an extrapolation of friendship. Along the same line, Scheler presented his community ideal of the so-called Gesamtperson as a kind of relationship of love. Ricoeur warned about the dangers of such an ideal of the small community (L. Bouckaert 1992c, 20–21; G. Bouckaert 1992a, 132–33). The distinction between politics and ethics is implicitly wiped out, while the distribution of power that is essential to politics is a matter of justice and not a matter of friendship or love. Besides, it also restricts the idea of a community to relations with persons with a face, persons with whom we can relate in a direct way. Hence, personalism curbs the enlargement of the idea of a community to institutional relations with any anonymous fellow human being, the enlargement to relationships where the other has no face, but nevertheless has rights (Ricoeur 1992a, 207–8). This was already an issue for Ricoeur in 1954, when he referred in a subtle way to Mounier and Scheler when he wrote: “[I]l est illusoire de vouloir transmuter toutes les relations humaines dans le style de la communion. L’amitié et l’amour sont des relations rares qui naissent dans les intervalles des relations plus abstraites, plus anonymes. Ces relations plus extensives qu’intensives constituent en quelque sorte le canevas social des échanges plus intimes de la vie privée” (Ricoeur 1964b, 107). 5 Hence, Ricoeur blamed personalism for not fully appreciating the distinct nature and task of the political community by placing the political community in line with intimate communities. Critical Loyalty The clear points of criticism and dissent with regard to personalism should not tempt us to conclude that his affinity with personalism was just a phase. For his remarks were consistently joined by attempts to retain the valuable core of the personalist philosophy within another and more firm framework. First, the neglect of the distinction between interpersonal and institutional relations was something Ricoeur himself tried to adjust by pointing within the personalist perspective at the distinction between the neighbor and the socius, the distinction between close and distant connections between people. This was from the very beginning a central focus of Ricoeur’s contributions to personalism. In his high-profile article Le socius et le prochain, published in Esprit in 1954, Ricoeur not only argued that the Christian love of one’s neighbor also has an institutional dimension, which implies that Christian ethics can never be fully detached from politics. His distinction between the socius (fellow man) and the neighbor, between direct and institutional rela-

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tionships, was at the same time a correction for the personalist inclination to think of society as a community of friendship and love, like direct interpersonal relationships. Personalism was all about the ambition to restore the link between ethics and politics, an ambition that Ricoeur shared, but he warned of the risk of tipping the scales to the other side, in the sense that the distinction between ethics and politics would disappear. The principle of institutional relations is justice, which Ricoeur described as a special kind of love of one’s neighbor, though explicitly distinguished from the personal kind. This diversity expresses itself in a complex and even paradoxical pursuit of a good society, where social relations are as personal as possible but also as universal as possible (Ricoeur 1964k, 112–16; 1964b, 104–11). In this sense, he implicitly criticized the lack of recognition for the particularity of the political domain in the thought of personalists, while at the same time providing necessary corrections within the personalist thought itself. Further on we will see that this distinction between short and long relations between persons will remain a core issue in Ricoeur’s new confrontation with personalism in the autumn of his career. In Meurt le personnalisme, we can also see how his criticism of the defective conceptual elaboration, the defenselessness with regard to structuralism, and the dependence on a Christian absolute hierarchy of values are all immediately followed by the qualification that these shortcomings of personalism as an “-ism” don’t deny the crucial role of the concept of personhood in contemporary philosophy. He argued in particular that the concept of personhood is especially indispensable for the defense of human rights. Ricoeur was convinced that personhood was an appropriate alternative for other concepts that are supposed to be at the roots of human rights, such as consciousness, the subject, or the ego. With regard to consciousness, Ricoeur referred to Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, which made the transparency of consciousness implausible, and with it its utility as a philosophical foundation. The transcendental subject, next, had, according to Ricoeur, received a fatal stab from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Finally, the ego is something Ricoeur considered powerless to respond to Emmanuel Levinas’ fundamental criticism of theoretical solipsism (Ricoeur 1983b, 115). Ricoeur arrived by exclusion, as it were, at the concept of personhood. But given the criticism of personalism, the concept of personhood had to be given a conceptual independence with regard to personalism. This independence was provided by Ricoeur by identifying personhood with an epistemological concept of Éric Weil, namely as an attitude. With the notion of attitude, Weil referred to the fact that philosophical categories originate from attitudes to life that imply a certain pre-understanding that guides that philosophical categorization (É. Weil 1950, 70–72). It is in this sense that Ricoeur called the person an attitude that gives rise to different philosophical elaborations. He referred to Paul-Ludwig Landsberg as the personalist who previ-

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ously came closest to this way of thinking about personhood, because Landsberg’s personalism had no ambition to prove the theoretical foundations of an ontology of personhood. He more modestly provided clues to understand personhood as a particular attitude in which the consciousness of being part of history uncovers a historical responsibility that drives us toward specific commitments (Ricoeur 1983b, 116). 6 With reference to Landsberg and Scheler, Ricoeur placed the concept of crisis at the center of his own more specific determination of the attitude of personhood. Crisis is the first essential characteristic of the situation of a person. He defined it as the ignorance of one’s own place in reality: “[P]ercevoir ma situation comme crise, c’est ne plus savoir quelle est ma place dans l’univers. . . . S’apercevoir comme personne déplacée est le premier moment constitutif de l’attitude-personne. Ajoutons encore ceci: je ne sais plus quelle hiérarchie stable de valeurs peut guider mes préférences; le ciel des étoiles fixes se brouille. Je dirai encore: je ne distingue pas clairement mes amis de mes adversaires” (Ricoeur 1983b, 116, original italicization). 7 What Ricoeur subsequently indicated as the necessary characteristic of the person is the fact that, despite the value crisis, there are still matters that strike the person as being unacceptable. Within the crisis we are still confronted with a limit to the tolerable. It is that experience of a moral sentiment that is according to Ricoeur the starting point for the discernment of a structure of values that is no absolute and eternal hierarchy, but a historical framework for commitment. Consequently, commitment is the third criterion for the attitude of personhood, and it refers to Ricoeur’s statement that the only possibility to still discern a hierarchy of values that is able to impose demands on personal action, despite the crisis, is dependent on the person’s identification with a self-transcendent goal. Close to the discourse of Landsberg, Ricoeur clarified this connection between crisis, commitment, and values in the following way: Ici se découvre un rapport circulaire entre l’historicité de l’engagement et l’activité hiérarchisante qui révèle le caractère de dette de l’engagement luimême. Ce rapport circulaire constitue ce qu’on peut appeler dans un langage hégélien une conviction. Dans la conviction, je me risque et je me soumets. Je choisis, mais je me dis: je ne puis autrement. Je prends position, je prends parti et ainsi je reconnais ce qui, plus grand que moi, plus durable que moi, plus digne que moi, me constitue en débiteur insolvable. La conviction est la réplique à la crise: ma place m’est assignée, la hiérarchisation des préférences m’oblige, l’intolérable me transforme, de fuyard ou de spectateur désintéressé, en homme de conviction qui découvre en créant et crée en découvrant. (Ricoeur 1983b, 117, original italicization) 8

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Mongin and Schlegel, leading intellectuals in the circle of the journal Esprit since the 1980s, 9 tried to make Ricoeur’s definition of the person more concrete by means of three characteristics. First, the person has a responsibility to preserve public space and vita activa in a context of crisis. Second, the person refers to a relationship with the other that calls up value judgments. The community precedes the person in this regard, while the community is also partly constituted by the way in which the person acts within its fold. Third, the person is the intersection of the ethical challenge that a crisis provokes and the quest for values that withstand the crisis (Mongin and Schlegel 1989, 136–37). This general characterization served to clarify that Ricoeur’s reconsideration of the concept of the person marks Mounier’s personalism as a historical particularity within a broader framework. If the concept of the person is essentially about the response to the crisis that we experience, then we have to take into account the fact that the crisis of the 1930s and 1940s, which was the context for the original personalism, was another crisis than one experienced at the end of the twentieth century. Ricoeur continued on the same line of personhood, but he cut the line insofar as it concerned a response to one particular and passing historical crisis. The three criticisms on personalism that Ricoeur had put into words in Meurt le personnalisme found an immediate reply in Ricoeur’s new start, an aborted landing as it were, of the concept of personhood. First, on account of the fact that he had detached the concept of personhood from personalism as a doctrine, the conceptual defectiveness of personalism in relation to other doctrines had become irrelevant. The entire ambition to elaborate a conceptual system was explicitly left behind by the characterization of personhood as an attitude in the sense that this concept had been given by Éric Weil. Second, the dependence on the absolute horizon of values of Christianity was negated by the interpretation of the attitude of personhood as a response to a crisis situation in which moral orientation has disappeared. Ricoeur did not connect the commitment of the person to an absolute and eternal hierarchy of values. To the contrary, he connected it to the risky conviction that makes the person commit herself to a transcendent cause that only receives a hierarchical weight on the basis of the commitment itself. Instead of an absolute moral order, the concept of personhood refers here to an essentially historical moral framework where the discovery and creation of values stand in a circular connection only founded upon the concrete experience of that which, throughout and despite the moral crisis, still appears as absolutely intolerable. Third, the subversion of personalist humanism by structuralism was at least partially countered by the openness of the characterization of personhood as an attitude. This way, Ricoeur created the opportunity to take structuralist criticism seriously and to enrich the ideas of the person by structuralism.

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In contrast with for example Sartre, Ricoeur did not reject structuralism, although he definitely did not assume the structuralist paradigm. What he did do was go into dialogue and confront the structuralist challenge as a necessary detour in order to be able to return to the concept of the person. Mindful of the philosophical method of primary and secondary reflection, he considered structuralism as a new step in analysis, a further complexification in the explanation of human experience. By these means, the eventual understanding of the human being as capable man, which is the ultimate primary affirmation, reaches a deeper dimension (Dosse 2008, 311–17). It is the distanciation from personalism as an “-ism” that according to Ricoeur had created the necessary openness for enriching the understanding of the human person with contemporary philosophy, as that is what he did in his later hermeneutic-phenomenological work, instead of the fatal stab that contemporary philosophy supposedly gave to the personalist thought. Finally, it is remarkable how the conclusion of Meurt le personnalisme immediately contained some implications of his conceptions of the person as an attitude, implications that would guide the further elaboration of the conception of the person and personal identity in his later philosophical anthropology, as it is to be found in Soi-même comme un autre (Ricoeur 1983b, 117–18). First, he referred to the fact that the criterion of commitment implied that the person as an attitude has a particular connection to time. The loyalty to a cause has a duration, a continuity that is constructive of identity in the sense that identity can be conceived of as the collection of such loyalties. Second, he added that identity summons difference as its dialectical complement. Ricoeur wanted to understand alterity by means of the fundamental relationship between crisis and commitment, because every devotion necessarily has its opponents. The conclusion that conflict necessarily exists was according to Ricoeur to stem the tide of illusions of a society without conflict, and it was supposed to rather make us aspire to social procedures to deal with differences. Third, he concluded that the first two implications, on identity and difference, are hard to reconcile, unless in the acknowledgment of the imperfectness of any cause, which enables us to recognize the conviction of another as well. That combination of identity and recognition of difference required, according to Ricoeur, a global historical vision, a vision that allows the commitment with regard to an abstract hierarchy of values to appear in a universal dimension. In other words, this commitment is a task for every human being, because goodness must eventually converge. Ricoeur fully recognized that we can never prove the existence of this horizon. It remains a gamble: “Le pari que les avancées du bien se cumulent, mais que les interruptions du mal ne font pas système. Cela, je ne peux pas le prouver. Je ne peux pas le vérifier; je ne puis l’attester que si la crise de l’histoire est devenue mon intolérable et si la paix—tranquilité de l’ordre—est devenue ma conviction” (Ricoeur 1983b, 118). 10 Hence, Ricoeur followed Landsberg,

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in the sense that Landsberg also referred to hope as the ultimate basis of commitment, the attestation to which was only to be found in the experience of actually being committed. The important thing here is the fact that Ricoeur mentioned key elements of the dialectic of the self and the other, of identity and difference, that he later develops in Soi-même comme un autre (Ricoeur 1990), as we will see. This shows beyond a doubt that the reconsideration of the core of personalist thought was from the very beginning an important goal in the elaboration of the philosophical anthropology of Soi-même comme un autre. So, his recognition of the problems in the original personalism was a precursor of his attempt at a hermeneutic-phenomenological philosophical anthropology that would still defend the core ideas of personalism, in the sense of the conception of the person as an attitude where moral disorientation is translated into commitment for values that transcend ourselves. Ricoeur concluded the article Meurt le personnalisme with a quote from Emmanuel Mounier on the importance of trails that have been lost but can be picked up again later, enriched by its previous perishing (Ricoeur 1983b, 119). We can conclude that Ricoeur considered his own task along those lines: to rediscover the lost trail of personalism in a new and mature meaning, enriched by the critical detour along many trails of contemporary philosophy. Faith and Reason Before further discussing how Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology takes a novel approach to personalist ideas, we need to first address a dimension to his thinking that constantly hovers in the background, namely the relation between philosophy and faith. When Ricoeur criticized personalism’s fixed horizon of values, he was also implicitly referring to the Christian nature of personalist thought, which after all proffered these values. His critique on the dependency on a Christian frame of values suggests that Ricoeur himself maintained a critical distance from his own religious convictions so as to keep his philosophical reasoning pure. Opinions are divided on whether this was truly the case. His oeuvre at the very least offers evidence of an evolution (Dauenhauer 1998, 92–93; Kenny 2004, 92–102; Mongin 1998, 204–8). Any study of the extent to which Ricoeur rescued the essence of personalism by remedying its weaknesses consequently needs to first honestly assess Ricoeur’s own stance. One thing is as clear as can be—from an early age onward, Ricoeur was aware of the problematic relation between faith and reason, both in general and in his own views. This naturally flows from the tensions pertaining to his own personal position first and foremost, being both a devout Christian and a philosopher, but also from the philosophical milieu in which he completed his philosophical training. As explained above, Christian philosophy was one

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of the main issues dominating the agenda in the 1930s. This would become the incentive for Ricoeur’s thesis at the University of Rennes, in which he examined the concept of God in the nineteenth-century idealist philosophical psychology of Jules Lachelier and his student Jules Lagneau, which he completed under the supervision of Léon Brunschvicg (Ricoeur 1934). In this thesis, he criticized their immanentism, which reduced God to the sum of human thinking. This was Ricoeur’s way of expressing his belief that philosophy could only be full when it also devoted attention to the mystery of Christianity’s transcendent, personal God. This attention would result in a further refining of a purely philosophical conception of God from the recognition of the personal dimension to human thought in which openness to alterity remains possible (Sohn 2013, 161–62; Vallée 2012, 144–55). This not only demonstrates that Ricoeur was already shaping ideas that would remain crucial throughout his oeuvre when barely in his twenties; it also demonstrates his ambition to develop a constructive relation between philosophy and religion. Ricoeur put this ambition to practice in an article in the religious journal Le Semeur a couple years later. In Notes sur les rapports de la philosophie et du christianisme, he denounced the prevailing views of Brunschvicg on the one hand and Bergson on the other (Ricoeur 1936). Ricoeur found fault with Brunschvicg’s rationalism since it reduced faith to a myth and elevated the human spirit to godlike status. Bergson’s mysticism, meanwhile, disregarded the mystery and paradoxes of Christianity. His conclusion was that a fresh Christian philosophy was needed, one that could bring together philosophy and faith without ignoring the autonomy of philosophical reason and thus without devolving into apologetics. At this point, he did not clarify whether this philosophy should be Thomistic in nature and thus aim to give the revelation rational footing, or whether it should be Barthian and make a strict distinction between revelation and reason. He did note that a Christian philosophy absolutely needed to have a negative, critical function as a “science of limits” that criticized the pretentiousness of science and philosophy’s ultimate solutions (Sohn 2013, 159–69), this way following in the footsteps of modern Christian philosophers like Chevalier and Mounier. Ricoeur was also influenced by the Christian existentialism of thinkers like Gabriël Marcel and Karl Jaspers, for instance, in his attempt to clarify the relation between existence and transcendence. After the example of these thinkers, Ricoeur’s anthropology in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s explored the intelligibility of faith in the sense that he tried to develop a pre-understanding of humanity in which the faith message becomes meaningful in order to counter the generalization of clinical analytic knowledge (Albano 1987, 117–21; Dornisch 1990, 91–107). The genesis was a critical comment Ricoeur made on the work of Karl Jaspers as he wondered whether Jaspers was right to stop at the paradox when he focused on the paradoxes in the relation

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between existence and transcendence (Dufrenne and Ricoeur 1947, 379–93; Ricoeur 1947b, 39–47). As the following quote illustrates (already used above), he aimed to make the reconciliation his key focus: “Peut-être que l’essence de la foi est de croire à la primauté de la conciliation sur la déchirure, et peut-être que la possibilité de la philosophie repose sur cette foi en la conciliation primordiale” (Dufrenne and Ricoeur 1947, 388–89). 11 Though the element of reconciliation and hope remained important throughout his oeuvre, as the above quote demonstrates, its Christian roots especially became explicit in the post-war period. The theological dimension is the strongest in the three volumes of Philosophie de la Volonté, to such an extent that the work could be called a fundamental theology. Ricoeur after all unveiled those structures of human existence that make faith possible, namely humanity as the free other of godly self-communication, as an existential desire for the salvation-bringing other, and as an eschatological openness toward the absolute mystery (Albano 1987, 1–39). The phenomenology of free will reveals the tension between freedom and necessity with the synthesis of the two a question of eschatological hope, namely the hope for a possible integral realization of human freedom as the response to God’s self-communication: “L’espérance dit: le monde n’est pas la patrie définitive de la liberté; je consens le plus possible, mais j’espère être délivré du terrible et, à la fin des temps, jouir d’un nouveau corps et d’une nouvelle nature accordés à la liberté” (Ricoeur 1950, 451). 12 The existential desire for a salvation-bringing other, meanwhile, manifests itself in the focus on human fallibility and is rooted in the disproportion between our infinite desire and our finite possibilities. In La symbolique du mal especially, Ricoeur indicated that salvation lies in the recognition of human finitude and the corresponding desire for a salvation-bringing other. This is evidenced by the connection he draws between the symbolism of evil and that of salvation as proof of the primacy (affirmation originaire) of the joy of living over fear. Finally, the human person as an eschatological openness toward the absolute mystery was the focus of the final part of Philosophie de la Volonté, which was meant to focus on the poetics of transcendence but which Ricoeur never wrote. Ricoeur’s language analysis in the 1960s and 1970s was initially part of this project. The creative power of poetical imagination was meant to offer the footing for the transition from self-transcendence to the Transcendent. A theology could also be discerned in his discussion of the “masters of suspicion” (Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud) in Philosophie de la Volonté. Albano sees an apologetic dimension to Ricoeur’s work here (Albano 1987, 40–121). Ricoeur held on to the Barthian denial of the reasonable knowledge of God, but he aimed for a reasonable overture by symbolizing the possibility of reconciliation. This journey along with the masters of distrust is an indispensable step in the development of a mature faith, in which hermeneutics

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can rediscover the meaning of the seconde naïveté at the post-critical level: “The false Cogito of the narcissistic self, the subject displaced from the center, is then open to be given to himself by the Word of the Other in which he is reconstituted in his authentic integrity. The idols of the self must die that the symbol of man in hope be” (Albano 1987, 119). The relation between his philosophy and his faith becomes even clearer in the personalist essays Ricoeur wrote in this same period. Theological and philosophical reflections and arguments often go hand in hand and are difficult to pry apart (Dornisch 1990, 139–44; Dosse 1997, 560). This was also the case in texts that occupy an important place in the development of his oeuvre, such as La crise de la démocratie et de la conscience chrétienne (Ricoeur 1947a), Le socius et le prochain (Ricoeur 1964b), and Le christianisme et le sens de l’histoire (Ricoeur 1964j). Consider Le chrétien et la civilisation occidentale for instance, in which he candidly states: “Les valeurs des civilisations sont ‘garanties’ par des valeurs religieuses” (Ricoeur 1946, 427). 13 Ricoeur also himself partially acknowledged this intertwining in his introduction to the Histoire et Vérité collection that brings together many of these texts. He wrote that the philosophical impact of hope made up the heart of the collected essays. Overall, each of them offered epistemological and/or ethical observations on history and our duty as makers of history, while each time revealing a productive tension between Christian eschatology as a comprehensive perspective and reason, which was equally focused on the final unity of the real. What was labeled “hope” in eschatological terms was seen as the deferment of synthesis at the philosophical level. In the negative sense, this amounted to a rejection of the ambition to deliver an ultimate verdict, following the awareness that the full meaning belongs to the “not yet” category. In the positive sense, we have the primary affirmation of goodness and the purpose of life that supersedes fear and reveals itself in human freedom and responsibility. Hope here appears in the “from now on” category rather than the “not yet” category. Ricoeur showed he was conscious of what he called “the philosophical precariousness of the eschatological moment.” He remained convinced, however, that he had duly adhered to the borders between philosophy and faith. Christian eschatology, in his view, only accounted for the spiritual motivation behind his thinking, while his philosophical development of the problem and philosophical method remained independent (Ricoeur 1964o, 7–19). He even considered this dependency in terms of motivation, or at least its acknowledgment, to be a crucial requirement for good philosophy: “[Il] semble que pour être indépendante dans l’élaboration de ses problèmes, de ses méthodes, de ses énoncés; la philosophie doive être dépendante dans ses sources et sa motivation profonde” (Ricoeur 1964o, 19). 14 Regardless of the extent to which this is really so, Ricoeur in any case embraced the Christian approach to philosophy that was common in the

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personalist movement. This is something to remain attentive to in his later reworking of the core ideas of personalism to the extent that Ricoeur himself described dependency on Christian revelation as part of the demise of personalism in Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne. We will look at this definitive manner in which Ricoeur handled faith, eschatology, and hope later on. HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE PERSON Toward a Hermeneutic Phenomenology The reconsideration of core ideas in personalism, such as the essential relation between the human person and the other, and the interpretation of freedom as commitment, beyond the criticisms that previously tripped up personalism, called for a method adapted to late-twentieth-century philosophy. The ambition to give the concept of self a solid footing could no longer make use of the now dated conceptual frameworks of Maritain’s Neo-Thomism or Scheler’s phenomenological foundationalism. The rise of structuralism, in France especially, had pushed philosophy in a new, not-to-be ignored direction. Ricoeur had wrestled with this challenge since Philosophie de la Volonté. La symbolique du mal (Ricoeur 1960b), its final part, marked the beginning of a long creative process in which he refused to bid phenomenology farewell, 15 but instead accepted the need to “graft” hermeneutics onto phenomenology, to use his own words (Ricoeur 1965a, 1). He after all ran up against the limits of phenomenology when he tried to transition from the concept of human fallibility to the concept of actual human failure. The interpretation of symbols and consequently of hermeneutics offered a way out, past the primitive naïvety and the idealistic pretence of direct self-consciousness. Hermeneutics allowed to account for the fact that the subject does not master meaning, but that it needs to look for meaning outside itself through symbol and text, after which point the subject can only appear at the end of that process instead of at the beginning (Darwish 2011, 19–23; Greisch 2001, 15–26). Ricoeur here pointed to his participation in the linguistic turn in French philosophy (Ricoeur 1995h, 32–41). He was not aligning himself with structuralism however, but instead entering into a conversation with for instance Claude Lévi-Strauss, but also with linguistic positions of thinkers like Ferdinand de Saussure, Émile Benveniste, John Austin, Peter Strawson, Noam Chomsky, and later especially Algirdas Julien Greimas. He did not abandon the anthropology of the capable man, but structuralism taught him to articulate the distinction and relation between explaining and understanding. So it is precisely the confrontation with structuralism that precipitated the hermeneutic turn in Ricoeur’s philosophy. He took structuralism seriously as a

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necessary analytic step; only he rejected the conclusion that the subject disappears between the structures. After an analytic detour, the subject is precisely what can be rediscovered in the second, indirect, and open movement of understanding, with respect for the conflict between interpretations as a counterbalance to the rigid and closed meaning that structural analysis produces. Ricoeur this way stakes out a middle ground in the success of structuralism. He did not reject it, but he also refused to reduce philosophy to the structuralist and semiotic method since words, acts, and incidents cannot be reduced to structures completely (Dosse 2008, 311–23). This constituted the methodological starting point to take the concept of self beyond structuralist protestations. Though La symbolique du mal marked the beginning of the story of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology, it would take many more chapters for Ricoeur to dare attempt once more to develop a comprehensive anthropology. This was in large part because of the gradual expansion of the reach of his hermeneutics—from symbols via metaphors to stories to finally arrive at human action: 16 [D]ans les années soixante, mon herméneutique reste centrée sur les symboles, tandis que les symboles restent définis par la structure sémantique du doublesens. Un acceuil plus large de l’analyse structurale demandait un traitement “objectif” de tous les systems de signes, au-delà de la spécificité des symboles. Il devait en résulter à la fois une redéfinition de la tâche herméneutique et un remaniement plus complet de ma philosophie réflexive. (Ricoeur 1995h, 34, original italicization) 17

This evolution began with the confrontation with Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to interpretation in De l’interprétation. Essai sur Freud (1965d) and later with the implications of structural analysis in the collection Le conflit des interprétations. Essais d’herméneutique (1969b). In La métaphore vive (1975b), he shifted his focus to semantic innovation and, more precisely, how language creates meaning with an ontological reach and this way describes reality anew through the reader’s mediation, but also fundamentally because it is preceded by a reality that “asks” to be expressed as such (Ricoeur 1986b, 38–39). The “being-like” quality of the metaphor this way formed the basis for an “onto-poetic ontology,” one that could admittedly never be unequivocal because it was faced with conflicting interpretations by default (Michel 2009, 481–84). A jump consequently became possible from the metaphor to the narrative plot in Temps et récit (Part I, II, and III) (Ricoeur 1983a, 1984, 1985b), which pushed the characteristics of interpreting a metaphor further and complicated them at the level of the text as a whole. The focus came to lie on the dialectic between explanation and understanding that unlocks the world of text. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics this way distinguished itself by tying erklären and verstehen together in a productive

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relation, and this as opposed to Wilhelm Dilthey, founder of hermeneutics, who had strictly separated between them as the method for natural sciences and humanities respectively. For Ricoeur, explanation and especially structural analysis form an indispensable detour to understanding on the principle that “to explain more is to understand better” (Ricoeur 1986b, 25). As indicated in the title, the last step, which could be found in the collection Du texte à l’action. Essais d’herméneutique II (Ricoeur 1986g), as well as in Temps et récit, focused on the transition from a hermeneutics of the text to a hermeneutics of human action. In addition to the structural analysis, this transition added Anglo-American philosophy of language and theory of action to the hermeneutic detour and was based on the conceptualization of a story’s emplotment (mise-en-intrigue) as a mimèsis of action. This led Ricoeur to the critical insight that humans can only arrive at self-understanding by interpreting their lives as a story, one enriched by all the stories they are confronted with: “Alors j’échange le moi, maître de lui-même, contre le soi, disciple du texte” (Ricoeur 1986e, 60, original italicization). 18 This distinction between le soi and le moi was ultimately key to Soi-même comme un autre (Ricoeur 1990), in which the schematic development of his thinking culminates in a hermeneutic phenomenological ontology of human action. Ricoeur was of course not the only person to construct a hermeneutic phenomenology. He fit into a broader movement in continental philosophy that also included notable figures like Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer (Grondin 2003; Tate 2010). Yet Ricoeur stakes out his own unique position by emphasizing the dialogue with human sciences as an indispensable, long detour in order to retain the reflexive philosophy in which humans arrive at ontological self-understanding (Colin 1991, 15–35; Dastur 1991, 37–50; Michel 2006, 45–50, 149–62). Compared to Gadamer, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics sharply steer clear of the conservative tendencies that some—his fellow countryman Jürgen Habermas especially—have faulted the German philosopher for. Habermas accuses Gadamer of propagating prejudices and of rejecting any critical approach to traditions (Habermas 1982, 271–305). Ricoeur recognized these critiques up to a certain point, but unlike Habermas he believed it possible to forge critical theory and hermeneutics together into a critical hermeneutics (Ricoeur 1986d, 367–416). He at one point even mentions a “militant hermeneutics” (Ricoeur 1986c, 8). 19 Hermeneutics was in other words meant to open us up to new forms of thought and action. Unlike Gadamer, Ricoeur consequently underlined the need for critical distance as a precondition for interpretation, the dialectic between explanation and understanding, and the power of interpretation to unmask false consciousness (Dosse 2008, 331–43; Kaplan 2003, 17–45; Michel 2006, 149–62). The difference compared to both Gadamer and Heidegger is also related to ontology. Ricoeur also gave hermeneutics an ontological dimension, but as

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a method to enable the subject’s reflexive self-understanding via a detour rather than as a fundamental characteristic of being (Darwish 2011, 13–14; Michel 2004, 651). Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology moreover remained fundamentally connected to an ethical concern. In light of the demise of personalism, Ricoeur found himself at a crossroads. Only two options seemed to remain in terms of thinking about the human person (Dosse 2008, 640–43; Mongin 1998, 193–201). Either one opted for the path of ontology without ethics, like Heidegger did in Sein und Zeit (1927), or one took the exact opposite path of ethics without ontology after the example of Levinas in for instance Totalité et Infini (1961) or Autrement qu’être ou Au-delà de l’essence (1974). 20 The personalist lines of reasoning behind Ricoeur’s thinking were essentially ethical in nature. Abandoning ethics, in others words, was never an option, the effects of which can be seen at the ontology level. As Johann Michel put it: “Le soi ricoeurien est un être pour lequel il y va non seulement de son être même, mais également de l’être de l’autre, de la pluralité humaine et du sens du vivre-ensemble” (Michel 2009, 487). 21 At the same time, Ricoeur refused to abandon ontology. Though he appreciated Levinas’ viewpoint, he was also convinced that he too could not fully escape the question of the who behind the responsibility. There needs to be someone to hear the other’s call after all: “Le soi, serait-il résultat, s’il n’était pas d’abord présupposition, c’est-à-dire potentiellement capable d’entendre l’assignation?” (Ricoeur 1994b, 105). 22 Unlike his contemporaries, Ricoeur in other words insisted on connecting ethics and ontology. For him, maintaining a personalist ethics also represented “an attempt at a philosophical refoundation of living together” (Michel 2006, 10). This required a connection between ethics and ontology, albeit as a regional ontology of humanity: “Comment maintenir une éthique de la responsabilité, à laquelle Ricoeur semble si attaché par ailleurs, lorsque ne règnent que dissonance et chaos au coeur de soi-même? Force est alors de justifier la pertinence d’un trajet qui se veut désormais téléologique, faisant suite au précédent, et consistant dans un processus de reconquête de soi-même” (Michel 2004, 650). 23 Obviously, a new definition of ontological self-understanding and of the way to bridge ontology and ethics was needed, different from that of the past. For Ricoeur, hermeneutics offered the methodological answer. The cogito’s direct self-consciousness had collapsed, but the hermeneutic reflection held within it the promise of an indirect reconquering of the cogito and the continuation of modernity’s philosophical project, with ontology serving as the end rather than the starting point of philosophy: [L]a réflexion est l’effort pour ressaisir l’Ego de l’Ego Cogito dans le miroir de ses objets, de ses œuvres et finalement de ses actes. . . . Une philosophie réflexive est le contraire d’une philosophie de l’immédiat. La première vérité—je suis, je pense—, reste aussi abstraite et vide qu’elle est invincible; il lui

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faut être “médiatisée” par les représentations, les actions, les oeuvres, les institutions, les monuments qui l’objectivent; c’est dans ces objets, au sens le plus large du mot, que l’Ego doit se perdre et se retrouver. . . . La conscience, dirons-nous, est une tâche, mais elle est une tâche parce qu’elle n’est pas une donnée . . . (Ricoeur 1965d, 53–54) 24

The undertaking to reconquer the cogito as it were through the mediation of signs in which humans objectify themselves is moreover an endless one. Ricoeur kept the cogito, but saw it as an endless horizon. The implied ontology is consequently one modest in nature; it remains “the promised land” of his philosophy (Ricoeur 1969a, 28). Ricoeur this way steered clear of the wrenching choice between a Cartesian cogito or no cogito at all (Ricoeur 1990, 35). The price he paid for this was an epistemological one. The masters of distrust have irreversibly obliterated the certainty of self-consciousness, so that hermeneutic ontology cannot possibly aim for the same kind of certainty. The solution hermeneutics propose is a different kind of certainty, “une assurance, sans être une certitude doxique” (Ricoeur 1994b, 94), 25 one described with the concept of “attestation.” Attestation denotes the faith in the human person that is stronger than the distrust vis-à-vis the cogito. Ricoeur thus argues that attestation is perhaps best described as the opposite of distrust, not as direct self-knowledge or an ultimate foundation but as an indirect and fragmented conviction, as if the result of a testimony (Ricoeur 1993c, 465; Ricoeur 1990, 34). Ricoeur after all noted that the attestation that is the product of the hermeneutic dialectic between explanation and understanding does not imply a “belief that” so much as it does a “belief in,” not a “hypercertitude” but a practical faith that still has a realistic foundation by virtue of the input of analysis in the reflection (Ricoeur 1990, 33–35, 347–51). The heart of this faith is nonetheless the genuineness that springs from the commitment that accompanies a testimony. In other words, the extent to which our actions and suffering are at stake determines the genuineness of the testimony (Ricoeur 1994c, 110–17). As such, the hermeneutics of the acting and suffering human person are meant to produce the attestation. The attestation of the human person as the foundation for ethics in this particular definition in other words represented the stakes of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology as a readoption of personalism’s core ideas. We need to more closely examine Soi-même comme un autre (1990), the work that dominated Ricoeur’s later thinking, to see how he achieved this exactly. Toward the Person Through the Analysis Ricoeur’s aim in Soi-même comme un autre was to reflect on the concept of self by making a long detour via analysis. He turned to Anglo-American analytic philosophy for this analysis. This full-frontal confrontation with

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analytic explanations was meant to enrich hermeneutic understanding of the human person or the “self,” 26 to use the term Ricoeur preferred. The question, then, is how analytic philosophy addresses the person. He began with analytic philosophy of language, which he discussed in the first two out of ten studies in the book through the question “who speaks?” Ricoeur’s first observation was that a person is addressed in the most elementary way possible as the identifying reference in a linguistic proposition in the accusative case and so not yet as an answer to his initial “who speaks?” question. Referential analysis here uncovers multiple linguistic techniques to individualize something, with the definite description the most basic form, i.e. the description that isolates that which is being referred to from a group using just one element, for instance, “the first man on the moon” or “the inventor of modern printing” (Ricoeur 1990, 40). The same procedure applies to the individualization of a thing so that the question becomes how one can distinguish between an individual thing and an individual person. Ricoeur resolved this by turning to Peter Strawson’s ordinary language philosophy. In his “descriptive metaphysics,” the latter designated two basic particulars as the basal elements needed by definition to refer to something: persons and objects (Strawson 1959). Strawson sees a person simply as a sort of definite description, something attributed to certain predicates. Ricoeur noted that Strawson is only concerned with the definition of something that is the same, that remains consistent across different times and places rather than something that is a “self.” A person can moreover this way be further reduced to a body and thus an object, to be situated as such in a spatiotemporal scheme (Ricoeur 1990, 43–48). This analysis allowed him to already point ahead to the distinction between idem identity as sameness across time, and ipse identity as a form of identity not bound to an unchangeable core. He would fully develop this distinction in the fifth and sixth study. For now, the analysis brought Ricoeur two crucial things. First, that there can be no consciousness without a body given the dependence on a body as a basic particular. And second, that there can be no self without an other (Ricoeur 1990, 52). This second observation sprang from a problem in assigning self-being as a predicate. This after all requires the self-designation of the first person to be transferrable to the third person. One can only ascribe a mental predicate to oneself when it can potentially also be ascribed to others and when other subjects of experiences can thus be identified. This strictly referential analysis of the person for a long time succeeds in limiting itself to the third person, but the concepts “I” and “you” can ultimately not fully be avoided as far as ascription criteria are concerned: Ascribing a predicate to oneself is based on experiences; assigning one to others is based on observation. This dissymmetry in the ascription criteria cannot be maintained without considering the ability for self-reference. The sameness of the predicate in self-ascription and in the ascription to others necessarily implies an

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acknowledgment of the equivalence between these ascription criteria and the reciprocity between someone who I am and an other who you are. We here run up against the other as a different I, as someone who is also a first person and consequently also has experiences. Ricoeur examined the theory of speech acts in the second study. This offered more possibilities than the referential analysis of the semantic approach because the focus shifted from abstract positions to statements in a conversational context. With statements, a speaker and a listener after all always seem to enter the picture. John Austin and John Searle demonstrated that speaking and acting are one with their descriptions of performative statements and the illocutionary dimension of linguistic actions. 27 A statement is essentially always a speaker who does something. This is revealed by the prefix—for instance “I’m asking that” or “I’m saying that”—which not only expresses an “I” (speaker), but also implies a “you” (listener). The statement in this sense is a bipolar phenomenon. Ricoeur this way came to the conclusion that when the selfhood of the speaker surfaces in the analysis, the otherness of the interlocutor also does (Ricoeur 1990, 56–59). From Herbert Paul Grice’s implicature theory, Ricoeur moreover learned that the self and other can be situated on the same plane. Grice analyzed the statement as an exchange of intentions that respectively refer to one another. The speaker intends a meaning, which implies that he expects that the listener intends to acknowledge the intended meaning for that which was being intended. The circular quality of intentions puts the reflexivity of the statement and the other-ness in the dialogic structure of the intentional exchange at the same level (Ricoeur 1990, 59–60). At the same time, Ricoeur pointed to the shortcomings of speech act theory, which in essence focused on acts, not actors. The inherent reflexive quality of speech acts consequently does not necessarily point to an acting person, but in fact merely to the factual happening of a speech act. That is why Ricoeur brought the conclusions of the first two studies together in an integrated linguistic concept of the self: A complete definition of the self as a basic particular was impossible without accounting for the ability to designate oneself, but the analysis of reflexivity in speech acts can only be completed when a referential value can be ascribed to this reflexivity. Ricoeur here mentioned the need to anchor the statement in a unique perspective on reality that itself is part of reality but at the same time also is it limit in a way. In other words, the question is how the “I-you” of the conversation can be externalized to “him-her” without losing the ability for self-reference and how the “him-her” of the referential identification can be internalized in a speaking subject that refers to itself as a “I.” For Ricoeur, this connection was possible based on the ability for self-reference that causes the third person to surface as “someone who says ‘I say that x.’” This anchoring then

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becomes a matter of abstracting the “I” from the prefix to consider it as a basic particular: someone who says “I say that” (Ricoeur 1990, 69). Ricoeur moreover pointed out that this was no arbitrary linguistic assimilation. Such a connection occurs with all demonstrative pronouns. In the same way that the word “now” fashions an inscription of phenomenological on cosmological time, and the word “here” an inscription of an absolute place on a system of objective coordinates, the word “I” also functions as an inscription of the subject (the author of the utterance) on the person (the referent of an identifying reference) by giving it a name. Yet he added that just because it is admittedly not arbitrary this does not mean that this connection springs from a fundamental reality (Ricoeur 1990, 68–72). He here bumps into the limits of linguistic analysis. Still, this detour via analytic language philosophy produced important conclusions. The analytic answer to the question of “who speaks” especially demonstrates that an approach to the self as something that remains permanent throughout time is necessary but insufficient, and that every speech act about the person necessarily implies the other. The results of the linguistic analysis can in this sense be seen as a necessary prefiguration—understood as a structural pre-understanding here—of the dialectic between idem identity and ipse identity and the related dialectic between self and other (Blundell 2010, 74–75). Ricoeur took a novel detour in the third and fourth study, this time via theory of action and the question of “who acts.” In the third study, his focus was on the logical analysis of sentences that express actions (action sentences). Like in the first study, Ricoeur came to the conclusion that the “what” and “how” questions take primacy over the “who” question, which is left unaddressed, but that useful indirect indications are nonetheless offered with respect to how to answer the question after the person. The through line in this study was the conceptual distinction between actions and motives on the one hand and events and causes on the other, with the first approach “swallowed” by the second one and the attendant obfuscation of the acting person. Ricoeur explained this using the work of two leading figures in analytic philosophy, Elizabeth Anscombe and Donald Davidson (Ricoeur 1990, 83). For Anscombe, Ricoeur pointed to the implications of the analytic approach to intention. The phenomenological approach to this concept—intention as my consciousness’ being focused on something I need to do—was methodologically excluded in a conceptual analysis that limited itself to what is accessible through public language. 28 This way, she could only address intention in an adverbial manner through sentences that express that something is or was being done intentionally. Anscombe defined an intentional action as one in which the answer to the “why” question constitutes a reason for action (Anscombe 1957). Applying this principle, however, proved to undermine the distinction between motive and cause. The answer is after all

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often a cause. This move also jeopardized the distinction between action and event. The focus on the “why” question implies that the acceptable answers favor the objective dimension to action. Ideally, this denoted the result of an action: an event. When she moreover discussed action with a particular intention, she was of course not referring to an internal entity. In the statement “I am doing this to . . . ,” she emphasizes the “to” rather than the “I,” so that the focus is on the relation between two states of events—one before and one after. This led Ricoeur to conclude that the “what” and “how” were being conflated in the sense that the reasons for the action referred back to the description of the action. The “who” question was not addressed. Ricoeur attributed this to her exclusive focus on description, which was disturbed by her ascription of the action to an agent, for, in addition to the truth question, the veracity question then also pops up: Does x genuinely intend to do y? This question is not a matter of objective verification, but of faith and of elements that testify to veracity. Ricoeur here runs into the need to approach understanding of the self in terms of attestation. Anscombe could not account for the shift to the future that is integrally part of an intention because she was unable to address this attestation in her conceptual analysis. This is the jump to where I need to do that which needs to be done, with “me” referring to the same person as the one who says he will do that. This reveals the intention to be something akin to a promise, which would prove a crucial element in Ricoeur’s subsequent move to connect the attestation of the intention to the attestation of the self through the notion of ipse identity (Ricoeur 1990, 86–93). Ricoeur offered a similar interpretation of Donald Davidson, whose theory of action resulted in an ontology of impersonal events (Davidson 1980). Davidson redirected the tendency to offer teleological explanations of actions toward causal explanations. His rejection of the distinction between actions and events was key to this undertaking. Actions are consequently also events and the intention is what characterizes an event as an action. Like Anscombe, he used this intention in the sense of “x does y intentionally” rather than “x intends to do y.” After all, only the first approach fit into Davidson’s antecedent causality framework. His rationalization of the action in other words portrayed intention as a primary cause, in keeping with a physical cause. Ricoeur saw ontology as the underlying problem with Davidson: Is an ontology of events even capable of accounting for intentions? Such an ontology reduces everything to either substances or events since intentions as primary causes are understood as mental events. Consequently, the concept of personhood falls between the categories of substance and event, without ever becoming relevant. Either the person is a substance like all others, or the person is a matter of events like all others. Ricoeur argued that such an ontology of impersonal events only considers idem identity, which eclipses the temporal dimension of anticipation that is critical to intentional action, including the

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acting person himself (Ricoeur 1990, 93–108). In this way analytic theory of action pointed Ricoeur toward a different approach to the ontological question of the mode of being of the agent, a different ontology in harmony with the analytical findings. This different ontology would focus on being in the making, in accordance with the problematic of selfhood, just as the ontology of events aligns with the problematic of sameness (Ricoeur 1990, 107). Ricoeur sought additional clues on how to give form to this other ontology in his fourth study in which he reflected on the attribution of actions to an acting person in analytic pragmatics, with the focus still falling back on the “who” question. This because, he again harkened back to what Strawson taught us about the attribution of predicates to a person, namely (1) that every attribution of predicates concerns either bodies or persons, (2) that persons are the only entities to whom both physical and mental predicates can be attributed, and (3) that mental predicates can always be attributed to the self in the same sense as to others. For Ricoeur, these three elements came together in the concept “ascription” (Ricoeur 1990, 109–10). Ascription this way received a different meaning than a simple attribution because the answer to the “who” question becomes the axis in the entire conceptual network of actions. Still, Ricoeur was forced to note that the phenomenon of ascribing action to a person, as distinct from attributing qualities to an object, merely offered a highly abstract and partial definition of personhood. The aporias this analytic approach ran into did put Ricoeur on the path toward a more concrete definition of what it means to be a person. The first so-called aporia is not actually an aporia but rather a semantics problem (Ricoeur 1990, 118–21). It should be possible to ascribe mental predicates to both oneself and to an other while maintaining their meaning. In the first two studies already, this led to the conclusion that the semantic approach falls short and that it needs to be complemented by a pragmatic approach that introduces the first and second person into the analysis. In the same way that self-reference proved to be inextricably linked with reference to others, a similar dynamic now appears to apply to the ascription of action, as the move from the suspension of ascription toward singular ascription through neutralized ascription requires an agent who is able to designate himself or herself in such a way that there is another to whom the same attribution is made (Ricoeur 1990, 121). Ricoeur here found the connection between self-designation and designation of others at a different level. He saw a second indication in the aporia that can be found in the distinction between description and ascription (Ricoeur 1990, 121–24). If an ascription expresses more than a simple description, this is because ascribing and prescribing are related phenomena in Ricoeur’s view. Relating actions to persons this way is tied to the presumptions that humans are responsible for their actions and that actions can be translated into rules. Ascription of an action to a person this way appears to result in the category of moral or legal

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imputation. Though Ricoeur ultimately offered an analytic demonstration that ascription and imputation belong to different orders, he nonetheless found an important indication in the distinction between description and ascription—namely that ethical judgment is anchored in the study of practices, which falls outside the scope of analytic theory of action. The third and final indication tied in with the fact that ascription of an action to a person points to an ability to take action that was meant to characterize the person (Ricoeur 1990, 124–35). With the ability to take action, the traditional problem of the relation between human freedom and natural causality after all surfaces, as it for instance expressly did in Kant’s third antinomy. The acting person marks the spontaneous beginning of a causal chain, but actions are subject to the causal necessity of the laws of nature. Ricoeur emphasized that the way out of this antinomy was offered by the notion of initiative: the intervention of an agent in the world that effectively produces a change in how reality proceeds. He this way continued a line of thought offered by analytic philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright, who brought together teleological elements, susceptible to practical reasoning, with systematic elements, susceptible to causal explanation, in the ability of the agent to make one of the things he can do coincide with an initial system status, so that the person determines the system’s conditions of closure (von Wright 1971). Ricoeur pointed out, however, that this model also continues to distinguish between the teleological and systemic component. This helped him further refine his understanding of human ontology: “Ce qui ferait de ce discours du ‘je peux’ un discours autre, c’est, à titre ultime, son renvoi à une ontologie du corps propre, c’est-à-dire d’un corps qui est aussi mon corps et qui, par sa double allégiance à l’ordre des corps physiques et à celui des personnes, se tient au point d’articulation d’un pouvoir d’agir qui est le nôtre et d’un cours des choses qui relève de l’ordre du monde” (Ricoeur 1990, 135). 29 The emphasis lies on the connection between the phenomenology of “I can” and the ontology of the body as one’s own as an implication of the fact that we use the power to act as a primitive datum (Ricoeur 1990, 134–35). This excursion into analytic philosophy constituted the “propaedeutic” for the question of how to define selfhood, especially in the sense that what was lacking from the analytic tradition to be able to understand the person as the carrier of the ability for speech and action pointed to a further direction. Ricoeur in this regard especially highlighted the problem of temporality in personhood. None of the preceding analytical perspectives took into account the fact that the person of whom one speaks or the agent on whom the action depends have a history (Ricoeur 1990, 137). The next step was thus a definition of personal identity that could account for this. Using his conclusions from the previous studies, Ricoeur was able to first and foremost further define the concepts of idem identity and ipse identity.

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Ricoeur defined idem identity or sameness (mêmeté) using four elements: numerical identity, qualitative identity, uninterrupted continuity, and permanence across time (Ricoeur 1990, 140–43). The previous studies had demonstrated that this approach to identity failed to capture the self because permanence across time was shown to be related only to the answer to the “what” question rather than to the “who” question. To further develop his definition of ipse identity or selfhood (ipséité), Ricoeur focused on two permanence models across time that did bridge the answer to the “who” question. The first model focused on the human character as a collection of permanent dispositions that make it possible to recognize someone. With this focus on the permanence of dispositions, the temporal dimension surfaces. The stability of a character, offered in the sedimentation of habits and identifications into dispositions, implies that the character contains the four elements of idem identity. This way, character constitutes the “what” to the “who”: In the question about my character, “Who am I?” comes down to “What am I?” An on-going history, however, is hidden behind this sedimentation. The habits that have sedimented into a personality trait are always being formed or formed. These habits are moreover linked to identifications with values, ideals, or heroes in which the person recognizes himself. Others enter the composition of idem identity in this process, including a moral dimension that goes hand in hand with evaluative preferences and the loyalty that is part of self-constancy. With the notion of character, Ricoeur this way demonstrated an interplay between sameness and selfhood (Ricoeur 1990, 143–48). Ricoeur turned to the second model to further define ipse identity. Because where sameness and selfhood maintain a dialectic relation in the character, selfhood is independent from sameness in the model of loyalty to a promise (“keeping to one’s word”). He described keeping a promise as a challenge to time: I will do what I promised in spite of all possible changes. What I am can radically change, sure, but who I am in this remains the same. There is a permanence across time without the element of sameness in this self-constancy (maintien de soi). Keeping “Je maintiendrai” (“I will maintain”) as the model of promise this way defines what Ricoeur called ipse identity as the ability to take the initiative for a commitment and to sustain that commitment, or not (Ricoeur 1990, 148–50). Personal identity in other words appeared to both hold sameness and selfhood. Ricoeur offered ample demonstration, however, that the traditional theories of personal identity of predecessors of analytic philosophy like John Locke and David Hume as well as Derek Parfit’s modern analytic theory only accounted for idem identity (Ricoeur 1990, 150–66). He found an alternative in the concept of narrative identity, which was the result of his previous study on the relation between narrativity and temporality in Temps et récit (Ricoeur 1985b). Where he previously used narrativity to understand the constitution of human time, he did the same for the constitution of human

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identity as an interplay between sameness and selfhood in Soi-même comme un autre. Narrative theory moreover allowed him to shift from the descriptive to the prescriptive because the realm of the story is much broader than that of the action sentences that were the subject of the analytic theory of action—since it also describes practices and by extension entire lives—and because narrated actions contain elements that can only be addressed in an ethical framework (Ricoeur 1990, 137–40). Ricoeur in other words harkened back to his Temps et récit findings in the sixth study and more precisely the way emplotment (mise-en-intrigue) connects permanence to diversity across time in a story (Ricoeur 1990, 167–80). Emplotment is an ordering of the facts through configuration. Ricoeur described the result as “discordant concordance,” pointing to the way in which the plot mediates between disparate components (occurrences, intentions, causes) and the unity of the story as a whole. Events are accorded a special status. They are a source of discordance as an abrupt shift, but a source of concordance as progress in the story. The contingent event is after all later understood as a narrative necessity. The decisive step in the relevance of narrative theory to Ricoeur’s interest in the self is the transition from action to character. The emplotment first applied to the action is also applied to the character so that the character’s identity would be understandable. In this sense, a character is itself a plot. The character’s identity consequently correlates with the story’s identity in other words. This is how the narrative identity is shown to be a new concept of dynamic identity, one that reconciles identity and diversity. The result of this correlation between action and character is a dialectic within the character, one that is analogous to the dialectic between concordance and discordance in the character. A character is a temporal totality besieged by the rupturing effects of unexpected events that are part of it. Still, the synthesis of discordance and concordance implies that this contingency of events becomes a necessity in light of the life story—i.e., the character’s identity. It is this dialectic of a discordant concordance that mediates between idem and ipse identity. Ricoeur found the best possible example of this in the literary experiments of works like Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Musil 1978), in which the annihilation of identity also brings about an annihilation of the plot so that only an unreachable selfhood remains. The unity of sameness and selfhood does manifests itself in stories. The appearance of characters in historic and fictional stories reveals the precise relation between the two dimensions of identity. The story returns dynamics to an identity that is fixed by acquired dispositions and identifications. The story makes it recognizable as a character to whom we are emotionally connected (Ricoeur 1990, 195–96). It was in this sense that Ricoeur was able to designate personal identity a narrative identity and that he was able to claim that

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personhood is tied to the ability to live your life with the coherence, reversibility, and contextuality of a story. Narrative theory not only allowed Ricoeur to further define the self as the dialectic between idem identity and ipse identity. It also established a connection between the person as the subject of ascribed actions and the person as the subject of the moral imputation of actions. The ethical dimension of personhood in other words became visible through narrative theory. First of all, this was because stories allow us to address actions more broadly than action theory, which merely analyzes sentences that express actions and thus is incapable of looking beyond the action segments that can be expressed in such a sentence. The first level spotlighted this way is that of practices. Here, partial actions are subsumed under a global action through constitutive rules that determine what meaning an action has. These are no moral rules just yet, but they account for a first step in that direction insofar that moral rules can only apply to actions that have a meaning. The notion of practices moreover emphasizes the interactive nature of human action. Practices are based on actions that see the agent taking the actions of others into account, from conflict and competition to collaboration. The interactive nature of practices moreover illustrates that failure to do something or passively suffering something also constitute a form of action. Action theory thus extends from acting to suffering beings (Ricoeur 1990, 181–86). Narrative theory this way brought the complexities of human action within reach. A second level unlocked by narrative theory is that of life plans as an intermediary level between practices and a comprehensive life story (Ricoeur 1990, 186–87). Life plans offer a bridge between ideals and practices. Through this notion, narrative theory allowed Ricoeur to demonstrate that the realm of human action is not a bottom-up occurrence—from elementary actions to more complex totalities—but instead proceeds in two directions after the example of the hermeneutic interpretation of texts. In other words, there is an interplay between part and unity. This unity is what causes the third level to finally be addressed, that of the life story, or more precisely, what Alasdair MacIntyre called “narrative unity of life” as the foundation to be able to discuss the quest for the good life, in the sense that life first has to form a unity to be able to give an ethical character to life as unity (MacIntyre 1981). Ricoeur applied MacIntyre’s concept in a rather distinct way by drawing on the relation between literary fiction and human life. Ricoeur was persuaded that literary stories and life stories complement each other, with the dialectic illustrating that a narrative dimension is always already present in our life. The differences between reality and fiction after all do not prevent fiction from being applied to life. Ricoeur for instance pointed out that the interweaving of story lines in one story is a fiction model that makes the interweaving of life stories understandable (Ricoeur 1990, 187–93).

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Narrative theory moreover offered a bridge to ethics in a much more fundamental manner. The extent to which self-understanding develops like a story points to ethical elements that are characteristic of the moral imputation of an action to a person. After all, what characters do and don’t do in a story is always tied to judgments. Whether implicitly or explicitly, there is always praise or blame, esteem or disdain, reward or punishment. The narrative approach to actions and persons demonstrates the importance of the confrontation with an other who is counting on your ability to make and meet commitments. Ricoeur this way underlined the fundamentally ethical nature of ipse identity. Self-constancy is first and foremost about being accountable, about other people being able to count on me. Self-constancy is about the response “Here I am” to a question asked by someone who needs me (Ricoeur 1990, 195). This “Here I am!” in which the person recognizes himself as the subject of imputation and consequently as the bearer of responsibility at the same time offers an answer to the “Who am I?” question. Within the discordance of possibilities for action it reveals where the person’s commitment lies. Ricoeur at the same time pointed to the fragility dimension that is preserved in this dynamic in the form of unsteadiness and the permanent threat of self-loss (Ricoeur 1990, 198). At the end of the sixth study of Soi-même comme un autre, Ricoeur had arrived at a point at which the answer to the question “Who am I?” testified to an understanding of the self, and this detours along questions like “Who speaks?,” “Who acts?,” and “Who narrates?” Revealed along the way was an ability to speak and act and the possibility to recognize oneself as the main character in a life story. The person is this way revealed to be an acting and suffering being, a relational being with an ability for initiative and selfconstancy, without a perfect self-ownership ever being possible. Ricoeur explicitly connected the ever-looming abyss of self-loss with Paul-Ludwig Landsberg’s understanding of the self, which presents the person as a life attitude in which historic and existential consciousness of crisis is translated into a concrete commitment (Ricoeur 1990, 198n1). 30 Ricoeur this way built on his Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne article with Soi-même comme un autre. He had after all linked the permanent importance of personalist ideas to the conceptualization of the human person from the relationship between crisis and commitment. At the same time, Ricoeur had indicated in that article that the ethical framework for this commitment needed to be conceived differently than in the form of the absolute hierarchy of values employed by the founding personalist thinkers. It is against this background especially that we should read the seventh through the ninth study of Soimême comme un autre, in which he focused his hermeneutic phenomenological investigation on the self as a subject of moral imputation.

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Little Ethics To define the ethical dimension of the person as an acting and suffering being more clearly, Ricoeur made a substantial detour through moral philosophy in three studies that he described as his “little ethics”—a phrase that points to excessive modesty, or notable irony. This was after all an idiosyncratic and daring synthesis of the big ideas in moral philosophy, one in which he drew connections between thinkers that were typically seen to take opposite stances, with a particular focus on Aristotle’s phronèsis, Kant’s Moralität, and Hegel’s Sittlichkeit (Ricoeur 1990, 337). The starting point for this undertaking was an equally idiosyncratic distinction between ethics and morality—two concepts generally regarded as synonyms—that he previously developed in the articles Le problème du fondement de la morale (1975a) and Avant la loi morale l’éthique (1985a). He defined morality as that which relates to universality and the prescriptive nature of laws, norms, and imperatives in the evil-good order. He gave ethics a more fundamental meaning as the quest for the good life (la visée d’une vie accompli) that precedes morality (Ricoeur 1985a, 42; 1990, 200). This distinction allowed him to develop a productive relation of subordination and complementariness between the deontology of morality and the teleology of ethics. His hypothesis was that morality is nothing but a limited, although indispensable actualization of the ethical aim (Ricoeur 1990, 201). Though an unusual and controversial move, Ricoeur needed this distinction in order to indicate how moral norms and obligations depend on the prior acknowledgment of the personhood of every human. The three “little ethics” studies had a threefold structure. Ricoeur’s ambition was to first demonstrate that ethics precede morality; and, second, argue that ethics need to be articulated by morality, in the sense that ethics are “sieved” as it were by the norm; and, finally, that the norms always need to be linked back to the ethical quest behind it when these norms (inevitably) run up against practical impasses. This mutual dynamic of teleology and deontology was of course important in itself as part of the examination of human action. Still, as part of the broader ambition of Soi-même comme un autre, the aim was especially to offer greater insight into the structure of selfunderstanding. This threefold structure in other words manifested itself in the implications for the human person. Ricoeur this way came to the conclusion that, first of all, a form of self-esteem precedes self-respect; second, that selfrespect is the form self-esteem takes in the light of moral norms; and, third, that tragic stalemates show that self-esteem is necessarily linked back to when moral norms do not yield clarity on the concretization of respect in a particular situation (Ricoeur 1990, 199–202). This split threefold structure ran like a connecting thread through the moral philosophy studies.

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The Primacy of Ethics The seventh study opened with the introduction of a hermeneutic assumption that would be attested to along the way by Ricoeur’s reading of the chief texts in moral philosophy, combined with previous insights from his hermeneutic phenomenology of the speaking, acting, and narrating person. Ricoeur’s assumption focused on the fundament of ethics, which he described as “la visée de la ‘vie bonne’ avec et pour autrui dans des institutions justes” (Ricoeur 1990, 202). 31 He built his argument for a three-pronged approach to the relation between ethics and morality on this assumption, and discussed each of the three in a separate study. The seventh study was consequently focused on the primacy of ethics over morality and the related primacy of self-esteem over self-respect. The first step was to define self-esteem by way of an exploration of the first element of the ethical formula: the quest for the good life. With his teleological notion of the good life, Ricoeur aligned himself with Aristotle’s Ethica Nicomachea and the eudaimonia philosophy, but he deepened the concept using elements from narrative theory. As discussed in the previous section, narrative theory allowed for a broader and more ordered view of human action so that the Aristotelian notion of praxis could be translated into narrative terms as practices, life plans, and life stories—concepts that allowed Ricoeur to give the good life texture. First of all, the ethical dimension of practices manifested itself in the implied “standards of excellence,” which MacIntyre had described as socially established comparison rules around a particular community’s shared ideals (MacIntyre 1999, 211–37). These rules reveal an immanent teleology that makes reflexive self-esteem possible, to the extent that appraising our actions equals appraising ourselves as being the author of these actions (Ricoeur 1990, 208). Second, using the concept of life plans, Ricoeur expanded the notion of immanent good and clarified the relation between the finalities that Aristotle left ambiguous. He argued that life plans operate in the same way as standards of excellence. There is a hermeneutic dynamic between practices and life plans so that, once chosen, a life plan gives the actions that make it concrete the character of a goal in itself, although the initial choice can always be adjusted. The concept of “narrative unity of life,” finally, made possible the shift from the judgment of actions to that of persons. The idea of a life story’s unity guarantees that the subject of ethical imputation is no-one but the one whom the story gives a narrative identity. The life story moreover reveals the person to be a suffering being, whereas life plans one-sidedly emphasized the voluntary (Ricoeur 1990, 206–10). Ricoeur approached the good life as an extension of these findings from narrative theory. Practices, life plans, and life stories are intermediary notions that show the way to grasp the concept of the good life. This concept allows us to evaluate our lives. It is a higher finality beyond practices said to

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have their ends in themselves (Ricoeur 1990, 210). This higher finality relies upon an endless hermeneutic circle between the idea of the good life and our life choices, as a dialectic between part and whole. In this sense, the interpretation of our actions is similar to the interpretation of a text. This shows the self to be a self-interpreting being, which in turn allowed Ricoeur to describe self-esteem as the ethical dimension of self-interpretation. That meant Ricoeur had found the definition he was looking for, but it also created a problem. If self-esteem is tied to self-interpretation, it is also subject to the same fate: the inevitable conflicts of interpretation. Self-esteem is consequently not a question of verification, but merely one of attestation (Ricoeur 1990, 211). In any case, this definition of self-esteem remained incomplete in Ricoeur’s view since it did not address the dialogic and institutional structure. The second element of the ethical formula expressed the dialogic structure: with and for others. For Ricoeur, solicitude was the concept that expressed what the second element implied, as compensation for the complacency that appears to be inherent to the notion of self-esteem. It was critical then to see solicitude not as something that complemented self-esteem, but to demonstrate that it can be seen as the dialogic structure that is intrinsic to selfesteem and which can be found, to be more precise, in the reciprocal nature of esteem of oneself as another and esteem of another as oneself. The basic structure of this reciprocity—namely the irreversibility, irreplaceability, and sameness—had already been addressed in the analysis of the speaking, acting, and narrating person (Ricoeur 1990, 225–26). The reversibility of the roles of the self and the other had already been addressed in the speech analysis, with I appearing as a you before you and you appearing as an I before you. The irreplaceability had been discussed in the anchoring of the speaking and acting person, while a similarity also surfaced in the sense of an ability to speak and act that not only I, but the other also disposes of. Now, its ethical dimension was addressed through the fact that self-esteem is also dependent on an ability to act that refers to others who can also act and evaluate their actions, with others always involved in the shift from the capacity to act to actual action. Ricoeur raised the ethical dimension through Aristotle’s musings on friendship. Aristotle clarified that humans need friends to attain the good life since humans find themselves faced with a shortcoming in themselves that only the other can fill (Ethica Nicomachea, books VIII–IX). What Ricoeur especially remembered from Aristotle was precisely the reciprocity that characterizes this friendship in a way that inserts reciprocity into ethics, prior to the reciprocity in morality the way it is expressed in the Golden Rule or the categorical imperative. This ethical reciprocity consists of an exchange of esteem in which the other is acknowledged as another self. This implies that an other than oneself can only exist for a self and consequently that there is

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no radical alterity, but it also introduces elements of reversibility, irreplaceability, and sameness to the concept of self-esteem (Ricoeur 1990, 220). Ricoeur subsequently extended this characteristic of friendship to the wider concept of solicitude by demonstrating how the full spectrum of relations between the self and other shows a reciprocity of giving and taking (Ricoeur 1990, 220–25). At the one end, there is the dissymmetry of the call for responsibility as described by Emmanuel Levinas in a way that completely places the initiative with the other. Ricoeur acknowledged that this relation to the other cannot be reduced to friendship with friends on equal footing, but he underlined that the initial dissymmetry is compensated since a spontaneous benevolence is always needed to hear the appeal. Solicitude here is an ethical category that precedes the moral obligation. The other extreme is suffering, where the initiative only appears to come from the person who shows compassion. Still, here too there is an equalizing compensation, one that Ricoeur drew from the pedagogy of tragedy. When confronted with the suffering other, the self is reminded of its own vulnerability and the joy of being spared itself. Here too reciprocity and sameness play a role. Ricoeur pointed to a giving and taking that is connected to the dependence and sameness between persons. This allowed him to define ethical solicitude more precisely as a dimension of lack in reflective self-esteem (Ricoeur 1990, 225). This is how Ricoeur clarified the ethical dimension of the reciprocity between the self and other that the analysis already revealed. Solicitude added a value dimension to the irreplaceability of the self. Each person is not only irreplaceable based on our anchoring in this world, but also as a bearer and receiver of affection and esteem. Only in the loss of a loved one do we learn our own irreplaceability. Solicitude in turn becomes the spontaneous answer to the other’s esteem for me. The deeper, ethical meaning of the sameness between the self and other is moreover also revealed in the exchange between self-esteem and solicitude: Cet échange autorise à dire que je ne puis m’estimer moi-même sans estimer autrui comme moi-même. Comme moi-même signifie: toi aussi tu es capable de commencer quelque chose dans le monde, d’agir pour des raisons, de hiérarchiser tes préférences, d’estimer les buts de ton action, et ce faisant, de t’estimer toi-même comme je m’estime moi-même. . . . Deviennent ainsi fondamentalement équivalentes l’estime de l’autre comme un soi-même et l’estime de soi-même comme un autre. (Ricoeur 1990, 226, original italicization) 32

This reflection occupied an important role in Ricoeur’s redefinition of the core idea in personalism. This is where we recover the idea that humans only become humans through connectedness with others, in “the recognition that action is always interaction and that self-esteem is full only if it is the counterpart of solicitude for others” (Dauenhauer 1998, 149). Our self-es-

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teem as human persons is tied to solicitude for others, but also to the recognition that the other also disposes of this foundation for self-esteem. This fundamental connectedness was crucial to the political philosophy of personalism and would also continue to occupy an important role in the further development of Ricoeur’s political philosophy. The political dimension immediately surfaced with the sameness connected to the reciprocity of solicitude, which promptly caused solicitude to refer to justice, at least when the level of direct human relations is exchanged for that of political communities. This level is addressed through the third element of the ethical formula: “in just institutions.” The sense of justice is implied in the quest for the good life since we need to take into account that, since the other is implied, the other is also the other than you. In addition to the second person, a third person is also always involved. This is where Ricoeur arrived at his favorite theme, that of the disconnection between interpersonal and institutional relations, which he previously developed at the level of moral theology in his Le socius et le prochain essay (Ricoeur 1964b), but which he here discussed purely in the philosophical sense. Ricoeur described institutions as the structures of living together of a historical community. They cannot be reduced to interpersonal relations, but they are connected to them. Ricoeur believed these structures to be ethical rather than moral in nature. In other words, society is a matter of a shared quest rather than a shared normative demarcation. Ricoeur saw this confirmed in the distinction Hannah Arendt drew between power-in-common and domination in her work. While Max Weber’s influential definition of power prioritized the relation of domination (Weber 1922, §1.16; 1992), Arendt argued—in her On Violence essay especially—that power is not in the first place tied to domination and violence, but instead to a shared capacity for action (Arendt 1970). Power-in-common is more fundamental because it is connected to Arendt’s category for action itself, in which Ricoeur highlighted two qualities, namely plurality and so-called action in concert. The idea of plurality points to the “tiers inclus,” the inclusion of anonymous others in a will to live together that establishes power, also vis-à-vis the future, as the ambition to continue to exist together. Concerted action in general terms then refers to the web of interpersonal relations in which each person’s life story unfolds (Ricoeur 1990, 227–30). 33 The ethical foundation for collective action can be found at the level of justice, the third dimension of the ethical quest. In Ricoeur’s approach, justice was characterized by two aspects. Against the backdrop of ethics, it revolved around the extension of interpersonal relations to institutions. Against the backdrop of morality, it revolved around that which gives norms coherence and stringency as the sense of justice that precedes justice systems. Through Aristotle, Ricoeur pointed to the distributive dimension that is

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central to justice (Ricoeur 1990, 231–34). Participating in society consequently is an expression of two things. It points to being part of institutions, but also to the division into the parts attributed to each individual. In this sense, justice in the first place concerns the distribution of roles, tasks, costs, and benefits within a political community. According to Ricoeur, the distributive interpretation of institutions ensured that there was no wall between individual and society so that the three components of the ethical quest—the individual, the interpersonal relation, and the societal relation—were in a coherent relation. Justice’s contribution to ethics is then the demand for equality that solicitude needs to be linked to. He here immediately recognized a new dimension of the self as an other, now no longer as a concrete other, but as whichever other, in a way that took the grammatical reciprocity of the first studies to an ethical level (Ricoeur 1990, 236). Ricoeur this way established a relation between ascription of action to a self and the concrete other as well as the anonymous other. He demonstrated how the meaning of self-esteem within the reflexive connection between well-evaluated actions and their agent remains abstract without the dialogic structure with the other and remains incomplete without reference to just institutions (Ricoeur 1990, 202). Solicitude and justice were both integrated into the concept of self-esteem at a level that precedes normativity and in a manner that safeguards and at the same time revises the essence of personalism, which we will discuss in greater detail below. Morality as a Sieve Having argued for the priority of ethics, Ricoeur turned to morality as the necessary deontological cleansing of the ethical quest for the good life, with self-respect rising above self-esteem. He turned to the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant in order to unveil how a deontological morality is different from a teleological ethics and highlighted four elements: assessment of good will as the unconditionally good, the universality criterion, formalism as the basis for law-making, and finally autonomy (Ricoeur 1990, 238–47). Morality is understood as the investigation that cleanses actions into that which is unconditionally good, which Kant identified using the categorical imperative. Crucially, actions prompted by a sense of duty are reduced to autonomy as obedience to oneself, in which self-respect is revealed. With his discussion of Kant, Ricoeur especially aimed to demonstrate that, in spite of everything, deontology remains connected to the ethical quest. On the one hand, ethics themselves offer an implicit anticipation of deontology, which Ricoeur illustrated using Aristotle’s golden mean as the criterion underlying all virtues. On the other hand, deontology is rooted in

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ethics, which he illustrated through the concept of good will as the unconditionally good. There is not only the continuity of the “good” predicate but especially that of the will, which Ricoeur related to the capacity for action that constituted the object of self-esteem (Ricoeur 1990, 238–40). Important in this respect was Ricoeur’s calling into question whether Kant’s move to base morality in the principle of autonomy as a principle that implies its own legitimation was truly that independent from a source that precedes autonomy. In the end, Kant relied on the Faktum der Vernunft, which Ricoeur considered as rooted in the attestation of the ethical aim in human action (Ricoeur 1990, 277). In other words, at this basic level already Ricoeur problematized the ambition to separate morality from ethics. The same dynamic surfaced when Ricoeur added the dialogic structure of deontology. In the same way that solicitude proved to constitute the dialogic structure of self-esteem, respect for persons—as revealed in the second formulation of the categorical imperative—proved to constitute the dialogic structure of autonomy. The Golden Rule offered a bridge between solicitude and respect, similar to how good will offered a bridge between teleology and deontology. 34 The Golden Rule and the second formulation of the categorical imperative have the same application area and goal. In both cases, the focus is on the violence contained in the asymmetric balance of power between people, with the rule meant to restore reciprocity (Ricoeur 1990, 254–58, 261–62). This relation between the Golden Rule and the second formulation of the categorical imperative, with the latter a formalization of the former, remains absent when formulations of the categorical imperative can completely be reduced to each other, as Kant suggested. Ricoeur, however, pointed to an addition to the second formulation. The second formulation of the categorical imperative says: “Act so that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as end and never merely as means” (Kant 2002, 46–47). Ricoeur here distinguished two elements. The first was “never treat humanity simply as a means.” This idea of humanity is then a continuation of the universality demand of the first formulation. 35 The universality test leads to understanding of humanity as the plural development of the autonomy principle. Humanity expresses that which causes a person to deserve respect. This is no different from the universality of the law, seen from the multiplicity of persons. The only difference is that universality is a formal idea and humanity a material idea. The second element is “always treat every person as an end in itself.” In this precise element, Ricoeur argues, something is added along the lines of the Golden Rule. The first element eliminates all radical otherness, so purely the conversion of the autonomy principle from unity to multiplicity. With the formalized representation of the essence of the Golden Rule in the second element, the intuition of genuine otherness is

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again inserted, namely in the demand for reciprocity vis-à-vis the initial dissymmetry between persons (Ricoeur 1990, 258–62). Ricoeur went on to emphasize the special category of understanding of the self as an end in itself. Ricoeur took the argumentative force with which Kant wielded this understanding to mean that understanding of the self as an end in itself has the same weight as the recognition of autonomy. In both cases, we are talking about the Faktum der Vernunft, the presupposition that morality exists: “Autrement dit, nous avons dès toujours su la différence entre la personne et la chose: on peut se procurer la seconde, l’échanger, l’employer; la manière d’exister pour la personne consiste précisément en ceci qu’elle ne peut être obtenue, utilisée, échangée” (Ricoeur 1990, 262–63). 36 Ricoeur this way hoped to underline that the self-foundation of morality again proved dependent on an ethical presupposition, this time in the form of a practical presupposition of persons as bearers of value, as opposed to things as bearers of a price (Ricoeur 1990, 262–64, 277). In the same way that solicitude proved inextricably linked to justice at the ethical level, the institutional dimension of self-respect was also addressed at the moral level. Self-respect revolved around autonomy at the pre-dialogic level and around respect for persons at the interpersonal level. By analogy, self-respect revolved around rules of justice at the institutional level. The ethical sense of justice was meant to receive concrete form in those rules. Implied in the ethical attention to equality, the concept of the just share in Ricoeur’s view bridged the teleological and the deontological realm, analogous to the concepts of a good will and the Golden Rule at the other levels respectively. Against the framework of ethics, the concept of the just share is marked by multiple ambiguities, not only in terms of the definition of the notoriously ambiguous concept of sameness, but also in terms of the emphasis on the cooperative dimension of reciprocal indebtedness or, rather, the distinction between individual concerns (intérêt désintéressé) and in terms of the orientation of justice vis-à-vis ethics (as an extension of solicitude) or vis-à-vis the law (as the foundation for positive laws). It is morality’s task to clear up those ambiguities. Ricoeur here emphasized that the deontological approach has an inherent tendency to favor the individualistic and legalistic side of the scale (Ricoeur 1990, 264–65). The ambition to separate morality from ethics so as to steer clear of these ambiguities is revealed in the zeal for a purely procedural justice theory. The foundation for this enterprise was the connection between deontology and contractualism. As the leading contemporary voice of contractualism, John Rawls was the focus of Ricoeur’s analysis (Ricoeur 1990, 267–75). Rawls’ theory of justice was based on the concept of justice as fairness. The development of a fair procedure to sign a contract would disconnect justice from the good in the sense that an agreed-to conception of the bonum commune would

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no longer be necessary. Rather than a conception of the good, mutual consent under just conditions thus serves as the foundation. Rawls concretely formulated these conditions as a hypothetical original position in which the contracting parties are placed behind a so-called veil of ignorance. This formalization—which implies that the contracting parties adopt a maximin strategy in which a choice is made for the situation that is optimal for the most disadvantaged—leads to general distribution rules, with the sameness built into the original position guaranteeing fairness to the potential inequalities that are subject of the agreement (Rawls 1972). 37 The problem Ricoeur highlighted was how an ahistorical contract can be binding for a historical community. In his view, the contract fulfilled the same role to institutions as the autonomy principle at the abstract level of morality. In both cases, freedom concerns sufficient disconnection from natural urges and the self-imposition of a law that is the law of freedom. Yet where autonomy relied upon the Faktum der Vernunft—and thus literally upon a fact—a social contract relies upon a fiction. Ricoeur argued that this weakness is revealed in how procedural justice theory continues to rely upon an ethical sense of justice that both precedes the procedure and gives it direction (Ricoeur 1990, 274–78; 1991o, 209–16; 1995g, 71–98). 38 The issue of self-foundation in other words culminated with procedural justice theory. At the abstract level, the self-foundation of morality relied upon the Faktum der Vernunft, where the ethical entered through the recognition of the good will as the absolute good. At the interpersonal level there was the dependence upon the practical presupposition of a person’s value. At the institutional level, the dependence was no longer implied in a foundational fact, but instead in a foundational fiction. According to Ricoeur, this introduced an uncertainty into the entire structure of independent deontology: “Si maintenant, par un mouvement à rebours, on reporte ce doute affectant la fiction du contrat sur le principe d’autonomie, ce dernier risque-t-il pas lui aussi de se découvrir une fiction destinée à combler l’oubli de la fondation de la déontologie dans le désir de vivre bien avec et pour autrui dans des institutions justes?” (Ricoeur 1990, 278, original italicization). 39 Ricoeur, in other words, argued that ethics need to be cleansed by deontological morality, but also that deontology can never stand on its own. It always refers back to the ethical quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions. This can be seen most clearly in the political community, which falls apart when it does not refer to the fundamental will to live together—Ricoeur’s way of further expressing his belief in society’s ethical foundation, a conviction he shared with personalist thinkers.

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Practical Wisdom as a Helpline Ricoeur’s central argument in the seventh and eighth study was that ethics precede morality and that morality constitutes an indispensable step in deontological formalization, which nonetheless continues to depend on ethics. He further developed this idea in the ninth study. As his starting point, he took the conflict situations that inevitably erupt when morality is applied to concrete action situations. He began his argument with a discussion of Greek tragedies, which confronts us with the conflicts that inevitably spring from bringing moral rules into practice. Recognition of this inevitability is a tragic wisdom that is meant to promote development of a practical wisdom that enables us to make carefully considered decisions. The katharsis found in Greek tragedies teaches us that the uniformity of moral principles clashes with the complexities of human existence. Ricoeur argued that it is precisely by referring back to the primary ethical quest that practical wisdom pierces through that univocity, though it does not open the gates to arbitrariness (Ricoeur 1990, 281–90). Contrary to his usual structure, Ricoeur began his argumentation at the institutional level, where he promptly ran up against the Hegelian Sittlichkeit, which served as a model for morality in practice. With this, he aimed to demonstrate, first, that we can and should not see Sittlichkeit as a third instance in addition to ethics and morality and, second, that Sittlichkeit in no way renders morality obsolete. His departure point is the realization that the institutional level very clearly wrestles with the tension between universalism and contextualism. As an example, he pointed to the diversity of primary social goods, as discussed in Michael Walzer’s critique of John Rawls’ justice theory especially. As a response to Rawls’ unitary distributive principles, Walzer pointed to the plurality of the spheres of justice (Walzer 1983). Ricoeur used the latter’s argument to highlight the problem of arbitration between these spheres and thus the necessity of Sittlichkeit, here understood as concrete historic morality embedded and institutionalized in the praxis of a political community that this way offers a response to the aporias and atomism of abstract morality. Yet he distanced himself from Hegel by clarifying that the obligation to serve the institutions of the political community is no different or superior than the moral obligation. Ricoeur argued that it is after all morality that offers the foundation as soon as morality’s justice rules are interpreted in a broader sense than Hegel did, and as soon as Sittlichkeit is decoupled from the problematic ontology of the Spirit, which turns the state’s institutional mediation into a reasonable and self-aware instance. Ricoeur acknowledged that Hegel developed a strong argument against the pretentious notion of universal morality as a supreme tribunal, but he emphasized that decoupling Sittlichkeit and morality was an equally problematic

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move since, through the consciousness of individual persons, morality offers the only refuge when institutions become corrupted (Ricoeur 1990, 291–98). Ricoeur thus wanted to use Hegelian Sittlichkeit in a demystified manner as a response to the tragic conflicts of the political realm. This Sittlichkeit was meant to remain connected not only to morality but also to the ethical quest. Political practice after all has its own tragic dynamic in the form of ethical conflicts that refer back to a fundamental sense of justice. Ricoeur found evidence for this in what he had described as the political paradox some three decades earlier. He this way pointed to the duality of the political realm, which on the one hand was founded upon the fundamental will to live together, but on the other hand was built on and survives on domination and violence. The ethical challenge, then, lay in verifying the primacy of the first over the latter, or in other words, the primacy of horizontal pouvoir-encommun over vertical pouvoir-sur. For Ricoeur, this conflict played out at three levels of radicalness. First, within legal frameworks, there is the discussion around identification and prioritization of primary social goods and the balance between what Walzer called spheres of justice. Second, there is the constitutional debate around the state’s fundamental objectives and the definition of values like freedom, sameness, and safety. Finally, there is the third basic level of how legitimate democracy itself is (Ricoeur 1990, 298–304). The answer to this ethical challenge is a practical wisdom that confronts institutions with the underlying sense of justice, this way connecting, or so Ricoeur argued, Hegelian Sittlichkeit to Aristotelian phronesis. At the institutional level, this practical wisdom manifests itself in the form of an enlightened judgment based on a public debate. At the level of choices vis-à-vis primary social goods, this debate is based on the rejection of definitive conclusions, the inclusion of a plurality of convictions, and the limitless possibility to recall temporary conclusions via the appropriate procedures. At the constitutional level, this means recognition of the ambiguity of freedom, sameness, and other political values as well as the impossibility to identify the state’s unique transcendent objective, given the irreconcilabilities in the pursuit of these values, which also causes the constitutional laws to rely on a situational judgment that refers back to a fundamental sense of justice. At the level of the legitimacy question, finally, this refers to the recognition of the fundamental indefiniteness of the foundation of power, 40 without disregarding the ethical reasons people do have to support democracy. 41 This means that a practical wisdom is revealed at every level in the pursuit of equity manifested in the public debate. Ricoeur used the notion of equity in the Aristotelian sense, that is, as a remediation when the application of general precepts fails in particular cases (Ricoeur 1990, 305). The problematic application of moral rules of course not only plays out at the institutional level. Using his previous findings around the second formulation of the categorical imperative, Ricoeur consequently extended his find-

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ings to the interpersonal level. In the eight study, he had argued that this formulation was a twofold one, with on the one hand the universalist element of humanity and on the other the pluralist element of each person as an end in itself. For Ricoeur, this duality gave rise to dilemmas when actually applied since, in practice, the elements can translate as an opposition between respect for the law and respect for the person. This becomes obvious in how the maxims are tested. Kant did this by ranging maxims under a rule. Maxims needed to be formulated in terms that would pass the universality test, after which they are checked for possible contradictions. This way, no room is left for exceptions to the benefit of others (Ricoeur 1990, 305–8). Ricoeur argued that a person’s singularity is done justice only in the opposite direction, so in the adjustment of a rule to a concrete situation. Rather than universalization, the consequences in particular situations then constitute the test. Applying this to the example of the obligation to fulfill a promise, Ricoeur argued that the manner in which Kant tested this rule by highlighting the internal contradiction that springs from breaking a promise disregarded the dialogic structure of a promise. In the Kantian approach, keeping one’s promise is part of a monological framework of self-constancy. Ricoeur pointed to the importance of that self-constancy to personal identity, understood as ipse identity here, but he now added that a dialogical structure can no longer be denied from the moment when this self-constancy acquires a moral meaning, as is the case with a promise. The other is after all involved in the commitment from the beginning. A promise is meaningless when it does not center on something that the other wants. Using Gabriël Marcel’s argument, Ricoeur underlined that every commitment is an answer and that keeping one’s word amounts to disponibilité rather than self-constancy. He this way tied self-constancy to the dialogical structure of the Golden Rule in the sense that it became an answer to the other’s expectation. In other words, breaking a promise is not a betrayal of oneself as much as it is one of the other who is counting on you. For Ricoeur, this analysis of the example demonstrated the fault line between respect for the rule and respect for persons. The potential for a conflict is in other words inherent to the reciprocal structure of a promise since the expectation of the other is the gauge for application of the rule (Ricoeur 1990, 308–12). At the interpersonal level too, a practical wisdom is meant to offer an answer by prioritizing respect for the person based on solicitude and thus making exceptions for others when necessary. Practical wisdom then means figuring out what type of behavior fits the exception based on solicitude while violating the rule as little as possible. Ricoeur this way emphasized that the aim is not for practical wisdom to make the exception the rule. Instead, it continues to depend on a particular situation. The most telling example Ricoeur offered was that of telling the truth to a dying person. Here, applying the obligation not to lie requires contemplation of the relation between this

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rule and happiness and suffering in this particular situation (Ricoeur 1990, 312–13). Through this and other examples, Ricoeur spotlighted three key elements of practical wisdom. First, practical wisdom remains secondary to the norm of respect. The focus is on application rather than abandoning of the norm. Second, there is often a search for the golden mean though Ricoeur does not mean to make this into a general rule. Finally, he underlined that the moral judgment becomes less arbitrary when people who can be considered competent and wise are consulted. This was a continuation of his belief that phronesis is not an individual virtue, but instead is born from dialogue, as already became clear in his previous discussion of the institutional level (Ricoeur 1990, 317–18). In summary, Ricoeur argued: [C]’est à la sollicitude, soucieuse de l’altérité des personnes . . . que le respect renvoie, dans les cas où il est lui-même source de conflits. . . . Mais ce n’est pas la sollicitude en quelque sort “naïve” de notre septième étude, mais une sollicitude “critique,” qui a traversé la double épreuve des conditions morales du respect et des conflits suscités par ce dernier. Cette sollicitude critique est la forme que prend la sagesse pratique dans la région des relations interpersonnelles. (Ricoeur 1990, 318, original italicization) 42

Where at the institutional level practical wisdom amounted to the bon conseil of the public debate that linked the rules of justice to the fundamental sense of justice, at the interpersonal level this amounted to a referral back to the fundamental concern for other persons. Ricoeur found final confirmation that morality, by virtue of the conflicts it produces, refers back to the original ethical foundation at the level of autonomy. This confirmation sprang from the confrontation between the universalist claim in morality and the historic and communitarian claim of the context in which the moral rules need to be applied. Ricoeur meant to demonstrate that both claims needed to be maintained, mediated in practice by the practical wisdom of the moral judgment that takes the particular situation into account. To back his assertion up, he wanted to position the claims opposite each other as much as possible by making both the universalist and contextual claims as believable as possible. With this goal in mind, he argued for an alternative approach to Kantian morality at the level of the notion of autonomy, the universality criterion, and formalism. For autonomy, Ricoeur asked whether it truly preceded respect and justice. Autonomy, after all, was not to be understood in an egological manner, which he only deemed possible when autonomy was understood precisely in light of respect and justice, namely as that which posits that the most disadvantaged should be the gauge for distribution at the level of justice, and that the person who undergoes my treatment should be considered my equal at

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the level of respect. This is not a self-supporting autonomy, but one that goes hand in hand with a heteronomy that gives shape to the receptivity implicit in the law we give ourselves, to the affectivity implicit in the emotional dimension of respect for the human person and to awareness of the radical urge for evil. This heteronomy makes us not slaves to a master, but rather pupils to a master who teaches them to think independently (Ricoeur 1990, 319–21). Second, Ricoeur questioned the limited scope of the universality criterion. Kant searched for purely internal contradictions, while Ricoeur argued for a broader understanding of moral coherence in analogy with judicial reasoning, which examines the precedents that seem the most relevant as particular articulations of a still-to-be-construed principle that can comprise both precedents and new cases. In this case, coherence not only needs to be preserved, as was the case with Kant; it also needs to be construed since a new case that breaks with the common concept derived from precedents calls for the development of a new concept. The result is a different attitude, aimed at preserving the coherence of the whole set of rules rather than isolated checks on non-contradiction (Ricoeur 1990, 321). Ricoeur went on to underline that the constructive interpretation of principles needs to be supplemented by criticism of prejudices and ideological elements that may be implied in the quest for coherence. He pointed out that it is precisely the demand for universality that makes the historicity of concrete morality problematic (Ricoeur 1990, 321–25). Finally, Ricoeur found formalism in the discourse ethics of German thinkers Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas since in his view discourse ethics offered the most adequate expression of the demand for universality so far. He added that their rational justification of the demand for universality as the norm for communicative action—in the sense that the demand for universality constitutes the foundation of discourse ethics—transformed the formal demands into a matter of argumentation that cannot be reduced to pure deduction or empirical furnishing of proof. In other words, this was the logic of factual practical discussion in which conversation between persons no longer is absent but instead takes central place. Ricoeur saw an opening for the “progressive” approach in Habermas’ move to not lay claim to an ultimate foundation in his “regressive” approach, from discourse norms to their justification. This progressive approach actualized norms in concrete situations, thereby running up against conflicts that would otherwise remain hidden and giving rise to contextualist reflections (Ricoeur 1990, 325–29). By spotlighting both the universalist and contextualist demands as much as possible, Ricoeur demonstrated that the practical frictions he previously discussed at the institutional and interpersonal level in terms of ambiguity and indecisiveness all spring from the conflict between universalism and contextualism. He this way placed the concept of practical wisdom at the level of the ethics of argumentation. Concrete discussions about distributive

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justice or respect for the other are then meant to be resolved in the confrontation between arguments. But this ethics of argumentation cannot fall prey to a sterile opposition between contextualists and universalists (Ricoeur 1990, 329–33). Contextualism cannot devolve into a cultural relativism that Ricoeur described as “an apology of the difference because of the difference, that ultimately renders indifferent all differences, up to the point at which any discussion becomes fruitless” (Ricoeur 1990, 332). Habermas’ universalism, on the other hand, was criticized for its narrow interpretation of modernity in which all convention and tradition are brushed aside. The ethics of argumentation Ricoeur had in mind integrated the contextualist objections without relinquishing the demand for universality, but with a focus on its application in a concrete context. A dialectic between argumentation and conviction makes up the heart of this ethics of argumentation (Ricoeur 1990, 333–34). The correcting influence of argumentation presupposes that the discussion is about something. Argumentation is not the opposite of convention and tradition but rather the critical instance that operates within convictions to transform them into carefully considered convictions within a reflective equilibrium. Such a balance between the demand for universality and recognition of contextual limitations brings to a close a situational judgment. Practical wisdom this way essentially amounted to the art of conversation that brings forth what Ricoeur paradoxically described as “universals in context” (Ricoeur 1990, 335–36). Conclusions As already indicated at the start of this discussion, Ricoeur’s little ethics operates at two levels. In terms of moral philosophy, Ricoeur aimed to attest to three points through his reading of the chief texts in moral philosophy and those of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel in particular. First, that ethics are more fundamental than moral norms in the sense of the ethical quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions; second, that morality gives a necessary formal articulation to this ethical quest; and, third, that application of the norms requires a practical wisdom that unveils the underlying ethical quest to arrive at an appropriate moral judgment in a particular situation. 43 This practical wisdom offers the key to Ricoeur’s little ethics as a reconciliation between Aristotle’s phronèsis and Hegel’s Sittlichkeit by way of Kant’s Moralität. From phronèsis, he took the outlook of the good life, deliberation as mediation, and singular situations as application area. The Kantian morality transformed a naïve phronèsis into a critical phronèsis, which was subsequently equated to a humbler Sittlichkeit (Ricoeur 1990, 337). 44 Still, this summary inevitably does not fully honor the complexity of Ricoeur’s thinking. The connections he established between these great concepts from the history of moral philosophy did not amount to a concoction made from a

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pinch of this and a spoonful of that. Rather, they were the fruit of a careful hermeneutic journey. Ricoeur was primarily interested in what these little ethics offered by way of observations on the human person as part of the hermeneutic phenomenological project of Soi-même comme un autre. The first six studies had already clarified multiple points on three fronts. First, there was the detour in the answer to the “who” question by way of the “what?,” “why?,” and “how?” questions. Second, there was the dialectic between idem and ipse identity, and finally the dialectic between self and other. Each of these points had already been demonstrated in the analysis of the speaking, acting, and narrating person, but receive more precise definitions in the studies on ethics and morality. First, Ricoeur arrived at a preliminary definition of the self through the ascription of action. He further developed this ascription in his ethical and moral studies through ruminations on the meaning of the predicates “good” and “obligatory.” Ricoeur this way connected the person’s self-esteem to the ethical and moral judgment of one’s own actions. This allowed him to broaden the concept of ascription into the more insightful concept of imputation. Based on these new findings he defined imputability as the ascription of an action to its agent under the condition of ethical and moral predicates that describe the action as good, dutiful, and wise (Ricoeur 1990, 338). With his distinction between ethics and morality, Ricoeur also made clear that imputation should not primarily be understood against the backdrop of crime and punishment. Instead, the focus was on the susceptibility of both actions and the person executing the actions for praise or rejection. In light of the notion of self-esteem, it is precisely the praise that takes primary place. The person is here attested to be someone with a conviction concerning the content of the ethical quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions (Ricoeur 1990, 337–41). Second, Ricoeur also further explored the concept of human identity as a dialectic between the equality and self-constancy that had surfaced in the analysis of the narrative person. Then already, Ricoeur had pointed to the ethical dimension that surfaced there. The narrative approach to actions and persons after all revealed the importance of the confrontation with an other who depends on your ability to enter into and meet commitments. This connection between personal identity and responsibility became clearer in the ethical and moral studies through the relation between the person and time as past, present, and future. With respect to the future, responsibility suggests that one accepts the consequences of his actions, even when these consequences are unforeseen or unintended. Ricoeur emphasized that this not only has judicial but also moral meaning, especially with respect to the generations that will come after us. 45 Here, it becomes evident that responsibility adds an extra dimension to personhood compared to imputation.

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Where imputation tended to create an inclination to search for intentions in light of our projects as part of the quest for the good life, responsibility went the opposite route. Responsibility implies the possibility of guilt without intention (Ricoeur 1990, 342). Our responsibility as persons reaches far into the future because of the scope of our actions, but at the same time we also hold responsibility for a past that precedes us. In the narrative personal identity, we adopt a past that affects us and that was not fully our own making. Ricoeur this way defined responsibility not just as acknowledgment of our debt to future generations, but also of what was left us and that which makes us into who we are (Ricoeur 1990, 341–42). This retrospective and prospective dimension to responsibility come together in the responsibility of the present. For Ricoeur, holding oneself responsible means accepting being taken for the same person as the person who acted yesterday and will act tomorrow. The moral identity thus expressed is an extension of the narrative identity and consequently is subject to the same tension between equality in terms of physical and psychological characteristics and self-constancy that holds onto entered commitments without the continuity of empirical characteristics if need be. This responsibility for self-constancy in the present cannot be assumed without at the same time taking responsibility for the past and future (Ricoeur 1990, 342–43). Finally, he also clarified the dialectic between self and other, which was heavily present throughout the entire little ethics as well as in the preceding discussion of related concepts of ascription and responsibility as quintessential aspects of the human person. Ricoeur related the manner in which selfinvolvement can never be understood separately from involvement with others to the notion of recognition (Ricoeur 1990, 344). The mutual recognition of the self in the other and the other in the self this way formed the nucleus of Ricoeur’s re-embrace of the founding personalist idea that ethics are built on humans fundamentally being relational beings. Personalism Après-la-Lettre In essence, Ricoeur’s little ethics steps into the tradition of personalist ethics since it revolves around personhood as the capacity for commitment in light of others who depend on you, with the ethical judgment centered on selfconstancy in concern for others and the institutional framework that enables every human to grow as a person. The extent to which the entire hermeneutic phenomenological anthropology behind Soi-même comme un autre was linked to this lasting personalist inspiration was explicitly addressed in the article Approches de la personne, which Ricoeur wrote for the magazine Esprit roughly simultaneously with the publication of Soi-même comme un autre (Ricoeur 1992a). Seven years after the publication of Meurt le person-

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nalisme, revient la personne, Ricoeur looked back on the critique of personalism he put forward in this text. He also reminded readers that he had concluded his article with the following Mounier quote: “Nous assistons . . . aux premières sinuosités d’une marche cyclique où des explorations poussées sur une voie jusqu’à épuisement ne sont abandonnées que pour être retrouvées plus tard et plus loin, enrichies par cet oubli et par les découvertes dont il a libéré le chemin” (E. Mounier 1962a, 182; quoted in Ricoeur 1983b, 119; Ricoeur 1992a, 203). 46 In 1983 Ricoeur had already given some clues for this projected return to the riches of personalism through a number of detours, which he meant to resume in 1990 as an explicit continuation and improvement of Mounier’s attempt to give personalism an anthropological foundation in his Traité du Caractère (E. Mounier 1947), via his hermeneutic phenomenological study in Soi-même comme un autre (Agís Villaverde 2012, 80–85; Barreau 2002, 44–53): Je voulais dire que la personne était, encore aujourd’hui, le terme le plus approprié pour cristalliser des recherches auxquelles ne conviennent . . . ni le terme de conscience, ni celui de sujet, ni celui d’individu. Ce sont quelquesunes de ces recherches que je voudrais exposer ici, au-delà du point atteint dans l’essai précédent, où je me limitait à définir la personne par une attitude, au sens d’Éric Weil. . . . Je m’attachais ainsi, à la suite de Paul Landsberg, au couple que constituent le critère de la crise et celui de l’engagement; je joignais à celui-ci quelques corollaires tels que: fidélité dans le temps à une cause supérieure, accueil de l’altérité et de la différence dans l’identité de la personne. Je voudrais aujourd’hui mobiliser les recherches contemporaines sur le langage, sur l’action, sur le récit, qui peuvent donner à la constitution éthique de la personne un soubassement, un enracinement, comparables à ceux qu’Emmanuel Mounier explorait dans le Traité du caractère. En ce sens, la présente étude se situe dans le prolongement du Traité du caractère. (Ricoeur 1992a, 203–4, original italicization) 47

These words hold the deeper ambition of Soi-même comme un autre, namely the quest for “une refonte philosophique de la personne” (P. Mounier 1990, 108). In the article, Ricoeur explained how the threefold structure of the little ethics characterizes personhood in its entirety, from the speaking person via the acting person to the narrating person through to the responsible person. This threefold structure manifested itself in the fundamental ethical quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions that precedes moral imperatives in the optative sense. (1) Self-esteem as the recognition of one’s capacity for intentionality and initiative, (2) solicitude as concern for others from the mutual recognition of the other as a self and of oneself as an other, and (3) just institutions as the outcome of a quest for a proportional distribution across societal structures are three elements of personhood that do not

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pop up out of nowhere at the level of the responsible person, but already previously proved constitutive to the person as a speaking, acting, and narrating person. At the level of the speaking person, Ricoeur emphasized that the ability for speech is the first prerequisite for personhood since nothing can acquire meaning, except through language. According to Ricoeur, this speech ability already includes many fundamental aspects of personhood. The focus of the first study of Soi-même comme un autre, semantics offered a first outline of the person as singularity through the operators of individualization that identify a person and distinguish him from everybody else. Through Strawson’s theory of basic particulars, Ricoeur came to three further findings: namely, that the person is always also a body; that the mental predicates that distinguish persons from mere bodies are ascribed to the same entity as the physical predicates; and that mental predicates keep their meaning when attributed to others (Ricoeur 1992a, 209–10). There was not yet a self at this level, however, since the capacity to identify oneself was missing. That is why Ricoeur switched to pragmatics in the second study of Soi-même comme un autre. The speech act theory proved especially instructive; Ricoeur argued that the threefold structure of ethics already surfaced in the analysis of speech acts. Self-esteem, first, is an extension of the “I speak” self-reference implied in every speech act. The mutual recognition between the self and other, second, is a continuation of the fact that the two poles of a speech situation in which someone tells another person something are both implied as referring to themselves and addressing the other. The institutional dimension of personhood, finally, is reflected in language as an institution itself. While we speak, we adopt a language that we do not invent ourselves, but one that is in fact an ensemble of rules, habits, and an entire history of language use, which can serve as a model for every relation between an institution and persons in Ricoeur’s view (Ricoeur 1992a, 210–13). Though speech proved to be the first requirement, action (following the example of Mounier) was considered the most distinctive category of the human person (Ricoeur 1992a, 209). The analytic theory of action, the focus of the third and fourth study of Soi-même comme un autre, taught Ricoeur that the same structure also characterized the acting and suffering person. The threefold structure namely further refines the ascription of an action to an acting person. First, the acting person needs to be able to identify himself as the author of his actions, with the two implied components of self-esteem, namely the ability to act according to our intentions and the ability to influence a course of events by virtue of our initiative. This proves that a person in the first place derives self-esteem as an acting person. Second, the theory of action reveals that human action always amounts to interaction. Actions always have an impact on others, whether in the form of cooperation, competition, or conflict. Third, there was the realization that there is no action

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without an institutional framework, not even at the pre-ethical level through the so-called standards of excellence (Ricoeur 1992a, 215). Ricoeur moreover pointed out that theory of action is fundamentally related to ethics. The transition from the practical to the ethical level occurs in the fact that acting always means wielding power over another person. There is a fundamental asymmetry between acting and suffering that contains the possibility of violence and that gives rise to interpersonal and social ethics. Ethics essentially revolves around the attitude toward such violence, as expressed in the Golden Rule and the rules of Rawls’ theory of justice. Ricoeur here emphasized that the correlation between ethics and theory of action is reciprocal. Theory of action spontaneously develops into a moral and political theory, and the fundamental structures of actions offer the anthropological background for ethics the other way round: Il n’y a d’éthique que pour un être capable non seulement de s’autodésigner en tant que locuteur, mais encore de s’autodésigner en tant qu’agent de son action. C’est de cette façon que se rejoignent la triade éthique: souci de soi, souci de l’autre, souci de l’institution—et la triade praxique: ascription de l’action à son agent, interaction survenant entre agents et patients, étalons d’excellence. (Ricoeur 1992a, 217) 48

With another reference to Soi-même comme un autre, Ricoeur inserted an additional level between theory of action and ethics, namely narrativity theory, with which he clarified the temporal dimension of personhood. The analysis of emplotment in stories revealed how the dialectic between idem and ipse identity is inherent to personhood. The lessons for the philosophy of personhood again reveal the same threefold structure. Self-esteem is clarified in the idea of narrative identity, which allows for the concept of personal identity without devolving into substantialism. The relation with the other is also made more concrete through the notion of narrative identity, in particular through the interconnectedness of stories. The role of institutions, finally, becomes clearer when we realize that institutions, too, can also only be understood in the form of narrative identity, without a fixed substance (Ricoeur 1992a, 217–21). In the article Approches de la personne, Ricoeur thus explained how the hermeneutic phenomenology of the speaking, acting, and narrating person attests to essential structures of personhood, ones that constitute the basis for a personalist ethics of the human who only fully becomes a person in connection with others and with an institutional framework focused on the flourishing of every individual. He this way not only injected new life into personalism, but also continued the remedying zeal of Le socius et le prochain. He after all simultaneously emphasized that the threefold structure of Soi-même comme un autre was an improvement on Mounier’s twofold structure of the person in community, though he did not completely push aside Mounier, as

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he said: “Ma formule à trois termes: estime de soi, sollicitude, institutions justes, me paraît compléter, plutôt que réfuter, la formule à deux termes. Je distingue les relations interpersonnelles, ayant pour emblème l’amitié, des relations institutionnelles, ayant pour idéal la justice. Cette distinction me paraît tout à fait bénéfique pour le personnalisme lui-même” (Ricoeur 1992a, 207–8). 49 More precisely, Ricoeur targeted the utopia of community as an extrapolation of friendship, as he had previously done with the decoupling of charity vis-à-vis one’s neighbor (prochain) and one’s fellow human (socius). This utopia after all makes it difficult to recognize the autonomy of the political. Politics revolve around the distribution of power, a distribution that should be based on justice, not friendship. Ricoeur’s distinction between interpersonal and institutional relations honored this separate political dimension to ethics. This utopia moreover limited the idea of community to direct relationships, where Ricoeur broadened it out to human relationships where the other has no face, but nevertheless has rights (Ricoeur 1992a, 208). In a way that distinguishes between ideas of friendship and justice, and at the same time incorporates them into one and the same ethics, the ethical formula of the quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions after all honored both the concrete other we meet face-to-face as well as the anonymous other. The article in question indicated how Ricoeur’s later hermeneutic phenomenology was a continuation of his previous involvement in personalism, namely by highlighting anthropological roots and redirecting the ethics of the person in community. In Soi-même comme un autre, Ricoeur even went a step beyond the attestation of the structures of personhood through hermeneutic phenomenology. In the tenth study, he attempted to arrive at a full ontology of the human person in an attempt to place the being of the person in the being in general, thus venturing onto the path of speculation, even if this was a continuation of his hermeneutic phenomenology. First and foremost, Ricoeur argued in the tenth study that what he had ultimately attested to in the previous studies was the confidence of being a self, both in its difference with respect to sameness and in its dialectical relation with otherness (Ricoeur 1990, 351). These two proven dimensions of personhood—the relation between selfhood and equality, and between selfhood and alterity— both gave rise to an ontological digression. Using the unity of all action that had phenomenologically been revealed, Ricoeur based his speculative continuation of the dialectic between selfhood and sameness on Aristotle’s description of being as act and potency, which he in turn connected to Heidegger’s notion of Sorge and Spinoza’s notion of conatus essendi. He argued that the hermeneutic attestation of the existence as a self could speculatively be strengthened by relying on the ontological horizon of being as act and potency as a “fond d’être à la fois puissant et effectif,” against which human action comes into relief (Ricoeur 1990,

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351–67). 50 The concerning chapter uses very tentative language, so as to avoid accusations of foundationalism and ontotheology. At the same time, it was “extremely ambitious” (Greisch 1995, 325). A couple of years later, Ricoeur also admitted in his autobiography that it produced a half-baked result (Ricoeur 1995h, 81–82). 51 Still, he continued to stand behind his ontological reflections with respect to the dialectic between selfhood and alterity; these were also the most interesting in light of how personalism’s vision of humanity emphasizes the relational and spiritual nature of the person. The hermeneutic phenomenological studies had revealed that alterity is no external addition to the self, but that it is instead present in the self in the form of experiences of passivity. Ricoeur moreover emphasized the polysemic nature of this alterity, similar to how the self also knew no univocality in the dialectic between sameness and self-constancy. Ricoeur thus saw the speculative category of alterity, the way it manifested itself in the Platonic dialectic between the Same and the Other, attested to in the different phenomena of passivity. He divided this diversity over three realms: experience of one’s own body as a mediator between self and world, the relation between the self and the stranger, and the relation between the self and itself in conscience. In a reference back to rejection of the Cartesian cogito as the starting point of Soi-même comme un autre, it is precisely the attestation of this dialectic between selfhood and alterity that makes this an attestation of a “wounded cogito” rather than a Cartesian cogito (Ricoeur 1990, 367–69). The first type of passivity, the anchoring in the world through one’s body, was already present in the analysis of the speaking and acting person, for instance, in the discussion of Strawson’s basic particulars, which raised the question of how mental and physical predicates can be ascribed to the same entity when the human body is a body like all others and at the same time is my body. Ricoeur, however, argued that the phenomenology of passivity encapsulated in this only fully manifests itself in suffering as the opposite of action. The speculative articulation of alterity that corresponds with this passivity meant that the metacategory of one’s own body needed to be given a fullness, in the same way that suffering gives undergoing a fullness. One’s body then referred to the full realm of intimate passivity. Ricoeur here used Maine de Biran’s argument that the body, through gradations of passivity, operates as a mediator between the self and external reality. From Husserl, he borrowed the distinction between body (le corps) and carnality (le chair). Ricoeur made the flesh the paradigm of alterity because the flesh ontologically precedes the distinction between voluntary and involuntary. The flesh is the “I can” that offers the foundation for “I want,” but is not derived from it. According to Ricoeur, the alterity of the flesh this way became the primary form of alterity since it distinguishes the self as an other even if, like Husserl, we only see the other as an other I (Ricoeur 1990, 369–77).

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The second meaning of the metacategory of alterity is the otherness of other people. The hermeneutic phenomenology of the self had demonstrated that the other can affect the self’s understanding of itself in different ways. This was what characterized the distinction between the self and the I. The I asserts itself, but the self only recognizes itself through this relation to the other. At the level of speech, the self-identification of the speaker appeared interwoven with the speech situation and consequently with listening. At the level of the theory of action, the acting person’s self-identification was interwoven with ascription by an other who identifies me as the author of the action in the accusative. At the narrative level, there was the exchange between the story’s world and the reader’s world. At the ethical level, finally, self-esteem also required concern for others, in the sense that this esteem appeared correlative to the affection by and for the other (Ricoeur 1990, 381). All these examples from hermeneutic phenomenological studies offered food for thought at the ontological level. Ricoeur emphasized that the presented dialectic between selfhood and alterity is not unilateral, as in the case of Husserl or Levinas, albeit in the opposite direction. Where Husserl made the I his focal point and saw the other as an alter ego, Levinas placed the focus on the other who makes an appeal to me. Ricoeur, on the other hand, argued that while the second movement took priority at the ethical realm, the first movement took priority at the realm of knowledge. Compared to Husserl and Levinas, Ricoeur thus offered an understanding of the other that put selfesteem and the moral appeal on equal footing. Compared to Levinas, he underlined the need for a receptivity to the moral appeal that was irreconcilable with Levinas’ conception of the self as a totality. Ricoeur thus defended the complementariness of the movement from selfhood to alterity and vice versa, since they are each primary in another dimension and since the assignment of responsibility in the ethical dimension points to a capacity for selfidentification as someone who is also able to say “I,” a capacity transferred to every third person in the gnoseological dimension (Ricoeur 1990, 380–93). Ricoeur also already laid the groundwork for this meeting between dialectic of the self and the other in his analysis of the promise when he argued that if another person did not count on me, there would be no meaning in the question of whether or not I will keep my promise and, in other words, the self-constancy of the self would equally be meaningless. Ricoeur found the third and ultimate expression of alterity in conscience, that is, in the form of a non-moral interpretation of a voice that simultaneously is inside and above me (Ricoeur 1990, 393–409). He recognized the temptation to relate the phenomenon of the conscience devoid of moral qualifications to the phenomenon of the attestation of personhood as the opposite of suspicion, like in Heidegger’s Gewissen concept. Still, conscience added something to this attestation. Where Heidegger had demoralized conscience,

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Ricoeur offered an understanding of conscience that connected the attestation of personhood to a form of being summoned (injunction), which is then the alterity particular to the phenomenon of the conscience. At the same time, conscience cannot devolve into the meaning of good or bad conscience, with conscience acting as an internal court. Ricoeur searched for the cause behind this reduction in the abstraction of morality from the threefold structure of ethics-morality-conviction. As part of the primacy of ethics over morality, the voice of conscience after all appears as an order not yet law. It appears as part of the optative of the good life. It is first and foremost the recognition of being enjoined to live well with and for others in just institutions (Ricoeur 1990, 406). The alterity of conscience this way demonstrates that the core of our personhood does not rest in our own hands. To use Ricoeur’s own words: “Le point, c’est celui-ci: de l’intime certitude d’exister sur le mode de soi, l’être humain n’a pas la maîtrise; elle lui vient, lui advient, à la manière d’un don, d’une grâce, dont le soi ne dispose pas” (Ricoeur 1993c, 472). 52 Ricoeur left open what the origins of this voice are—the other person, our ancestors, God? This, he said so himself, was where he ran into the limits of philosophical discourse (Ricoeur 1990, 409). The tenth study of Soi-même comme un autre all the same shows an ambition to offer an alternative to the flawed ontological foundations of traditional personalism. The article De la métaphysique à la morale (Ricoeur 1993c) clarified that this was effectively an attempt by Ricoeur to give his ethics ontological foundations. In this article, he argued that his hermeneutic phenomenology bridged ontology and ethics in three ways. First, the attestation of the human as capable man makes our actions receptive to moral qualifications. In Ricoeur’s view, phenomenology and moral philosophy here take a step in each other’s direction. His teleological ordering of human action—from the speaking self via the acting self to the narrating self through to the self that is the subject of imputation—took him to a point where the distinction between phenomenology and moral philosophy was kept intact but could still be bridged. From the other side, moral philosophy moved closer because of the distinction between ethics and morality, with esteem for the human capacity for action preceding moral obligations: “Pour sceller l’alliance entre la phénoménologie de l’homme capable et l’éthique du souhait de la vie bonne, je dirai que l’estime, qui précède au plan éthique ce que Kant dénomme respect au plan moral, s’adresse à titre primordial à l’homme capable. Réciproquement, c’est comme être capable que l’homme est éminement digne d’estime” (Ricoeur 1993c, 474). 53 Ricoeur saw the second connection in the phenomenon of the promise as a model for self-constancy. A promise as a performative speech act points toward a moral obligation to keep that promise, even if a broken promise strictly speaking remains a promise. It is the moral demand to keep one’s word that precisely makes the difference. Ricoeur saw the connection be-

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tween both levels exactly in the practice to effectively keep promises: “C’est finalement l’acte de tenir effectivement parole qui constitue l’opérateur actuel de la transition entre le versant ‘métaphysique’ et le versant ‘moral’ du maintien de soi” (Ricoeur 1993c, 476, original italicization). 54 The third and most important connection was found in the phenomenon of the imputation of actions. He argued that the premoral form of that imputation, so the realization of that which depends upon our actions, inevitably developed into the moral form, which revolves around judgment of something as good or bad. This transition is part and parcel of the practical wisdom with which a concrete situation is assessed: Quant au “lieu” où s’opère la jonction entre mise en examen et inculpation ou disculpation, ce n’est plus le jugement moral considéré sous l’angle de sa revendication d’universalité, mais le jugement moral en situation. . . . L’intime conviction et l’équité effective à l’égard d’autrui constituent ainsi les “lieux” privilégiés de la jonction effective entre la dimension descriptive du for intérieur et la dimension prescriptive de l’imputation morale. (Ricoeur 1993c, 476–77, original italicization) 55

We can conclude that Ricoeur’s later work in a way is characterized by a personalism “après-la-lettre.” 56 His moral philosophy safeguarded and strengthened the core arguments of personalist ethics. He moreover responded to the criticisms on the flawed foundations of traditional personalism by rooting his moral philosophy in the structures of humanity that unveils a hermeneutic phenomenological anthropology and that give rise to ontological observations that establish a bridge, albeit a modest one, between personal ontology and ethics of the person. Ricoeur expressly did not venture as far as a new foundationalism, but he did uncover a reasonable trust in the understanding of the human as a person, one that outweighed all the distrust. LOVE AND JUSTICE: HOPE AS KEYSTONE Hope between Faith and Philosophy With his new approach of personalist thought Ricoeur replied to most of the criticisms against personalism that he himself had endorsed in the article Meurt le personnalisme. 57 In fact, in Soi-même comme un autre he devised an elaboration of what he had set out as “l’attitude-personne,” in order to overcome the criticism. As already mentioned, a full response to the criticism must, however, also take into account the influence of Christian faith on personalist philosophy, especially in light of what can be considered a mixture of theology and philosophy in Ricoeur’s early work.

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It is obvious that Ricoeur had the intention of keeping faith and philosophy strictly separated in Oneself as Another. He explicitly mentions this in the preface. The book was based on his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, in the winter of 1986. In line with the tradition of these prestigious lectures he also talked about theology. The two final lectures dealt with biblical hermeneutics, respectively concerning the naming of God and concerning the relationship between the concept of personhood and the biblical concept of vocation. He refused to include these lectures in the philosophical book in order to safeguard a strictly philosophical discourse. He explained this as being part of his concern to preserve an autonomous philosophical discourse, in which his religious convictions play no argumentative role (Ricoeur 1990, 36). This “asceticism of the argument,” as he called it, was, in other words, based on agnosticism with regard to the God question. This was explicit at the end of the tenth study, where the question of the Other remained unanswered. However, at the same time, we have just seen that Ricoeur described the attestation of personhood in terms of “gift” or “grace.” The biblical charge of these terms shows that the relationship between his Christian conviction and his philosophical thought is still not beyond question. The combination of agnosticism and attestation is in fact controversial (Anderson 1994). Now, to understand the continuing interaction of theology and philosophy in Ricoeur’s later work, we have to look back to the end of the sixties. Then Ricoeur devoted a few essays to this issue (Ricoeur 1969c, 1970). As already mentioned, in the preface of Histoire et Vérité, Ricoeur talked about hope as the key concept in what he considered to be a cross-pollination between faith and philosophy. 58 It is this idea that was given a more thorough elaboration that would remain present in his thought throughout the rest of his career. With the concept of hope he tried to show that the influence of faith on his philosophy was not a matter of the inclusion of the idea of a personal God, but rather an idea of what a sound philosophical system is supposed to be, particularly with regard to the closure of the system. He referred to the intelligibility behind the Christian message of hope for the Kingdom of God to come. At first sight, this hope implies an irrational and absurd logic. The eschatological event appears as a rupture in history, where all of a sudden a surplus turns up. Ricoeur talked about it as a logic of excess and superabundance. Ricoeur, however, considered this logic not as the counterpart of rationality, but as a different kind of rationality, namely as a dialectic logic, where the surplus of sense over nonsense rules. “Spero ut intelligam” (“I hope in order to understand”) was the slogan. He applied this dialectic logic in a kind of philosophizing that he called “post-Hegelian Kantianism,” after Éric Weil (Ricoeur 1969c, 402–3). The notion of post-Hegelian Kantianism refers to the benefits and faults of the Hegelian and Kantian ways of philosophizing. Ricoeur indicated that

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Hegel and Kant had opposite views on what a proper philosophical system is supposed to be (Ricoeur 1970, 59–61). A Hegelian system aims at absolute knowledge, in the sense of the ultimate meaning of the whole that gives meaning to all the parts. This absolute knowledge that rounds off the system is not something that remains in prospect, for it is identical to the system as a whole itself. As such Ricoeur considered Hegelian philosophy to be the counterpart of a philosophy of hope. A Kantian system, to the contrary, is a philosophy of boundaries. It also starts from the given that reason demands totality of meaning, but it adds that it is impossible to finish off any totality. The quest for totality of meaning is, in other words, a permanent task. The recognition of this permanency was according to Ricoeur the philosophical equivalent of hope. Ricoeur’s focus on hope would suggest that he adheres to the Kantian model. That is, however, not unambiguously the case. From a certain point of view Ricoeur was closer to Hegel. He considered the degree of abstraction in Kant’s ethics of duty to be a problem, in the sense that it divides rationality and reality (Ricoeur 1969c, 404; 1970, 61–62). In this regard Ricoeur endorsed the Hegelian criticism of Kant and the interpretation of practical reason as the historic process in which freedom becomes real, as it was also expressed in the ninth study of Soi-même comme un autre. However, with regard to the question of the horizon of this process of the actualization of freedom, Ricoeur turned his back on Hegel in favor of Kant. Hegel’s horizon was completion, or the complete equality of rationality and reality. Yet, Ricoeur showed a different horizon, namely the horizon of incompletion that emerges in our experience of evil. The experience of evil teaches us that there is something broken at the essence of human action, which implies that reality and rationality can never coincide completely. It is this inevitablity of unfinished demands that brought Ricoeur back to Kant, whose reflections on the theoretical and practical limits of man allow for a philosophy of hope, through the distinction between thinking and knowing at the theoretical level, through the concept of the highest good at the practical level, and especially through his approach of radical evil in Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793), where Kant came, according to Ricoeur, very close to the Christian kerugma, in the sense that the resurrection from death can be translated philosophically in the need for hope in response to evil (Ricoeur 1969c, 404–15; 1970, 62–68). Ricoeur’s post-Hegelian Kantianism had the ambition to combine the best of both worlds in a special interpretation of dialectics. We have already seen in abundance how Ricoeur’s thought is continuously based on the dialectical relationship between elements that appear as opposites. If we only take into account his political philosophy to the extent that this was already brought up, then we find examples in the dialectics of the voluntary and the involuntary, the dialectics of economic socialism and political liberalism, the dialec-

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tics of ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility, the dialectics of politics and the political, and so on. We should not interpret these dialectical relationships in terms of Hegelian dialectics. The dialectics involved is the dialectics of post-Hegelian Kantianism. Whereas Hegelian dialectics unify both sides in an encompassing and complete system, Ricoeur’s dialectics was explicitly conceived as non-conclusive dialectics, dialectics that always keep the path to full meaning open and, hence, refuse to abide by definite distinctions or ultimate solutions. The Kantian element of this dialectics refers to its non-conclusiveness, it is a dialectic that keeps the quest for meaning open and refuses any ultimate solution or distinction. The Hegelian element is then the hermeneutic focus on historical consciousness. The result of this postHegelian Kantianism is a philosophy that mediates between opposites without full reconciliation, with respect for the limits of reason but directed at a practical self-understanding. Ricoeur connected this post-Hegelian Kantianism with his Christian convictions. He argued that philosophy and theology find each other in an overlapping concern for hope as the horizon of thought. The particular task of Christian theology is to connect human hope with Resurrection, which is in essence irrational, while it is based on its own logic, which is the logic of the superabundance of sense over nonsense. He considered his own dialectical way of thinking to be a philosophical equivalent of this theology of hope, in the sense that it shares a logic of superabundance that keeps questions open, from the perspective of a “passion for the possible” and as counterweight against “the passion for totalization” (Ricoeur 1969c, 402; 1970, 68–69). 59 It is exactly his Christian faith that motivated Ricoeur in that regard: “[L]a prédication n’est pas, pour l’intelligence, une limite qui l’arrête, un interdit qui lui ferme la bouche et la frappe de stupeur, mais un recours et une réserve de sens qui lui donne encore et toujours à penser” (Ricoeur 1966, 44). 60 However, faith is not only an underlying motivation for the choice of post-Hegelian Kantian dialectics as philosophical method. Ricoeur explicitly said that faith is not only at the basis, but also at the horizon of this dialectics. He considered it as a matter of approximation between faith and reason. By approximation he meant “the effort of thought to come closer and closer to the eschatological event which constitutes the center of a theology of hope.” He was very candid about the implications: “Thanks to this active approximation of hope by dialectic, philosophy knows something and says something of the Easter-preaching.” Despite this unambiguous connection of his philosophy to his faith, Ricoeur was confident that the autonomy of his philosophy remained uncompromised, as he immediately added the following: “But what it knows and what it says remains within the limits of reason alone. In this self-restraint abide both the responsibility and the modesty of philosophy” (Ricoeur 1970, 69). 61

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The big question is how we should interpret this reference to the Easter preaching. Mary Rose Barral has argued that Ricoeur’s reflection on hope is not generalizable, because it refers to the Resurrection as the ultimate foundation of hope: “There can be a discourse on religion from the viewpoint of reason, but it does not take its cue from such an extraordinary event as the Resurrection. Hope is a fact in human life, but it is not grounded in the Resurrection (for those who do not have the faith)” (Barral 1985, 80–81). More recently Rebecca Huskey has replied that we need to interpret Ricoeur’s referral to the Resurrection in a broader sense. She recognizes that, if he were to lean on his faith in the account of events of two thousand years ago as it is expressed in the Gospel, he would then indeed compromise the autonomy of his philosophy and violate his self-proclaimed philosophical agnosticism. However, she argues that Ricoeur used the Resurrection in a broader and strictly philosophical meaning, which makes it possible to detach the concept from Christian faith: 62 “In the case of philosophy, hope is the capacity to look beyond what reason will allow, yet ideally still adhering to the guidelines of reason. Resurrection in a philosophical sense is resurrection of that which is dead to knowledge but alive for belief” (Huskey 2009, 2). This keeps Huskey close to Ricoeur’s self-interpretation, 63 but it seems to neglect the element of explicit approximation. This suggests that what motivates and attracts us to look beyond is in fact a Christian conviction. Love and Justice It is important to see that post-Hegelian Kantianism is also at work in Ricoeur’s late philosophical anthropology. In Soi-même comme un autre he constantly looked beyond common differences for a surplus of meaning. In his little ethics the connection of Hegel and Kant was even literally present, as he combined the universality of deontological morality and the historicity of Sittlichkeit. But the way in which his dialectics are framed in an approximation between faith and philosophy shows itself especially in the bigger picture, where his entire hermeneutical phenomenology and the moral philosophy that ensues from it remain unclosed without reference to a surplus of meaning that only moral theology can provide. This is what comes to the fore in the famous essay Amour et justice (Ricoeur 2008, 13–42). There, Ricoeur looked beyond the boundaries of philosophy in a necessary complement of the ethical studies in Soi-même comme un autre. 64 We have seen that Ricoeur’s little ethics already contained an indication of an intrinsic tension in the idea of distributive justice, between an individualistic and a cooperative dimension, or in other words between mutually disinterested claims of one’s own interests on the one hand and mutual indebtedness on the other hand. Depending on one’s perspective, it is about my rights in opposition to others, or about what we owe to each other in light of

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our shared membership in society. Ricoeur argued that the individualist side gets the upper hand in formal rules of justice. Practical wisdom serves, then, to refer the rules back to the will to live together in order to bring the dimension of mutual obligation back to the fore. In Love and justice Ricoeur returned to the issue to argue that justice is ultimately dominated by the individualist outlook of fair judgment on rival egocentric claims: “Ma suggestion est ici que le point le plus haut auquel puisse viser l’idéal de justice est celui d’une société où le sentiment de dépendance mutuelle—voire même de mutuel endettement—reste subordonné à celui de mutuel désintéressement . . . la juxtaposition des intérêts empêche l’idée de justice de s’élever au niveau d’une reconnaisance véritable et d’une solidarité telle que chacun se sente débiteur de chacun” (Ricoeur 2008, 31, original italicization). 65 In other words, Ricoeur was convinced that society needs more than justice alone. Also practical wisdom, which connects the rules of justice to the ethical pursuit of the good life with and for others in just institutions, is unable to get a grip on solidarity among people without recourse to a deeper footing. The only solution was, according to Ricoeur, the dialectics of love and justice. In principle, these values are in tension, but Ricoeur wanted to show a creative tension between the logic of equivalence in morality and justice and the logic of superabundance in the biblical message of love (Hall 2007). Ricoeur acknowledged that love and justice are of a different kind. 66 Justice is dominated by a logic of equivalence, while love disregards equivalence and, consequently, rather uses a logic of superabundance. Ricoeur found the paradigm for the dialectic of both logics in the Bible. On the one hand, there is Jesus Christ’s formulation of the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). On the other hand, there is the excessive extension: “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:35). These rules appear to be in opposition. The radicality of the commandment to love one’s enemy suggests a rejection of the reciprocity in the Golden Rule. Since Ricoeur considered the rules of justice as a formalization of the Golden Rule, it would appear to be a rejection of justice on the basis of love (Ricoeur 1995i, 279–81; 2008, 35–37). Nevertheless, Ricoeur did not aim at a rejection or depreciation of justice. The radical love commandment does not replace the Golden Rule. In its own right, the extreme behavior for which the commandment calls leads to amoral and even immoral situations. This cannot be the intention. Hence, Ricoeur argued that the love commandment was not to be seen as a replacement of the Golden Rule, but rather as a crucial complement, in the sense of a socalled “supramoral corrective” (Ricoeur 1994d, 278): “Si le supra-moral ne doit pas virer au non-moral, voire à l’immoral—par exemple à la couardise— il lui faut passer par le principe de la moralité, résumé dans la Règle d’Or et formalisé par la règle de justice” (Ricoeur 2008, 38–39). 67 So, justice is not

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obsolete. On the contrary, the dialectic of love and justice is necessary exactly to protect justice. Love is what presses us to do more than what justice strictly requires. In this manner the generosity of the love commandment must protect the Golden Rule from a reduction to “do ut des.” The Golden Rule is not itself targeted, rather its perversion. By extension the same goes for the rules of justice. The logic of superabundance in the love commandment must keep justice from degenerating to a mere utilitarian calculus of individual interests. It is the love commandment that brings the dimension of mutual owing to the surface. According to Ricoeur the tension between the two distinct logics was to be preserved, as in their synergy love and justice keep each other on the right track, in the sense that they keep each other from becoming the reverse (Ricoeur 2008, 39–41). Ricoeur read in the Gospel how this synergy actually works. Jesus does not ask for the old commandments to be put aside. He asks to do more: And what direction do the sayings of Jesus imprint upon our ethical imagination? . . . Certainly no rule emerges. But something like a pattern does. And this pattern is that of a sort of excess of response in relation to the response that is normally expected. Yes, each response gives more than that asked by ordinary prudence. The right cheek? The other one also! The coat? The cloak as well! One mile? One mile more! . . . It is this giving more that appears to me to constitute the point of these extreme commands. (Ricoeur 1995i, 281, original italicization)

By way of illustration he showed how this affects the rules of justice. For example, the dialectics of love and justice is expressed in a generous attitude in concrete situations, which is institutionally embedded in the administration of justice by the possibility of recognizing mitigating circumstances and of granting suspension of the sentence or amnesty (Ricoeur 1998, 176–77). In another example Ricoeur explained that the influence of love in the actualization of justice is also present in the tension between universalism and contextualism. Love is what, according to Ricoeur, enables one to combine respect for cultures and the struggle against exclusion: “L’amour presse la justice d’élargir le cercle de la reconnaissance mutuelle” (Ricoeur 1998, 181). 68 Moreover, Ricoeur emphasized that this impact is not only aimed at the extension, but also at the intensity of our recognition of the other. In principle, justice targets only anonymous individuals. It is about giving each individual what he is entitled to in an indiscriminate way. Love is what presses justice into a more intensive approach, that takes the uniqueness and irreplaceability of every single person into account (Ricoeur 1998, 181–83; 2010b, 31). Of course, we have left the domain of philosophy here. Ricoeur himself also considered this a matter of Christian ethics. This is evident when we look at the foundation of the love commandment. Ricoeur argued that the

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love commandment is part of a so-called “economy of the gift.” The foundation of this economy of the gift is the passivity of a preceding gift of love that is impossible to reciprocate. Hence the love commandment is—in explicit opposition to the principle of do ut des—the following: “Parce que tu as été aimé, aime à ton tour” (Ricoeur 1998, 184). 69 Ricoeur identified this gift of love primarily with creation. The radical dependence of being-created is the initial impetus to what Ricoeur called the economy of the gift. Furthermore he also talked about the gift of the law, the gift of forgiveness, and eventually, the gift of salvation (Ricoeur 2008, 33–34). In each case, it is a being given generously that appeals to us to give love as well. On this matter, Ricoeur explicitly talked about a kind of theonomy that precedes human autonomy, as an appeal to our responsibility: “C’est à mon avis, le seul sens acceptable de la notion de théonomie: l’amour oblige, avons-nous dit; ce à quoi il oblige, c’est à une obéissance aimante. . . . En ce sens, la théonomie, entendue comme appel à une obéissance aimante, engendre l’autonomie, entendue comme appel à la responsabilité. Nous touchons ici à un nœud délicat où une certaine passivité fondatrice se joint à une active prise de responsabilité” (Ricoeur 1998, 184, original italicization). 70 With those words Ricoeur acknowledged that this questioning of the autonomy of autonomy was slippery terrain (Ricoeur 1994e, 34). Nevertheless, he denied that this dialectic of love and justice made his entire moral philosophy a Christian theory. He argued that every term remains loyal to its own domain. Hence, his moral philosophy remained freestanding. In the preface to Soi-même comme un autre he argued that the biblical path only gives a new perspective that “intensifies” and “transforms” the philosophical findings, without affecting the autonomy of his hermeneutical phenomenology, and definitely without smuggling in an ultimate foundation (Ricoeur 1990, 37–38). What he targeted was any possible ambition in philosophy to provide an ultimate foundation or total meaning (Ricoeur 2008, 46–47). However, the theological reflection provided Ricoeur with a solution for something he called a lack of meaning in his moral philosophy (“une morale en mal de sens”) (Ricoeur 1998, 173). Hence, there is at the very least an amplification, in the sense of a more thorough attestation of that which his hermeneutical phenomenology had already attested. Out of respect for the leap of faith that is required, he refused to talk about a coronation of his philosophy: Toutefois, je ne veux pas insinuer que le soi, formé et conformé selon les paradigmes bibliques, couronne le soi de notre herméneutique philosophique. Ce serait là trahir notre affirmation sans ambiguité selon laquelle le mode de vie chrétien est un pari et un destin, et que celui qui l’assume n’est habilité par sa confession ni à se tenir dans une position défensive ni à se prévaloir d’une supériorité par rapport à tous les autres genres de vie, faute de critères de comparaison aptes à trancher entre prétentions rivales. (Ricoeur 2008, 78) 71

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Nevertheless, the argument that the biblical perspective provides a surplus of meaning that amplifies his attestation of personhood looks very much like the argument of traditional personalism. When Emmanuel Mounier talked about the influence of Christian faith on personalism, he argued that the vocation of personhood is understandable for every human being while only Christians can grasp the full meaning of this vocation (E. Mounier 1962b, 467–68, 87). Ricoeur seems to come close to saying something similar, although his claim is less exclusive. Half Full or Half Empty What are we to conclude from the previous? It is obvious that Ricoeur’s later philosophy was also influenced by his Christian conviction. This is, however, not necessarily a problem. It depends on the extent to which and the way in which this is the case. In any case, in light of Ricoeur’s loyalty to the core ideas of personalism we definitely have to ask the question whether the influence weakens his philosophy as it weakened the philosophy of the original personalists. Many scholars have interpreted his work in this sense. While up until now we have maximally thought along with Ricoeur, this controversy forces us to abandon our methodology temporarily, in order to examine the secondary debate in which Ricoeur is criticized, while the criticism itself is questioned as well. The existence of doubts regarding the earnestness of Ricoeur’s “asceticism of the argument” was already evident in the reception of the three volumes of Temps et récit, the work in which the approach of hermeneutics that he would later use in Soi-même comme un autre took shape. In an extraordinarily harsh critique, Christian Bouchindhomme accused Ricoeur of having to rely on his faith in his hermeneutics: [La pensée de Ricoeur] appelle sans nul doute à la réflexion herméneutique, mais elle le fait à partir de présupposés qui justifient cet appel. Or à mes yeux des problèmes se posent dans la mesure où, d’une part, Ricoeur n’énonce pas ces présupposés, et où, d’autre part, ceux-ci lorsque l’on parvient à les élucider tendent à faire sortir Ricoeur du discours philosophique de la modernité et du réquisit qui nous est imposé depuis Kant: ou ne pouvoir maintenir l’exercice de la philosophie qu’à partir de principes falsifiables . . . , ou admettre que l’on sorte de la philosophie moderne quitte à ne plus pouvoir rien opposer à l’exercice de l’obscurantisme. (Bouchindhomme 1990, 180–81) 72

What Bouchindhomme blamed Ricoeur for was that his faith in the God of the Bible served as a silent foundation for his philosophy. He considered this to be the only way to understand how Ricoeur could refer on the one hand to an ultimate meaning, while on the other hand rejecting the human subject as foundation for this ultimate meaning (Bouchindhomme 1990, 179–80). Also

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Rainer Rochlitz discerned a “quasi-religious” dimension in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, in the sense that he supposedly relied on his faith to poetically solve the conflict of interpretations. By emphasizing the creative imagination that brings the heterogeneous together in a discordant concordance Ricoeur is said to have looked for a “compensation” of the dispersive consequences of modernity in historic and fictional stories (Rochlitz 1990, 141, 148–49). 73 Criticism continued in response to Soi-même comme un autre and the following theological reflections, especially with regard to the dialectics of love and justice. Pamela Sue Anderson criticizes Ricoeur’s claim of using an agnostic outlook in his philosophical work. She argues that the attestation of the acting and suffering person only follows from his hermeneutical phenomenology if and because there is an underlying religious persuasion. As such attestation and agnosticism would be incompatible (Anderson 1994). Along the same lines, Henry Isaac Venema talks about Ricoeur’s “double allegiance,” in which the attestation of God on the basis of his subjective religious conviction and the attestation of the person on the basis of an objective philosophical methodology are inextricably bound up: “Like Russian nesting dolls, these levels of discourse encircle (and/or constitute) the self with forms of language that move from the finite to the infinite by means of attestation of being oneself, of the Essential of being, and the Essential turned toward us. While each of these levels of discourse retains its own irreducibility, none is truly autonomous” (Venema 2010, 65). In other words, Venema indicates that each level remains dependent on a surplus of meaning that can only be found at the other level. The way in which Ricoeur’s theological reflections constitute a complement to his philosophical work supports this criticism. W. David Hall argues that the dialectics of love and justice implies a closer connection between faith and philosophy than Ricoeur was ready to admit, for it is the implied idea of theonomy that eventually enables the human capabilities and gives meaning to human existence (Hall 2007, 137). Also Alain Thomasset referred to this in order to conclude that Ricoeur in the end did not stick to his word, because the references towards theology are ingrained in his philosophy. The “abundance” or “excess” of meaning was not confined to the theological level; Ricoeur already introduced it in his philosophical reflections: Simplement, il est vrai que Ricoeur, dans l’ensemble de son oeuvre et dans Soi-même comme un autre, ne fait pas exactement ce qu’il dit dans le préface de son livre. . . . Non pas que sa philosophie puisse être appelée chrétienne . . . , mais elle porte en tout cas en elle la possibilité intrinsèque d’un dialogue avec l’herméneutique biblique et la théologie. Comment la dialectique entre amour et justice serait-elle possible si la justice humaine ne présentait pas déjà en elle des caractères qui la rende apte à être ainsi interpellée? (Thomasset 1996, 563) 74

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Richard Kearney talks in that regard about a “fertile and creative tension emerging from the mutual crossing-over of Greek ontology and biblical theology,” which was supposed to make it possible for a philosopher to talk about an eschatological perspective. Also Kearney suggests that Ricoeur, consequently, distanced himself from his self-imposed “methodological asceticism,” in the sense that “capable man” is eventually unthinkable without reference to “capable god” (Kearney 2010, 49–50, 57–58). The question remains how fatal this criticism is, all things considered. Treanor and Venema suggest that it pushes us toward reading Ricoeur’s work as “a hermeneutic of ‘a historically incarnated religious consciousness’” (Treanor and Venema 2010, 11). Stefan Orth does not go that far and restricts himself to the conclusion that Ricoeur’s anthropology has no closure without reference to this theological horizon (Orth 1999, 464). The latter Ricoeur would readily admit, for this openness is at the heart of his post-Hegelian Kantian perspective in philosophy. However, it is again exactly his Christian background that brought him to this perspective, as we have seen. Moreover, along with Robert Misrahi we can ask the question whether the fact that Ricoeur needs to refer to a theological surplus on the last page does not imply that belief in God is actively present from the first page onward: “[À] la fin de parcours, le lecteur se pose la question s’il n’était pas conduit dans le domaine de la croyance non pas seulement à la dernière page mais dès les premières pages de cette réflexion sur le soi” (Misrahi 1994, 246). 75 At the same time we have to take into account the one-sidedness and controversial nature of the criticism. Other commentators back Ricoeur’s self-assigned distinction between philosophical and theological reflections. Johann Michel contends that Christian faith obviously inspired Ricoeur to a philosophy that does not make the human subject the master of meaning while it equally refuses to proclaim the death of man. In his philosophical work the biblical decentralization of man is, however, replaced by a decentralization on existentialist, structuralist, hermeneutical, and analytical grounds. The continuing attachment to the concept of personhood is not based on religion, but on the elaboration of his hermeneutical-phenomenological anthropology (Michel 2004, 643–57; 2006, 67–71). Ricoeur’s candor about being a Christian and about the Christian inspiration for his philosophy arouse suspicion, according to Michel, especially among atheists. This causes them to unsympathetically interpret philosophical arguments as theological arguments: “Connaissant l’importance de ces convictions, le lecteur soupçonneux est enclin à chercher derrière les arguments les plus philosophiques de Ricoeur la phantôme du Dieu biblique” (Michel 2006, 116). 76 Along the same lines, Jean-Louis Schlegel talks about “lectures policières” of Ricoeur’s work, in which everything he says is used against him (Schlegel 2006, 165). Schlegel himself characterizes Amour et justice and similar essays as an unfinished theological project that is distinct from his philosophi-

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cal work (Schlegel 2008, 8–11). Also Jérôme Porée shields Ricoeur from the accusations of cryptotheology. He describes Ricoeur’s philosophy as a philosophy “à deux foyers,” aimed at both human finiteness and transcendence. Hope is what bridges the both. Porée emphasizes, however, that, insofar as Ricoeur mentions hope and grace in his philosophical work, they are argued for in a strictly philosophical way, namely on the basis of a phenomenology of suffering: “La grâce n’est pas, ici, une catégorie religieuse, mais un postulat de la conscience souffrante. Elle traduit précisément l’aveu, par l’homme qui souffre, de son impuissance à persévérer dans l’être, et son attente d’un secours qu’il ne peut plus apporter à lui-même. Ainsi se trouve mise au jour la source phénoménologique de la polarité qui unit finitude et transcendence” (Porée 2011a, 202). 77 Nevertheless, hope remains undetermined without the input of religious symbols and texts, although Porée maintains that the arguments are strictly philosophical (Porée 2011a; 2011b). Among theologians the prevailing view is also that Ricoeur respected the boundaries in his philosophical work. Mark Wallace argues that Ricoeur is neither a Christian philosopher, who pursues an apologetics of the Christian truth, nor a philosophical theologian, who introduces philosophical foundations in theology. He is convinced that Ricoeur’s religious convictions never take a foundational role and, hence, were confined to a role as “generative impulse”: “Religion, then, is the rich matrix that motivates and informs Ricoeur’s autonomous and agnostic philosophy of the moral life. . . . [He] begins all of his various projects in the fullness of his beliefs, and then strives critically to understand better the implications of such beliefs through the discipline of philosophical inquiry” (Wallace 2002, 82). Many theologians make ample use of Ricoeur’s ideas to move their theological research forward, but at the same time they indicate that Ricoeur himself did not step on theological ground in his philosophical work. 78 What is more, especially within the context of moral theology Ricoeur is even blamed for clinging too eagerly to his methodological asceticism, as this would have kept him from really connecting ethics and ontology and from explaining the presence of the good in being (Schweiker 1993; 2002; Theobald 1995). Christina Gschwandtner argues that we have to understand the relationship between philosophy and theology in the work of Ricoeur in light of his hermeneutics, and more precisely, in light of the dialectics of concordance and discordance and the fundamental refusal to consider any interpretation as settled once and for all. On this basis she herself defends the idea that Ricoeur abided by the distinction out of respect for the integrity of each text and each discourse (Gschwandtner 2012). From the same hermeneutical outlook I, however, propose that it is more appropriate to acknowledge that both interpretations—as being a matter of strict separation or silent concoction— are possible, as the fate of a text is not in the hands of the author. That is also the way in which Ricoeur himself approached the issue toward the end of his

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life. On the one hand, he continued to persistently deny the accusation of being a Christian philosopher: Je ne suis pas un philosophe chrétien, comme la rumeur en court, en un sens volontiers péjoratif, voire discriminatoire. Je suis, d’un côté, un philosophe tout court, même un philosophe sans absolu. . . . Et, de l’autre, un chrétien d’expression philosophique, comme Rembrandt est un peintre tout court et un chrétien d’expression picturale et Bach un musicien tout court et un chrétien d’expression musicale. (Ricoeur 2007, 107) 79

On the other hand, he showed himself aware of the tension in his work. He thought of the relationship between his philosophical reflection and his religious conviction as a matter of “controlled schizophrenia,” in which critique and conviction are subtly connected (Ricoeur 1995b, 10–11). He maintained that his philosophical reflections were essentially independent of his theological reflections, while he admitted that one can indicate cross bracings: “J’assume toutes les difficultés de cette situation, y compris le soupçon qu’en réalité je ne serais pas parvenu à maintenir cette dualité aussi étanche . . . , car je ne crois pas être le maître du jeu, ni le maître du sens. Toujours mes deux allégeances m’échappent, même si parfois elles se font signe mutuellement” (Ricoeur 1995b, 227–28). 80 Whether the glass is half full or half empty in the end depends on interpretation. There is not one single objective reading available in which we can learn once and for all whether or not Ricoeur’s philosophy keeps its argumentative strength if it is completely detached from Christian conviction. That is perhaps a somewhat disappointing conclusion, but it is the only way to talk with sufficient nuance. In light of the philosophical reconsideration of personalism the most important thing is that it is at least possible to read Ricoeur’s philosophical writings as autonomous philosophical work. That is, then, the approach that I insist on here. CONCLUSION The influence of personalism on Ricoeur’s thinking has traditionally been thought to be confined to his early writings. Personalism, the thinking goes, was a timebound affair that Ricoeur distanced himself from around 1970 (Dosse 2008, 505–13; Michel 2006, 358–83; Mongin 1998, 82–85). French philosopher Pierre-Olivier Monteil recently even managed to pen a supposedly comprehensive overview of Ricoeur’s political thinking without devoting a single word to his relation with personalism (Monteil 2013b). In this chapter, I demonstrated that Ricoeur did distance himself from traditional personalism up to a certain extent, but that this partial renunciation should be seen as a form of critical loyalty. He after all agreed with a number of

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fundamental points of critique, but systematically incorporated these criticisms in his attempt to restore the core ideas of personalism in a more resistant manner. His first point of critique focused on the personalist ideal of community that saw direct, interpersonal relations of friendship and love as the model for relations between people in a larger community. Ricoeur argued that this Gesamtperson ideal, to use Max Scheler’s words, did not devote sufficient attention to the distinction between ethics and politics; the personalist ambition to connect ethics and politics had been taken too far. But according to Ricoeur, this was no insurmountable obstacle. In the essay Le socius et le prochain (1964b) he had offered a moral-theological solution in the form of a distinction between charity toward one’s neighbor in the strict sense and toward one’s fellow human. Justice was the guiding principle for the latter attitude. In Soi-même comme un autre (1990), this distinction received a purely philosophical treatment in the hermeneutic phenomenology of the self, which attested to a three-part structure in personhood that recognized the singularity of institutional relations. The wording of the ethical quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions after all honored both the concrete and the anonymous other in a way that attributes a singularity to both friendship and justice within one and the same personalist ethics. In addition, we examined the three points of critique in the article Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne (1983b) more closely. First, this focused on the ambition to develop a separate and full philosophical doctrine; second, on a fundamental undermining by structuralism; and, third, on the dependence on a Christian absolute hierarchy of values. The heart of Ricoeur’s response to these valid objections was to understand the self as an attitude, after the example of Éric Weil. With this pre-understanding of the human person as a being that is able to commit to values that transcend the self in spite of experiences of moral disorientation, Ricoeur again emphasized the novel possibilities to develop personalist ideas, though he did not aim to present one coherent and viable theoretical project. This allowed him to value the legacy of personalism in a new way, not by formulating a doctrine to face other doctrines, but by spotlighting the tenacity of that attitude by bringing it face to face with contemporary philosophical analysis. The critiques on the ambitions of traditional personalism were automatically steered clear of by virtue of the more modest approach to understanding of the self, but it also offered the groundwork of the answer to the challenge that structuralism presented. Approaching the concept of self as an attitude after all made it possible to take the structural analysis seriously. The analysis could this way develop into a detour that leads to a rediscovery of the self in a secondary reflection. This was the project that Ricoeur would eventually develop in his hermeneutic phenomenology of the self in Soi-même comme un autre, even if the structural analysis was largely replaced by the analysis

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in Anglo-American philosophy of action and theory of action. His aim was no longer to unveil the ultimate foundation for a personalist ethics but to arrive at an attestation, here understood as a trust that is stronger than all distrust. The analysis of the speaking and acting person in Soi-même comme un autre gave rise to a narrative understanding of human identity. Attested to throughout was an ability to speak and act and the possibility to recognize oneself as the main character in a life story. The person this way became an acting and suffering being, a relational being capable of initiative and selfconstancy. More precisely, the person was characterized by a double dialectic, a dialectic between sameness (idem) and self-constancy (ipse), and a dialectic between selfhood and alterity. This double dialectic acted as a bridge to ethics, where it resurfaced in the relation between self-esteem, solicitude, and justice in the ethical quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions. In his little ethics, Ricoeur demonstrated how the meaning of self-esteem remains abstract and incomplete in the reflexive connection between well-evaluated actions and the person performing those actions, unless we also integrate the relation with the other and with institutions. Solicitude and justice were this way both integrated into the concept of selfesteem. Ricoeur moreover explained how the ethical quest in which this connection is enclosed precedes moral norms by arguing that moral norms play an important purifying role vis-à-vis ethics, but that this deontology can never stand on its own. Moral norms always link back to the ethical quest. He particularly demonstrated this at the level of the political community, where stability was shown to depend on a deeper will to live together. The application of moral norms to concrete situations moreover proved to depend on a practical wisdom that was able to link the norms back to their ethical footing in a reflective equilibrium. In a nutshell, the hermeneutic phenomenology of the speaking, acting, and narrating person attested to the fundamental structures of personhood that formed the basis for a personalist ethics of the human person who only fully becomes a human in his attachment to others and in an institutional framework focused on the development of every person. In the article Approches de la personne (1992a), Ricoeur himself indicated that he saw this undertaking as a revitalization of Mounier’s philosophical project. His ethics safeguarded and strengthened the core arguments of personalism, while his criticism of the flawed foundations of traditional personalism found a response in the hermeneutic phenomenological attestation of the structures of personhood that buttress his ethics. Ricoeur moreover ended Soi-même comme un autre with ontological observations that established a new, nonfoundationalist bridge between personal ontology and ethics of the person. The first two points of critique of Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne this way received a comprehensive answer.

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All that was left was the third point of criticism. At first glance, Ricoeur had his answer ready by emphasizing the element of crisis in the human attitude. He presented the person’s commitment not as a recognition of an absolute and eternal set of values, but rather as a risky undertaking in which the nature of the values depends on the commitment itself. In other words, personalism’s framework of values was presented as essentially historical. This was not the endpoint, however, of the influence of Christian faith on Ricoeur’s reinterpretation of personalist thought. The unmistakable mixing of theological and philosophical reflections of his early work was absent from his later writings, but his faith continued to influence what he described as his post-Hegelian Kantianism. Ricoeur saw this dialectical thinking—a mediation between opposites without full reconciliation, taking into consideration the limits of rationality but focused on a practical self-understanding in which, as a rule, sense exceeds nonsense—as the philosophical equivalent of a theology of hope. He saw his faith as the source for that approach to philosophy but also as its horizon in the sense that the dialectic implies an overture to the mystery of faith. In his later work, this especially manifested itself in the dialectics between love and justice that pointed to a lack of meaning in his hermeneutic phenomenology from the creative tension between the logic of morality and that of the biblical message of love. Whether or not this undermined the autonomy of his philosophy has been the subject of debate. Still, it is at the very least possible to read his philosophical work without theological additions. The fact that it is then an unclosed philosophical system need not be a problem. The acknowledgment of a permanent lack of meaning may even prove indispensable to a duly modest philosophical reflection. NOTES 1. “Philosophy is, eventually, the work of an isolated individual” (own translation). 2. This ambition was according to Ricoeur to a large extent due to the influence of Alexandre Kojève’s (1902–1968) rediscovery of a Hegelian way of philosophizing (Ricoeur 1983b, 114). 3. “Short, personalism was not competitive enough to win the battle of concepts” (own translation). 4. For an analysis of Ricoeur’s stance with regard to Neo-Thomism, see Bergeron 1974, 163–65; Dosse 2008, 19–27. 5. “[It] is illusory to try to change all human relationships into a kind of communion. Love and friendship are rare relationships which spring up within the context of more abstract and anonymous relationships. These relationships are more extensive than intensive and constitute in some way the social fabric of the more intimate exchanges of private life.” 6. In opposition to Landsberg, Mounier explicitly rejected the possibility of presenting personalism as an attitude, although he himself did not want to call it a philosophical system either (E. Mounier 1962b, 429). 7. “To perceive my situation as crisis means to have lost the knowledge of one’s place in the universe. . . . To perceive oneself as a displaced person is the first constitutive moment of the personal attitude. We need to add the following: I also do not know anymore what stable

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hierarchy of values might guide my choices. The sky of fixed stars has become confused. I would even say: I can no longer distinguish my friends from my enemies” (own translation). 8. “Here we uncover a circular connection between the historicity of the commitment and the hierarchy-constituting activity, which reveals the dimension of debt in commitment itself. This circular connection constitutes what one might call in Hegelian terms a conviction. In the conviction I put myself at risk and I submit myself. I choose, but I tell myself: I cannot do otherwise. I take position, I choose sides and hence I recognize that which is so much bigger than me, so much more lasting, so much more worthy, that which makes me an insolvent debtor. The conviction is the reply to the crisis. My place is assigned to me, the hierarchy of preferences obliges me, the intolerable transforms me from a fugitive or a disinterested spectator into a man of conviction that discovers by creating and creates by discovering” (own translation). 9. Olivier Mongin is the director of Esprit since 1988. Jean-Louis Schlegel, a philosopher and sociologist of religion, is a prominent member of the editorial staff. 10. “The gamble that the advances of the good will eventually cumulate, and that the interruptions of evil do not constitute a system, that gamble is something I cannot prove. I cannot verify this. I can only attest to this if the crisis of history has become my intolerable and if peace has become my conviction” (own translation). 11. “Perhaps the essence of faith is to believe in the primacy of conciliation over rupture, and perhaps the possibility of philosophy rests upon this faith in primordial conciliation” (own translation). 12. “Hope says: the world is not the final home of freedom; I consent as much as possible, but hope to be delivered of the terrible and at the end of time to enjoy a new body and a new nature granted to freedom.” 13. “The values of civilization are ‘guaranteed’ by religious values” (own translation). 14. “It seems that in order to be independent in the elaboration of its problems, methods, and statements, philosophy must be dependent with respect to its sources and its profound motivation.” 15. Ricoeur’s loyalty to phenomenology rested on his conviction that phenomenology remained a precondition for hermeneutics. The hermeneutic search for meaning is founded on the assumption of an intentional consciousness focused on a meaning outside itself, always cognisant of being part of a Lebenswelt, as a prelinguistic experience that can never be understood in itself (Ricoeur 2004c, 377). He discussed the permanent Husserlian streak to his hermeneutic phenomenology at length in the essay Phénoménologie et herméneutique (Ricoeur 1986e, 61–81). For a discussion, see Rasmussen 2010. 16. For recent studies on the development of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, see especially Agís Villaverde 2012; Darwish 2011; Michel 2006. 17. “[In] the 1960s my hermeneutics remained centered on symbols while the symbols themselves continued to be defined by the semantic structure of double meaning. A broader reception of structural analysis required an ‘objective’ treatment of all the sign systems, beyond the specificity of symbols. What was to result from this was both a redefinition of the hermeneutical task and a more thorough overhaul of my reflexive philosophy.” 18. “So I exchange the me, master of itself, for the self, disciple of the text.” 19. Jocelyn Dunphy-Blomfield pointed me to this quote. See Dunphy-Blomfield 2012. 20. For Ricoeur’s analysis of this crossroads, see Ricoeur 1994b and Kemp 1995. 21. “The Ricoeurian self is a being that is not only concerned with its own being, but equally with the being of the other, with the plurality of mankind and the meaning of living together” (own translation). 22. “Would the self be the result if it wasn’t a presupposition to begin with, that is to say potentially capable of hearing the summons?” (own translation). 23. “How can one maintain an ethics of responsability, to which Ricoeur seems to be so attached, while only dissonance and chaos reign in one’s own heart? The task is, then, to justify the pertinence of a trajectory that henceforth intends to be teleological, following from the previous, and consisting of a process of reconquering oneself” (own translation). 24. “[R]eflection is the effort to recapture the Ego of the Ego Cogito in the mirror of its objects, its works its acts. . . . A reflective philosophy is the contrary of a philosophy of the

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immediate. The first truth—I am, I think—remains as abstract and empty as it is invincible; it has to be ‘mediated’ by the ideas, actions, works, institutions, and monuments that objectify it. It is in these objects, in the widest sense of the word, that the Ego must lose and find itself. . . . Consciousness, as we shall say later, is a task, but it is a task because it is not a given.” 25. “An assurance, without being a doxic certainty” (own translation). 26. The “self” expresses understanding of the self, but as a reflexive personal noun it emphasizes reflexivity, unlike the cogito’s direct understanding of the self. 27. Performative statements describe statements in which that which is being posited is realized by the statement itself, for instance in a promise. The illocutionary dimension of speech acts accounts for that which the speaker does by way of his statement (asking, promising, claiming, . . . ). See Austin 1962; Searle 1969. 28. Public language here refers to the opposite of what Ludwig Wittgenstein described as private language, which he used to describe language that refers to things that only the speaker can have direct knowledge of (Wittgenstein 2011, §243). 29. “What would make this discourse based on the ‘I can’ a different discourse is, in the last analysis, its reference to an ontology of one’s own body, that is of a body which is also my body and which, by its double allegiance to the order of physical bodies and to that of persons, therefore lies at the point of articulation of the power to act which is ours and of the course of things which belongs to the world order.ˮ 30. Ricoeur also referred to Éric Weil, who had formulated similar ideas (É. Weil 1950, 293–96). 31. “[A]iming at the good life with and for others in just institutions.” 32. “This exchange authorizes us to say that I cannot myself have self-esteem unless I esteem others as myself. ‘As myself’ means that you too are capable of starting something in the world, of acting for a reason, of hierarchizing your priorities, of evaluating the ends of your actions, and, having done this, of holding yourself in esteem as I hold myself in esteem.” 33. See also Ricoeur 1991h, 1991k. 34. Ricoeur relied on both a positive (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” Lc 6, 31) and a negative phrasing (“Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you” Babylonian Talmud, Sabbath, 31a) of the Golden Rule (Ricoeur 1990, 255). 35. “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (Kant 2002, 37). 36. “In other words, we have always known the difference between persons and things: we can obtain things, exchange them, use them; the manner of existing of persons consists precisely in the fact that they cannot be obtained, utilized, or exchanged.” 37. The agreed-to general distribution rules concluded are: “First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all” (Rawls 1972, 60). 38. Ricoeur recognized that Rawls himself confessed to this dependence with the ambition of achieving a so-called reflexive equilibrium, with a mutual redirection taking place between conviction and theory. He argued, however, that Rawls this way insufficiently addressed the lasting dependence of the good (Ricoeur 1990, 274–75; 1991a, 217–31). 39. “If now, by moving backward, we carry this doubt affecting the fiction of the contract back to the principle of autonomy, does not the latter also risk finding itself a fiction intended to compensate for forgetting the foundations of deontology in the desire to live well with and for others in just institutions?” 40. Ricoeur here pointed to Claude Lefort’s political theories, which distinguished between democracy and totalitarianism based on precisely this recognition of the fundamental indefiniteness of the foundation of power and the accompanying institutionalization of conflict (Lefort 1983). 41. These ethical reasons refer to the buttresses of pluralism and tolerance that can be found in many cultural traditions and this way can form an overlapping consensus (Ricoeur 1990, 303–4).

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42. “[I]t is to solicitude, concerned with the otherness of persons . . . that respect refers, in those cases where it is itself the source of conflicts. . . . But this is not the somewhat ‘naïve’ solicitude of the seventh study but a ‘critical’ solicitude that has passed through the double test of the moral conditions of respect and the conflicts generated by the latter. This critical solicitude is the form that practical wisdom takes in the region of interpersonal relations.” 43. Ricoeur later clarified that the third step suggests a proliferation of ethics, in the sense that the journey through morality is de facto and systematically linked back to the ethical quest in the context of the different application areas, so that ethics only acquire “visibility” and “readability” in the plural form, as medical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, and so on (Ricoeur 2001e, 63–68). His petite éthique could this way be approached in a different manner, from éthique to éthiques, through moral obligation (Ricoeur 2001a, 9). 44. By giving such weight to Sittlichkeit, Ricoeur was also responding to the personalist belief in a socio-economic and political institutional framework indispensable to the human person’s development, as we will further discuss below. 45. Ricoeur illustrated this prospective dimension to responsibility through the writings of Hans Jonas. Based on the reach of our actions, he reformulated the categorical imperative as “Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life” (Jonas 1984, 11). For Ricoeur’s discussion of Jonas’ responsibility principle, see Ricoeur 1990, 317, 342; 1991d, 283–89; 1995e, 41–70. 46. “We are witnessing . . . the first meanderings of a cyclical course where the explorations pursued to exhaustion along one path are are given up only to be rediscovered farther on, enriched by this forgetting and by the discoveries for which it cleared a path.” 47. “I wanted to say that the person is still the most appropriate term to designate those investigations for which neither the term ‘con-sciousness,’ nor ‘subject,’ nor ‘individual’ really apply. . . . I would like to discuss some of those investigations here, beyond the point reached in that essay, where I restricted myself to defining the person by an attitude in Eric Weil’s sense. . . . Following Paul Landsberg, I used the criteria of crisis and commitment, adding to the latter certain corollaries such as fidelity over time to a higher cause, and acceptance of alterity and difference within personal identity. Now I would like to make use of contemporary investigations into language, action and narrative in order to provide the ethical constitution of the person with a substratum and roots, comparable to those explored by Emmanuel Mounier in Traité du Caractère. In this sense, the present study is an extension of Mounier’s book.” 48. “There is only ethics for a being capable not only of designating itself as a locutor, but also of designating itself as an agent of its own action. It is in this way that the ethical triad— concern for self, concern for the other, concern for the institution—rejoins the triad of praxis: ascription of action to its agent, interaction between agents and patients, standards of excellence.” 49. “My three-term formula—self-esteem, solicitude, just institutions—seems in my opinion to complete rather than refute the two-term formula. I distinguish interpersonal relations, whose emblem is friendship, from institutional relations, whose ideal is justice. It seems to me this distinction is entirely beneficial for personalism itself.” See also Ricoeur 1995c, 36. 50. “[A] ground of being, at once potentiality and actuality.” 51. Johann Michel rightly observes that Ricoeur shows “a certain cautiousness to face matters of ontology” throughout his oeuvre (Michel 2009, 480), but this is especially evident in this text. 52. “This point is that human being has no mastery over the inner, intimate certitude of existing as a self; this is something that comes to us, that comes upon us, like a gift, a grace, that is not at our disposal.” 53. “In order to seal the convenant between the phenomenology of human capacity and the ethics of the wish for a good life, I will say that the esteem, which on the ethical plane precedes what Kant calls respect on the moral plane, is addressed in a primordial fashion to the capable human being. Reciprocally, it is as capable that human beings are eminently worthy of esteem.” 54. “In the last analysis, it is the act of actually keeping one’s word that constitutes the actual transition between the ‘metaphysical’ and the ‘moral’ sides of self-constancy.” 55. “As for the ‘place’ where the junction between examination and charging or discharging takes place, this is no longer moral judgment considered from the angle of its claim to univer-

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sality, but rather moral judgment in some concrete situation. . . . Inward conviction and real equity toward others thus constitute the privileged ‘places’ of the actual junction between the descriptive dimension of conscience and the prescriptive dimension of moral imputation.” 56. The core ideas of Soi-même comme un autre loom large in Ricoeur’s entire later philosophy. In his final extensive study, The Course of Recognition (Ricoeur 2004b), he reformulated these ideas in the context of the theory of recognition that had by then become more prominent in philosophy. 57. Parts of this section “Love and Justice: Hope as Keystone” were previously published in Dutch in Deweer, Dries. 2016. “De gecontroleerde schizofrenie van een gelovige filosoof. Ricoeurs posthegeliaans kantianisme.” De Uil van Minerva: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis en Wijsbegeerte van de Cultuur 29 (2): 133–56. 58. The focus on hope is analogous with Charles Péguy’s influence on personalism. 59. See also Van Leeuwen 1981, 179–89; Vincent 2008, 22. 60. “Preaching is not, for the intelligence, a limit that stops it, a prohibition that shuts its mouth and shocks it, but a recourse and a reservoir of meaning that still and always gives food for thoughtˮ (own translation). 61. Recently, Jean-Pierre Thévenaz has described this as a philosophical indication of that which brings us salvation, without naming it (Thévenaz 2014). 62. A similar interpretation is made by Kevin Vanhoozer (Vanhoozer 1980, 256). 63. Cf. “Le sens pour moi de la Croix et de la Résurrection, c’est que l’homme est possible, c’est-à-dire n’est pas impossible” (Ricoeur 1968, 56). 64. These ideas were also elaborated in the essays La Règle d’Or en question (Ricoeur 1994d), Une obéissance aimante (Ricoeur 1998), and The Logic of Jesus, The Logic of God (Ricoeur 1995i). The same philosophy-exceeding dialectics play an important role in the remainder of his later work. Another important example is to be found in La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, where he broadened his reflections on history and memory by talking at the end about difficult, yet not impossible forgiveness as “l’horizon commun d’accomplissement” (Ricoeur 2000, 376). 65. “My own suggestion would be that the highest point the ideal of justice can envision is that of a society in which the feeling of mutual dependence—even mutual indebtedness— remains subordinate to the idea of mutual disinterest. . . . The juxtaposition of interests prevents the idea of justice from attaining the level of a true recognition and a solidarity such that each person feels indebted to every other person.” 66. Although love is in the Bible also subject to an imperative, Ricoeur talked about the love commandment as a “poetic imperative” (Ricoeur 2008, 22). 67. “If the hypermoral is not to turn into the non-moral—not to say the immoral; for example, cowardice—it has to pass through the principle of morality, summed up in the golden rule and formalized by the rule of justice.” 68. “Love presses justice to enlarge the circle of mutual recognition.” 69. “Love as you have been loved.” 70. “This, in my opinion is the only acceptable sense of the notion of theonomy. Love obligates; and what it obligates is a loving obedience. . . . In this sense, theonomy, understood as a summons to loving obedience, engenders autonomy, understood as a summons to responsibility. Here we touch upon a delicate point where a certain founding passivity links up with an active acceptance of responsibility.” 71. “However, I do not want to insinuate that the self as formed and conformed in accordance with the biblical paradigms crowns the self of our philosophical hermeneutics. That would be betraying our unambiguous affirmation according to which the Christian lifestyle is a challenge and a fate, and that whoever takes it on is not authorized by his confession to hold on to a defensive position nor to rely on a superiority with regard to other lifestyles, given the lack of comparative criteria able to decide between opposing claims” (own translation). 72. “[The thought of Ricoeur] appeals without a doubt to hermeneutic reflection, but it does so on the basis of presuppositions that justify this appeal. In my opinion, problems rise to the extent to which, on the one hand, Ricoeur doesn’t explicitate these presuppositions, and, on the other hand, these presuppositions, when brought to light, tend to pull Ricoeur out of modern philosophical discourse and the requirements that have been imposed upon us since Kant:

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either not to be able to maintain the exercise of philosophy unless on the basis of falsifiable principles . . . , or to admit that one leaves modern philosophy behind, up until the point where one can no longer distinguish oneself from the exercise of obscurantism” (own translation). 73. In response to Ricoeur’s La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (2000) Alain Badiou voiced more or less the same criticism (Badiou 2002). 74. “It is simply true that Ricoeur, in the whole of his work and in Oneself as Another in particular, did not exactly do what he said in the preface of his book. . . . Not that his philosophy can be called Christian . . . , but, in any case, it implies the intrinsic possibility of a dialogue with biblical hermeneutics and theology. How could the dialectics between love and justice be possible if human justice didn’t already present in itself the characteristics that make it capable of being questioned as such?” (own translation). 75. “In the end, the reader asks himself the question whether he wasn’t led into the domain of faith, not only on the last page, but from the very first pages of this reflection on the self onward” (own translation). 76. “Knowing the importance of these convictions, the suspicious reader is inclined to look behind Ricoeur’s most philosophical arguments for the phantom of the biblical Godˮ (own translation). 77. “Grace, here, is not a religious category, but a postulate of the suffering consciousness. It is precisely the translation of the admission, by the suffering man, of his incapability to persevere in being, and his longing for help that he cannot provide to himself. That is how the phenomenological source of the polarity that unites finitude and transcendence comes to light” (own translation). 78. For recent examples, see Blundell 2010, Chauvet 2011, and Stiver 2012. For recent overviews of Ricoeur’s influence in theology, see Frey et al. 2013 and Stiver 2012. 79. “I am not a Christian philosopher, as rumour would have it, in a deliberately pejorative, even discriminatory sense. I am on one side a philosopher, even a philosopher without an absolute. . . . And on the other hand a Christian who expresses himself philosophically, as Rembrandt is a painter, nothing more and a Christian who expresses himself illustratively and as Bach is both a musician, nothing more, and a Christian who expresses himself musically.” 80. “I recognize all difficulties of this situation, including the suspicion that in reality I would not have managed to maintain this duality as strictly. . . . It is not surprising to find in the two registers analogies that may become affinities, and I recognize this, because I do not believe that I am master of the game, nor master of meaning.”

Chapter Four

Ricoeur’s Personalist Political Philosophy Continuity and Relevance

THE CONTINUITY OF RICOEUR’S POLITICAL THOUGHT Politics and Ethics: Continuity of a Project In the first chapter we found that personalism contains a distinct political philosophy. On the one hand personalist political thought emphasized the ethical meaning of democracy, i.e., the institutionalization of freedom and equality in such a way that it enables every being to flourish as a person. On the other hand it was marked by a fundamental distrust with regard to politics, because of the permanent threat of perversion and oppression. In light of these two core ideas the personalist plea for vigilant and active citizenship was essential. The second chapter showed how Ricoeur was engaged in this personalist tradition. His personalist reflections in the two decades after World War II culminated in a vision of the paradoxical nature of politics and the consequent responsibility of each citizen. In view of our finding that Ricoeur displayed critical loyalty to personalism in his later philosophy it should come as no surprise that the political dimension of personalism also affects Ricoeur’s more recent philosophy. It is essential for us to understand that Ricoeur’s political philosophy maintained a strong coherence throughout his entire career. Some scholars focus on evolution. They emphasize that Ricoeur’s early political thought was characterized by an activist plea for personalist socialism, while in a later stage his work became dominated by a more liberal and consentient 163

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perspective. Johann Michel in particular writes about a turn in Ricoeur’s mind through the confrontation with the philosophy of Hannah Arendt and John Rawls (Michel 2006, 393–94). 1 Talking about a turn is, however, misleading. Of course we can discern some shifts in a philosophical career that spans more than half a century. The social context within which the elderly Ricoeur wrote differed notably—definitely after the end of the Cold War— from the turbulent years immediately after World War II. This leaves tracks in Ricoeur’s political philosophy. In that regard Olivier Mongin notes that there is a changed historical mentality behind the continuity in Ricoeur’s work: “[Ricoeur] n’a aucunement perdu ses marques, largués les amarres d’une pensée politique. . . . Il n’en démeure pas moins—et ce sentiment a favorisé chez commentateurs et lecteurs l’idée d’une césure—que la réflexion politique de Ricoeur est désormais rythmée par des concepts moins dramatiques, moins influencés par l’œuvre de Jaspers ou marqués par le climat de l’après-guerre” (Mongin 1994, 52–53). 2 Pierre-Olivier Monteil remarks along the same lines that the question of political evil was at the heart of his early political writings, while the focus in Ricoeur’s return to political philosophy from the 1980s onward was on law and justice rather than on evil (Monteil 2013b, 19–20). His reading of the Anglo-American theories of justice—principally Rawls—has undoubtedly something to do with this. However, the evolution of Ricoeur’s thought, in light of the passing of time and political history and of the incorporation of more recent authors, is grafted onto a continuous, but fragmentary philosophical project. Monteil argues that Ricoeur throughout his entire career criticized both liberal capitalism and Marxist socialism on the basis of an ethical perspective that places positive liberty at the heart of political thought (Monteil 2013a). Similarly, David Kaplan contends that Ricoeur’s political thought consistently shows a perspective that connects leftist socio-economic leanings with both political liberalism and communitarian thought (Kaplan 2003). Bernard Dauenhauer deserves credit for being the first to emphasize that this continuity bears the imprint of Mounier’s personalism: “From its earliest articulations, Ricoeur’s political thought displays striking affinities with Mounier’s concerns. Furthermore, themes that run throughout Ricoeur’s political thought are themes that are prominently in evidence in Mounier’s version of personalism” (Dauenhauer 1998, 13). Building on Bernard Dauenhauer’s finding, I will indicate how the elder Ricoeur went deeper into the topics of his early personalist political philosophy. Before we broach this subject we have to look back at Soi-même comme un autre. As we have seen, one can read this book as a revival of the personalist conception of personhood. Personalism has always been characterized by a connection of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and politics. When Ricoeur returned to political philosophy, these reflections were not isolated either. They were rather linked to the anthropology and the little

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ethics of Soi-même comme un autre. The importance of institutional relations as opposed to interpersonal relations constituted the essential connector. 3 In his intellectual autobiography Ricoeur wrote about this: “La distinction entre deux sortes d’autrui, le toi des relations interpersonnelles et le chacun de la vie dans les institutions, me parut assez forte pour assurer le passage de l’éthique à la politique et pour donner un ancrage suffisant à mes essais antérieurs ou en cours sur les paradoxes du pouvoir politique et les difficultés de l’idée de justice” (Ricoeur 1995h, 80). 4 In his little ethics Ricoeur made use of the philosophy of Hegel to substantiate the importance of institutions and to connect politics and ethics. 5 What he adopted from Hegel was the idea that the capabilities and predispositions implied in human action can only flourish in a particular institutional environment. In terms of his hermeneutical-phenomenological anthropology this came down to the idea that the full scope of the speaking, acting, narrating, and responsible person only comes about within the context of a political community: “[L]’homme se définit fondamentalement par des pouvoirs qui n’accèdent à leur pleine effectuation que sous le régime de l’existence politique, autrement dit dans le cadre d’une cité” (Ricoeur 1993b, 6, original italicization). 6 In this sense the role of institutions in his anthropology bridges ethics and politics. The attestation of personhood colors ethics as a pursuit of the good life with and for others in just institutions. The third element of this formula implies that the political task of man is a continuation of his ethical task. This is a consequence of the impact of political power, understood as the power enclosed in the will to live together: “[Le] pouvoir politique est, à travers tous les niveaux de pouvoir considérés plus haut, en continuité avec le pouvoir par lequel nous avons caractérisé l’homme capable. En retour, il confère à cet édifice de pouvoir une perspective de durée et de stabilité et, plus fondamentalement encore, l’horizon de la paix publique, comprise comme tranquilité de l’ordre” (Ricoeur 1993b, 11). 7 In other words, the political task consists of developing and conserving an institutional framework that structurally enables everyone to make full use of the human capabilities. Of course we are not talking about just any institutional framework. In the formulation of the ethical pursuit institutions are connected to the virtue of justice, by which Ricoeur explicitly indicated that he counted the political among the domain of ethical interactions (Ricoeur 1993b, 10–11). Political ethics is, hence, not to be detached from the basic ethical pursuit, but it does express a distinct dimension, as it concerns the recognition of the unique dignity of every person within the collectivity of the will to live together: “[La] justice, par son caractère distributif, apporte l’élément de distinction, d’articulation, de coordination, qui manque à la notion de vouloir vivre ensemble, laquelle, sans ce correctif important, céderait à la pente fusionnelle du rapport à autrui, comme le vérifient les nationalismes et autres réductions

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du lien politique à un lien ethnique” (Ricoeur 1993b, 11–12, original italicization). 8 The political is, therefore, a sphere of application of the ethical pursuit. Ricoeur summarized the ethics of the political as the creation of “spaces of liberties.” Ultimately, this means that the ethical pursuit is in the political sphere aimed at the utopia of a state where everyone receives according to their needs. More concretely, Ricoeur talked about equality before the law as a “decisive threshold” for political ethics (Ricoeur 1986h, 444–45). As the foundation of a constitutional state, equality before the law was for Ricoeur the pre-eminent issue in which political action shows itself to be an extension of ethics, but also of morality, in accordance with his distinction of these two notions (Ricoeur 1993b, 12). Although Ricoeur emphasized the connection between politics and ethics, he simultaneously explained that this connection is an intersection, rather than the containment of a subset (Ricoeur 1986h, 433). He did not lose sight of the particularity of the political domain. We have already seen that his distinction between interpersonal and institutional relations was meant to correct the inclination of original personalism to conceive of the political community after the model of friendship. The particularity of the “long” indirect relations that connect us with anonymous others within institutions translates to the focus on justice, rather than on the friendly solicitude within “short” direct relations. Similarly, the autonomy of the political domain was also expressed in its relationship with human happiness. Ricoeur argued that the just should not be detached from the good, but at the same time he emphasized that politics cannot aim at making people happy. Happiness is according to Ricoeur always “hors lieu,” 9 especially in the political domain. A state that wants to make people happy lapses in no time into nothing less than the sum of all evil. However, that does not alter the fact that the state must be aimed at the realization of public preconditions for happiness, namely a just distribution of primary social goods, which is only possible if politics maintains its connection to ethics, so that formal rules of justice remain rooted in a fundamental sense of justice (Ricoeur 1991n, 178–88; 1994a, 332–36). The combination of the fact that the state has a crucial role to play in the creation of a framework in which people can pursue their own happiness with the proviso that the state must remain sufficiently modest brings us back to the political paradox (Abel 1992, 37–38). In Ricoeur’s own words: “Ce qui peut nous prémunir contre l’exaltation supra-éthique, c’est le rappel constant des paradoxes qui affectent la position de l’État en tant que pouvoir” (Ricoeur 1993b, 14). 10 Here the connection of anthropology, ethics, and politics comes again to the surface. Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology of the capable man showed a personhood that couples great potential with ingrained fragility. This general vulnerability of personhood also comes to the fore in the form of political fragility. The issue of the political paradox,

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initially formulated in 1957, remained, thus, on the agenda in Ricoeur’s more recent political reflections. In the following we will look more closely at the further elaboration that Ricoeur gave to the concept of the political paradox and the consequent vision of citizenship and political responsibility. The Political Paradoxes Ricoeur’s initial formulation of the political paradox came about within the context of disappointment over the political violence in the communist Eastern bloc. The fundamental cause of what went wrong there was according to Ricoeur the failure to appreciate the autonomy of the political, with the autonomous rationality of political power, but also with its own evil, in the form of an inherent tendency toward oppression. He linked the historical events to a hypothesis on the permanent and unchanging paradoxical nature of the political. This hypothesis explained that the greatest possibilities— liberty, equality, fraternity—and the greatest risks—oppression and violence—go hand in hand in the political domain. As such Ricoeur touched upon the core of political action, but all things considered the concept of the political paradox remained a rather vague idea. During the 1970s further explicitly political philosophical reflection was put on ice, but in the course of the 1980s Ricoeur returned to the idea of the political paradox to confront his hypothesis with a new context and new authors (Monteil 2013b, 25–143; Padis 2006, 217). It never came to a systematic account, but he elaborated his initial idea in several essays into three distinct, yet related variants. The first restatement came about in the essay Éthique et politique, included in the volume Du texte à l’action (Ricoeur 1986h). This essay displays a remarkable continuity with the initial article, except for the fact that Ricoeur no longer draws his inspiration from Éric Weil and Max Weber alone, but also from Hannah Arendt (Roman 1988). Both Weil and Arendt emphasized the distinction between economic and political action. 11 Building on this distinction, Ricoeur referred back to Le paradoxe politique, where he had argued that the autonomy of the political reveals itself in what happens under the presupposition that the political can be reduced to the economic, as is the case in Marxism. If the elimination of economic alienation is the only concern and the political regime, consequently, does not matter, then a political alienation crops up independently from the economic. In that regard Ricoeur referred to a political rationality that radically differs from economic rationality (Ricoeur 1986h, 434–38). For the content of this rationality Ricoeur still built on Weil’s definition of the state as the organization of a historical community that allows it to make decisions in order to survive. He analyzed the different elements in this definition (Ricoeur 1986h, 438–40). Firstly, the context of a historical community places political rationality at a concrete level, as opposed to the

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formal and universal level of economic efficiency. Secondly, the element of organization outlines political rationality as a matter of distribution of spheres, roles, rights, and responsibilities. This distribution is what makes the individual a free citizen. Finally, the objective of the survival of the community implies that the state is neither arbitrary nor artificial, for the state is essentially linked to the community in such way that its rationality is placed in the forefront: “Même s’il est vrai que tous les États ont leur origine dans la violence . . . , ce n’est pas la violence qui définit l’État mais sa finalité, à savoir aider la communauté à faire son histoire” (Ricoeur 1986h, 440, original italicization). 12 The rationality of political action was according to Ricoeur at the heart of the philosophies of Weil and Arendt. They presented the state primarily in the form of a constitutional state, as the collection of real conditions and guarantees that ensure legal equality for all citizens, such as the separation of powers and civic education. Ricoeur connected this rationality to the reconciliation of techno-economic rationality and historical Sittlichkeit: “L’État est alors la synthèse du rationnel et de l’historique, de l’efficace et du juste. Sa vertu est la prudence . . . ; entendons par là que sa vertu est de faire tenir ensemble le critère du calcul efficace et le critère des traditions vivantes qui donnent à la communauté le caractère d’un organisme particulier, visant à l’indépendence et à la durée” (Ricoeur 1986h, 441). 13 Whereas Ricoeur read the emphasis on the rationality of the political in Weil and Arendt, he returned to Max Weber for the other side of the coin. In Weber’s definition of the state as an association that holds the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force it is not rationality, but violence that takes center stage. Ricoeur distinguished three elements in this dimension of violence. The first element relates to the founding of the state, which always goes hand in hand with war, violent revolution, or oppression: “Tous les États modernes sont issus de la violence des rassembleurs de terres. . . . Il n’est donc pas contestable que l’État le plus raisonable, l’État de droit, porte la cicatrice de la violence originelle des tyrans faiseurs d’histoire. En ce sens, l’arbitraire reste cosubstantiel à la forme même de l’État” (Ricoeur 1986h, 442). 14 A residue of this original violence remains present in politics, said Ricoeur, for politics continues to be marked by a struggle for power that carries oppression and violence with it. That is the second element (Ricoeur 1986h, 442). The third element of violence, to conclude, was according to Ricoeur enclosed in the basic non-universality of the state, and all exclusions and rivalry that this brings along: “Enfin, une violence résiduelle continue d’affliger l’État le plus proche de l’idéal de l’État de droit, en ceci que tout État est particulier, individuel, empirique; alors que la structure techno-économique est mondiale par principe, la communauté politique est particulière et différente par principe, la préservation de son identité faisant partie de sa fonction” (Ricoeur 1986h, 442–43). 15 In that regard Ricoeur endorsed the ideal of a world state, definitely in the nuclear age, where the rivalry between

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states threatens the existence of every single community on earth. However, it is exactly because of the dimension of violence in all political action that a world state remains perforce nothing but a utopia (Ricoeur 1986h, 443–44). The breakdown of different faces of political violence was an important addition to the initial formulation of the political paradox. However, the conclusion that politics and violence go hand in hand still does not allow us to be tempted to forget the positive side, the rationality of political liberty (Ricoeur 1986h, 442). Both rationality and violence are part of a complete definition of the state. Consequently, Ricoeur was steered toward a first restatement of the political paradox, namely as a confrontation of form and force in the very definition of the state (Ricoeur 1986h, 441). Form refers to the rational, formal side of the establishment of political power, as it is preeminently expressed in the constitution, which guarantees legal equality and mutual checks and balances between the legislative, the executive, and the juridical powers. Force refers to the irrationality of original and residual violence related to the pursuit, the acquisition, and the consolidation of power. Political power, according to Ricoeur, is always an encounter of both elements, in which the founding violence is institutionalized under pressure of juridical rationality. Even the constitutional state does not escape the paradox. It is also characterized by force, in the shape of the monopoly on violence and the police force in which this is expressed. What characterizes the constitutional state in light of Ricoeur’s paradox is, then, a fragile equilibrium in which the force remains subservient to the juridical form, which humanizes and institutionalizes the force (Ricoeur 1986h, 440–43; 1993b, 14; 2003a, 133–34). The paradox of form and force turned out to be an inexhaustive description of the paradoxical nature of the political domain. A few years later Ricoeur indicated that a second paradox can be distinguished, a paradox that is even more fundamental (Ricoeur 1993b, 15). Again it was his reading of Hannah Arendt that gave inspiration. In her essay On Violence Arendt argued that violence may well be capable of destroying power, but not of creating power. The prevailing conviction that violence is able to create power is founded on a confusion that Arendt tried to clear up by distinguishing between power, as the capacity to act in concert, and violence, as a mere instrument. The temptation of violence is, in other words, a consequence of a wrongful interpretation of the essence of the political as a matter of submission and domination instead of collective action (Arendt 1970). In a couple of essays Ricoeur endorsed this basic assumption and backed Arendt against the claim that her theory would be based on nothing else than the authority of the tradition of the Greek polis (Ricoeur 1991h; 1991i; 1991k). He argued that she did not so much lean on the Greek tradition as on modern political thought, in which the idea of directive but non-coerced rules is central. This idea of power, based

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solely on the consent of the political actors, undermines every attempt at founding power on something else. The question is, then, how to conceive of this consent that is irreducible to domination. Arendt’s answer is the human capability to act in concert. As such, she was able to separate power and violence, in the sense that power is only ascribable to a group, while violence is not restricted to this, because it can rely on instruments. Hence, power is non-hierarchical, as opposed to domination, and non-instrumental, as opposed to violence (Ricoeur 1991k, 22–26). To understand what justifies these distinctions, Ricoeur argued that we have to interpet Arendt’s idea of the constitution of power as a forgotten source of agreement: “Mon interprétation est celle-ci: la constitution du pouvoir dans une pluralité humaine . . . a le statut de l’oublié. Mais cet oubli, inhérent à la constitution du consentement qui fait le pouvoir, ne renvoie à aucun passé. . . . En ce sens, un oubli sans nostalgie. Un oubli de ce qui constitue le présent de notre vivre-ensemble” (Ricoeur 1991k, 29). 16 The emphasis on the presence of this source of agreement served already as a partial rebuttal of the accusations of nostalgia against Arendt. Furthermore, he also indicated the fact that Arendt characterized power itself as something fragile. If power is constituted by collective action, then it is dependent on it and, consequently, it is lost when people go their own way (Ricoeur 1991h, 18; 1991k, 40). That is why power needs to be reinforced by what Arendt named authority, that is to say an energy that is passed down through the ages from within the foundation of the political community. It is the relation to founding events that provides collective action with a durability that it otherwise would lack, in the sense that it would be dependent on the continuous reiteration of momentaneous consent. Against appearances, Ricoeur emphasized that Arendt again does not rely on tradition to constitute authority: “On ne peut pas parler chez Arendt d’une autorité de la tradition, mais d’une tradition de l’autorité. . . . N’ont de chance à réussir, c’est-à-dire d’instituer un régime durable, que les révolutions qui parviennent à s’autoriser d’entreprises fondatrices antérieures, toutes les révolutions s’autorisant ainsi mutuellement, s’augmentant chacune de l’ambition fondatrice des autres” (Ricoeur 1991k, 41–42, original italicization). 17 According to Ricoeur, the reference to the tradition of authority stemmed the tide of the pretension of a regime to constitute its own foundation (Ricoeur 2001b, 120–22). Political power that wants to be legitimate and durable must be based on both the consent of the people here and now and the consent that radiates from the foundation of the historical community. In that regard Hannah Arendt steered Ricoeur toward a characterization of the fragility of politics in terms of a double oblivion: firstly, the oblivion of what we are on the basis of our action in concert; secondly, the oblivion of what we were on the basis of a preceding foundation that is always presupposed, yet probably never ascertained (Ricoeur 1991h, 17–19; 1991k, 42).

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By means of his interpretation of Hannah Arendt, Ricoeur was able to give further content to intuitions that were always part of his political thought, namely on the collective assumption of responsibility as the source of power. 18 Thus, in Soi-même comme un autre he was able to refer to Arendt to argue that institutional relations do not primarily constitute a coercive normative framework, but rather a shared ethical pursuit that is expressed in the ability to act in concert (Ricoeur 1990, 227–30). Moreover, he also found inspiration there for a second restatement of the political paradox. Together with Arendt, Ricoeur considered the will to live together as conditio sine qua non of a political community, while he also acknowledged that it is not a sufficient condition, as a political bond always contains a relationship of rulers and subjects (Ricoeur 1993b, 15). Both elements constitute the political community, which implies a particular fragility: “Une deuxième source de fragilité provient de l’entrecroisement, au niveau du pouvoir, entre une relation verticale de domination/subordination et une relation horizontale constituée par le vouloir-vivre-ensemble d’une communauté historique” (Ricoeur 2003a, 134). 19 This paradoxical mixture of a horizontal and a vertical relationship makes politics vulnerable, as Ricoeur indicates that the horizontal relationship is always in danger of being forgotten behind the prominence of the vertical relationship: L’autorité issue du rapport hiérarchique, tend à masquer, voire inhiber et refouler, le vouloir-vivre-ensemble, source véritable du pouvoir. Le fragile ultime, c’est bien ce vouloir-vivre-ensemble qui est fondateur sans le savoir et qui ne se connaît que dans le danger—la patrie est en danger!—et plus douloureusement dans la défaite où, comme le mot l’indique, tout se défait. Ce qui se défait dans la défaite c’est le lien de coopération, si caché et si enfoui qu’il est comme oublié. C’est pourtant sur lui qu’est greffé le rapport de domination, lequel ne fonctionne bien qu’à faveur de ce que La Boétie appelait “soumission volontaire.” (Ricoeur 2003a, 134) 20

Together with Éric Weil, Ricoeur emphasized time and time again that politics is what provides a historical community with durability and that it, therefore, answers the problem of the fragility of human action. However, in light of the paradoxicality of political action the answer to human fragility contains itself a particular fragility. The political fragility that results from the second paradox—the paradox of horizontality and verticality—manifests itself in many ways. Within the context of modern representative democracy it is, for example, revealed in the problem of representation: “[La démocratie représentative] se révèle de plus en plus fragile, dès lors que mon représentant élu, tenu en principe pour mon alter ego, s’avère, à peine élu, appartenir à un autre monde, le monde politique qui obéit à ses lois propres de gravitation” (Ricoeur 2003a, 134–35). 21 Whereas everyone is equal at the moment of the election, in expression of the horizontal bond between the citizens of a

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political community, a vertical difference emerges once the elect are known. For the representatives are then (also) at the top of the vertical relationship, while ordinary citizens are in fact (only) at the bottom, while they are in principle supposed to be present at the top through their representatives. The tension between the horizontal and the vertical relationship is at the basis of the phenomenon in which representatives become estranged from the voters, whose values and interests they are supposed to represent. However, Ricoeur found the main expression of the fragility that ensues from the paradox of domination and the will to live together in the legitimacy crisis that plagues modern politics. The vertical relationship of domination must get its legitimacy somewhere. In modern society—where the authority of tradition and religion can no longer be decisive—this is far from obvious. It is, then, exactly in the horizontal relationship within the political community that legitimacy is to be found. At this point Ricoeur referred to Claude Lefort’s theory of democracy. 22 Lefort argued that democracy is essentially undetermined as regards its foundation (Lefort 1983). Ricoeur recognized this indeterminacy, but he refused to acquiesce (Ricoeur 1990, 303–4; 1995b, 156–57; 1996, 175–76). He was convinced that the foundation of democracy needs to remain on the agenda, but then as a task and as a necessarily plural matter, embedded in the ethics of the will to live together. Concretely, we need a dialogue to create a “multifoundation” (Ricoeur 2001b, 123) or “plurifoundation” (Ricoeur 2003b, 267) out of the diversity of conceptions of the good. A reinterpretation of the complex historical build-up of modern democratic society is to make this happen. It is a matter of recognizing from within different philosophical and religious traditions that these traditions together constitute a basis for the legitimacy of democracy. That is, then, the fragile basis to found the vertical relationship in the horizontal relationship of mutual tolerance and recognition of pluralism, aware of the fact that this overlapping consensus can always be called into question again. In that regard Ricoeur emphasized that it is important to compensate for the prominence of Enlightenment ideals by also taking into account Jewish, Christian, Greek, and other axiological roots. Only then can the Enlightenment be detached from its perversions, pointedly summarized by Ricoeur as follows: “Le même homme qui se vise autonome se découvre seul” (Ricoeur 1991j, 172). 23 This plea for plural intellectual input in public space is something Ricoeur explicitly linked to the political philosophical legacy of Emmanuel Mounier (Ricoeur 2003b, 267). Next to the paradox of form and force and the paradox of the horizontal will to live together and vertical domination Ricoeur also traced a third political paradox. This time it was not Arendt who gave the initial impetus, but Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice (1983) and the in some respects similar work De la justification (1991), by French sociologists Luc Boltanski and

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Laurent Thévenot. Walzer critized John Rawls’ theory of justice by pointing out the irreducible plurality of the goods that are to be distributed in society. He argues that this plurality makes it impossible to devise a unitary theory of distributive justice, since the “spheres” to which the primary social goods— such as money, power, status, health, education, and so on—belong, all function in accordance with their own historically developed internal logic. A theory of justice should, therefore, not be based on overarching principles, but rather on what Walzer called “complex equality.” This term refers to a distributive system that keeps inequalities that can be justified in one sphere (e.g., meritocratic income inequality) from interfering with the distribution in another sphere (e.g., access to health care). Boltanski and Thévenot also describe an irreducible pluralism in society, although they don’t focus on the goods to be distributed but rather on the strategies of justification that are used to evaluate people and actions within different social domains or “orders of worth” (cités), such as the market order, the civic order, the domestic order, and so on. They focused on the need and the impossibilty of compromises in case of disputes in which ultimate principles of justification coming from different orders collide. 24 What Ricoeur found remarkable in both works was the place of the political domain. Walzer, Boltanski, and Thévenot all mainly talked about the political as a domain like all the other domains. Ricoeur considered this an underestimation of the question of sovereignty that is typical of the political. In the terminology of Walzer the political sphere is not only responsible for the distribution of a particular good (political power), but also for guarding the borders between the different spheres: “[Le politique] paraît aujourd’hui constituer à la fois une sphère de la justice parmi les autres, en tant que le pouvoir politique est lui aussi un bien à distribuer, et l’enveloppe de toutes les sphères, en tant qu’il est le gardien de l’espace public à l’intérieur duquel s’affrontent les biens sociaux constitutifs des sphères de justice” (Ricoeur 1995f, 79). 25 In the terminology of Boltanski and Thévenot the political community is irreducible to a distinct civic order next to all other orders of worth, as it is the community where all these orders come together: “[On] ne peut se limiter à instaurer une cité parmi les autres; ce que le contrat social instaure, c’est la cité elle-même, la cité tout court, à savoir la constitution du lien social dans son caractère absolument englobant” (Ricoeur 1995f, 81). 26 The tension that Ricoeur exposed between the political as a part and as the whole, as “inclusive instance” and as “enclosed region” (Ricoeur 1993b, 16; 1995d, 142), was identified as a new shape of the political paradox: “[Ce] qu’elle fait toucher du doigt, c’est le paradoxe nouveau, ce que j’ai appelé le troisième paradoxe politique, à savoir que, de nos jours, le politique ne sait plus se situer, ne sait plus s’il est l’englobant ou l’englobé” (Ricoeur 1995f, 82). 27

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Ricoeur emphasized the contemporary nature of this paradox, as it is facilitated by the undermining of the sovereignty of the nation state, both bottom-up, by regionalism, and top-down, by supranational political institutions. The paradoxical combination of an “englobed” and an “englobing” role is in that sense a fragility that is especially prominent in contemporary politics. Within the context of neoliberalism, weakened political institutions have to hold back the invasion of the market into other social spheres, while the proper distributive task of politics comes under pressure, for example because of the problem of migration and the implied request for political inclusion. 28 Ricoeur also linked this to the end of political theology: “Cette apparente aporie est peut-être le révélateur d’un malaise caractéristique de l’État démocratique moderne, qui, à la fin du théologico-politique, a perdu l’onction sacrée qui le mettait sans ambiguïté au-dessus de toutes les sphères de justice et de tous les principes de justification” (Ricoeur 1993b, 16). 29 Within this context, the tension in the political domain is in danger of paving the way to the market’s take-over of undisputed hegemony (Ricoeur 1992d, 56–71). Whereas the political fragility in the first two paradoxes mainly emerged as the risk of the state overstepping its boundaries, the third paradox mainly turns things around and underlines the risk of an absent state, a state in a role that is too modest, as just another sphere next to similar spheres (Ricoeur 1995b, 159). Citizenship and Responsibility Ricoeur’s initial formulation of the political paradox was not an expression of pessimism, but rather a stimulus for the assumption of responsibility by the citizens. The restatements of the political paradox contained this practical implication as well. In other words, the political paradoxes translated into a conception of civic responsibility in which it is emphasized that vigilant and active citizenship must counter the perversion of the political: “La cité est fondamentalement périssable. Sa survie dépend de nous” (Ricoeur 2002, 36). 30 Ricoeur elaborated the link between political fragility and political responsibility in an analysis of the concept of responsibility. In Soi-même comme un autre he already connected responsibilty to the temporal dimension of personhood, which implies the recognition of having a past and a future. In order to indicate what it is in our past, present, and future that makes us responsible, he relies on Hans Jonas, whose phenomenology of responsibility showed that genuine responsibility is always aimed something fragile that is entrusted to us (Jonas 1984). It is this fragility itself that pushes us towards conscious ways of action: “Nous nous sentons requis, enjoints par le fragile, . . . enjoints de faire quelque chose pour . . . , de porter secours, certes, mais mieux, de faire croître, de permettre accomplissement et épanouissement” (Ricoeur 2003a, 128). 31 Responsibility is, then, not only the

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capability to recognize oneself as the author of one’s own actions, but also an attitude towards the fragile. These two dimensions, one past-oriented, the other future-oriented, presuppose one another in Ricoeur’s conception of responsibility (Ricoeur 1990, 341–43; 2001c, 85–105; 2003a, 129–30). If responsibility is called for by the fragile, then the connection of the political paradox with political responsibility is rather obvious. For it is exactly the fragility of the political that is expressed in the paradox, with an implicit appeal to our responsibility: “Si le fragile est en toute circonstance l’objet même de la responsabilité, comme nous l’apprend Hans Jonas dans Le principe responsabilité, le politique est remis, en raison de sa fragilité propre, à la garde et aux soins des citoyens” (Ricoeur 1993b, 17). 32 However, human issues are always marked by a certain fragility. This is what Ricoeur had already emphasized in his philosophy of the will. Nevertheless, Ricoeur gave political responsibility a special place. This peculiarity of responsibility in the political domain is tied up with the meaning of citizenship, which is a core concept in his political thought. 33 In Soi-même comme un autre Ricoeur had argued that man is “capable man,” but he also indicated the need for interpersonal and institutional mediation to let the human capabilities—the capabilities of the speaking, acting, narrating, and ethically and juridically responsible person—flourish. As we have seen, the state has an important role to play in the institutional framework. Ricoeur called this also a problematic role: “Ces capacités resteraient virtuelles, voire avortées ou refoulées, en l’absence de médiations interpersonnelles et institutionnelles, l’État figurant parmi ces dernières à une place devenue problématique” (Ricoeur 1995c, 39). 34 He associated this problem with our conception of citizenship. The way in which citizenship is defined determines what responsibilities are implied. Ricoeur argued that the prevailing liberal conception of citizenship is based on the idea of the subject as bearer of rights that precede the community. That is the conception of citizenship that founds social contract theory. Nevertheless, this conception shows an atomism of which Ricoeur— especially in light of his findings in Soi-même comme un autre—contested the anthropological basis: “C’est une construction hypothétique qui représente la projection rétroactive d’un acquis de l’évolution sociale, à savoir la promotion de l’individu autonome au sommet de la hiérarchie des valeurs de la société humaine” (Ricoeur 1991j, 163). 35 Hence, inspired by his philosophical anthropology, Ricoeur defended a conception of citizenship based on the conclusion that the political community plays a constitutive role in human action. In other words, his conception of citizenship is prompted by the idea that a human being can only be a free person within a given institutional framework. The consequent difference as to the implied responsibility is substantial:

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Therefore, our responsibility with regard to the political institutions is not only associated with the fragility that is expressed in the political paradoxes, but also with a duty that results from the given of a framework that enables us to flourish as a person: “Autrement dit, il n’est pas licite que l’individu recueille les bénéfices de son appartenance à la communauté sans en payer les charges. Appartenir développe une obligation, dans la mesure même où les capacités dont l’épanouissement est conditionné par cette appartenance sont elles-mêmes dignes de respect” (Ricoeur 1991j, 164). 37 This way Ricoeur defined our responsibility as a citizen as a continuation of our ethical responsibility as a human being. If political institutions enable us to pursue the good life with and for others in just institutions and if these political institutions are subject to a particular fragility, then the care for these political institutions is an integral part of the ethical pursuit. Thus far we have seen how Ricoeur’s later hermeneutical-phenomenological anthropology enabled him to pin-point the responsibility of the citizen. His restatements of the political paradox also paved the way for further explanation of the content of this responsibility. This is part of a project of democratic ethics in which democracy first and foremost emerges as a joint pursuit of just institutions within which everyone can fully enjoy freedom, a pursuit in which every citizen takes part. The responsibility of the citizen goes, then, far beyond electing representatives. Only in a dynamic, participatory, and associative democracy can the democratic ideal become reality. So citizens must personally get involved and organized in a plural and effective civil society (Ricoeur 1995b, 94–97; 2003a, 135). That is the concrete translation of vigilance with regard to the fragile equilibria shown in the political paradoxes. It is the permanent democratic commitment of the citizen that must ensure that political violence remains within the limits of the rationality of the law, that the domination of the rulers never drowns out the will to live together, and that the state leaves room for other social spheres while it remains strong enough not to be elbowed out by the market. Civic commitment is ultimately concerned with the formulation of the common good. Ricoeur argued that, in the end, the necessary equilibria depend on this project. Firstly, it is this formulation, as the prudential reconciliation of socio-economic rationality and historical Sittlichkeit, that indicates

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and confirms the form that needs to limit the force (Ricoeur 1986h, 440–41). Secondly, it is through the common good that the horizontal dimension of the will to live together becomes concrete, in its unification of the plurality of outlooks present in society (Ricoeur 1990, 298–305). Thirdly, politics can only fulfill its function as englobing sphere if the different spheres are assigned a distinct place in an overarching conception of the good, for it is only an overarching project that provides a clear delineation between spheres: “À cet égard, il serait bien difficile de donner un statut au politique parmi toutes les institutions si on ne posait pas légitimement la question de l’intégration dans un projet commun des projets partiels” (Ricoeur 1994a, 334). 38 However, within the context of contemporary societies and their inner diversity the common good is far from obvious. According to Ricoeur, we have to accept that the common good is no longer a given, but we should not therefore be tempted to reduce the common good to a collision of individual interests. The fact that the common good is not given does not mean that the idea of a common good is redundant in contemporary politics. It can no longer be the point of departure, but it forms all the more a horizon, that toward which we proceed step by step, without ever really arriving. It is only in dialogue that we can little by little give content to a shared and supported vision of a better society. This dialogue is the one with which Ricoeur in Soi-même comme un autre entrusted the realization of practical wisdom at the institutional level. As part of the person’s ethical pursuit of the good life with and for others in just institutions, the democratic ethics call on the person as a citizen to take an active part in this dialogue. The theoretical starting point of this dialogue is the crisis that Ricoeur described in the essay Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne, that is, the situation in which man is no longer certain of his place and orientation in life, and of who his friends are, and who his enemies. The person was, then, described as the attitude in which the crisis does not provoke nihilism, but commitment, on the basis of experiences of outrage (Ricoeur 1983b, 115–17). The way in which this attitude of the person was to take shape in public debate can be summarized in a description that Ricoeur attributed to the philosophy of the Czech personalist phenomenologist Jan Patočka, namely “political Socratism” (Ricoeur 1991l, 83). In plain language, it is about finding meaning by focusing on the search. 39 As a consequence of the importance of dialogue, Ricoeur placed language in the fore of his reflections on political responsibility. Democratic ethics, hence, emerged as a particular ethics of argumentation (Ricoeur 1991j, 174–75; 1991n, 194–95). The core of this ethics is the pursuit of compromises as the only way forward in the direction of the common good: “Le compromis est toujours faible et révocable, mais c’est le seul moyen de viser le bien commun. Nous n’atteignons le bien commun que par le compromis, entre des références fortes mais rivales” (Ricoeur 1991e, 3). 40 Ricoeur did

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not deny the conflictuality of plural democracy. He emphasized that compromise is different from consensus, in which all difficulties are ironed out. He talked about an uphill process, which fundamentally depends on the presupposition that no one has a monopoly on truth and that we therefore all benefit from listening and trying to understand each other (Ricoeur 1996, 170–71; 2010a, 15–16). That is why the formation of compromise does not require denial of one’s own convictions, but a creative approach, able to integrate those convictions into a broader perspective: “Un compromis est honnête s’il reconnaît la force de la revendication de part et d’autre, mais en même temps il est créateur, car il ouvre la voie vers la recherche de nouveaux principes plus vastes” (Ricoeur 1991e, 7). 41 It is exactly this creativity that was central to Ricoeur’s reflection on practical wisdom in Soi-même comme un autre, where he talked about a dialogical process that stands midway between contextualism and universalism, a dialogical process that does not degrade convictions, but rather upgrades them to well-considered convictions. Obviously, practical wisdom cannot be crystallized in just any compromise. Ricoeur argued that democratic dialogue requires active tolerance, in the sense of a recognition of the right to exist and the conditions for existence of other convictions, including the recognition that truth can also be found in the other. However, this lapses into sheer indifference if it leaves no room for the intolerable (Ricoeur 1991m, 303–7; 1996, 170–76; 2010a, 17–18). This concerns on the one hand intolerance itself as the limit of tolerance. On the other hand it concerns everything that threatens another in his existence (Ricoeur 1996, 174–75). The difference between not backing down for the intolerable and intolerance itself is, nevertheless, vague and constantly in motion (Ricoeur 1991m, 307). The limits of Ricoeur’s ethics of compromise are, consequently, based on a delicate assessment: La pondération, comme son nom l’indique, pèse le pour et le contre d’une tolérance illimitée risquant de laisser faire du mal aux plus fragiles au nom de la liberté et les risques de retour à l’intolérance sous le couvert de l’ordre moral. Une expression majeure de cette pondération serait de renoncer à reconstituer un consensus moral qui ne peut exister dans une société pluraliste; la sagesse est de se contenter de compromis fragiles, dans la ligne de ce que Rawls appelle “consentement par recoupement,” lui-même corrigé par ce qu’il dénomme “reconnaissance de désaccords raisonnables.” (Ricoeur 1996, 176) 42

The art of compromise, to which every citizen is called, thus implies both the recognition of reasonable disagreement and the non-negotiable. 43 Our imagination is, according to Ricoeur, what enables us to navigate between reasonable disagreements and the unmentionable toward the fragile and ever-revocable compromises on the common good. The compromise is dependent on our imagination to project ourselves into other people and

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other roles and to think of a better society (Ricoeur 1991e, 3). Ricoeur talked in particular about social imagination, divided into an integrative side, referred to as ideology, and a subversive side, referred to as utopia (Ricoeur 1986j, 254–62). He argued that the vitality of a democracy depends on the exchange between ideology, which defends what exists, and utopia, which presents what is possible. Both sides have their own pathology: Pour une étude superficielle, c’est, pour chacune de ces deux fonctions, le côté quasiment pathologique qui vient le premier à la surface. Ainsi, nous nous contentons volontiers de définir l’idéologie comme un processus de distortions et de dissimulations . . . ; l’idéologie est alors assimilée purement et simplement à un mensonge social ou, plus gravement, à une illusion protectrice de notre statut social, avec tous les privilèges et les injustices qu’il comporte. Mais en sens inverse, nous accusons volontiers l’utopie de n’être qu’une fuite du réel, une sorte de science-fiction appliquée à la politique. (Ricoeur 1986a, 418) 44

What Ricoeur emphasized was, however, that both ideology and utopia have an important positive contribution to make in society. Ideology is necessary to understand ourselves as being a political community. The legitimacy of the vertical dimension of authority depends on an integrative symbolization of the community, which is embodied in an ideology. Utopia is necessary to remind us of the fact that an ideology is never a completely adequate symbolization of what a political community is or should be (Ricoeur 1986a, 419–30; 1986f, 13–17). It is, then, their dialectic exchange that keeps both sides from their respective pathology: Il semble, en effet, que nous ayons toujours besoin de l’utopie, dans sa fonction fondamentale de contestation et de projection dans un ailleurs radical, pour mener à bien une critique également radicale des idéologies. Mais la réciproque est vraie. Tout se passe comme si, pour guérir l’utopie de la folie où elle risque sans cesse de sombrer, il fallait en appeler à la fonction saine de l’idéologie, à sa capacité de donner à une communauté historique l’équivalent de ce que nous pourrions appeler une identité narrative. (Ricoeur 1986a, 431) 45

Ricoeur also linked this to our relationship with past and future. We do not have to carry our past as an inevitable fate, nor should our dreams float on thin air. Well-defined and modest expectations can reveal the past as a vivid tradition. The tension between past and future, hence, enables us to initiate things within a given context (Ricoeur 1986i, 301–7). The monitoring of this interaction is according to Ricoeur a crucial part of civic responsibility. Given the idea that dialogue is to bring us step by step closer to compromises on the common good, the susceptibility of political discourse to ideological or utopian pathologies must be a constant concern.

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Of course the awesome responsibility of the citizen requires an institutional framework that enables actual assumption. Hence, Ricoeur’s democratic ethics did not smooth over the role of the state. He defined the democratic state in two ways, on the basis of either the relationship to conflict or the relationship to power: “Par rapport à la notion de conflit, est démocratique un État qui ne se propose pas d’éliminer les conflits, mais d’inventer les procédures leur permettant de s’exprimer et de rester négociables. . . . Quant à la définition de la démocratie par rapport au pouvoir, je dirai que la démocratie est le régime dans lequel la participation à la décision est assurée à un nombre toujours plus grand de citoyens” (Ricoeur 1986h, 445). 46 Hence, it is the task of the state to organize a public space within which a mutual confrontation of convictions can take place in order to come to conclusions that can always be called into question again, in accordance with fixed procedures (Ricoeur 1991j, 166–68). In that regard the state must display a kind of asceticism, in which she refrains from professing any particular conception of the good (Ricoeur 1991m, 298–303; 1996, 171). By contrast, the state must enable the citizenry to present the diversity of opinions in public space and to participate fully in public decision-making. In that regard Ricoeur set his face against the idea of politics as a matter of social engineering, better left to experts. No matter how complex political reality may be, when it comes to fundamental public choices every citizens must have an equal voice (Ricoeur 2002, 37–38). 47 This means that resistance to specialists’ monopolization of the debate is an important aspect of the political responsibility of the citizen, to which the institutions must be adapted. Political fragility was the basis for Ricoeur’s interpretation of the content of the responsibility of vigilant and active citizenship, but the political dialogue in which the common good must take form itself remains strongly marked by fragility. Practical wisdom must crystallize in a dialogue at the level of political rhetoric, with all that that entails: “Cette fragilité rhétorique, loin de condamner le langage politique, le confie à notre garde et à notre protection et nous oblige à veiller à ce qu’il fonctionne aussi bien que possible, étant donné le niveau d’argumentation qui lui est propre—à savoir encore une fois le niveau rhétorique, qui le situe dans la zone vulnérable entre la preuve rigoureuse et la manipulation fallacieuse” (Ricoeur 1991j, 165–66). 48 Hence, Ricoeur steered clear of excessive pretense. As we have seen, it is about the pursuit of a common good that remains elusive and can only be approached in partial and fragile compromises, which forces us to continue looking further: “de penser plus et de dire autrement” (Ricoeur 1985b, 489). To sum up, we can conclude that Ricoeur’s vision of citizenship is most of all characterized by hope, as a synthesis of patience, courage, and confidence (Dauenhauer 1993, 171–73). That is the meaning of the political para-

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dox for citizenship: a responsibility to keep the possibilities of politics in mind, despite being confronted with its limitations. A PERSONALIST REPUBLICANISM Ricoeur and Anglo-American Political Philosophy In the preceding we have brought the continuity of Ricoeur’s personalist inspiration to the fore. The emphases that result from this open a new perspective on the meaning of Ricoeur’s political thought. This is especially clear against the background of Anglo-American political philosophy. On multiple occasions we have seen that Ricoeur was familiar with analytical philosophy. His philosophy bridged the gap between continental and analytical philosophy by showing how theories from the analytical tradition were essential in the development of his own philosophy, which is hermeneuticalphenomenological and hence strictly speaking continental philosophy. He also entered into dialogue with political philosophers such as John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer, and Charles Taylor. Particularly in the last decades of his life he developed his ethical and political thought in conversation with these and other analytical authors. Hence, it should come as no surprise that in the secondary literature a lot of attention is paid to the positioning of Ricoeur with regard to the divisions in Anglo-American political philosophy. It is particularly this positioning that is given a new turn on the basis of our findings concerning the continuing personalist inspiration in Ricoeur’s thought. The authors mentioned are mainly connected to the central debate in Anglo-American political philosophy of the last half century, the famous debate between liberals and communitarians (Mulhall and Swift 1996). Hence, when Ricoeur engaged with these authors, he also engaged with this debate. As a consequence, scholars who have written about Ricoeur’s encounters with Anglo-American political philosophy have characterized Ricoeur’s own political philosophy in terms of this debate. In other words, Ricoeur’s political philosophy was situated on the liberal-communitarian continuum, or at least he was subject to a search for liberal and communitarian elements in his thought, with an analysis of how he combined both into a theory that transcends the contradiction between both sides. First, we will look at this common way of evaluating Ricoeur’s dialogue with AngloAmerican philosophy, in order to then indicate a different perspective. With regard to the common characterization of Ricoeur’s interaction with Anglo-American political philosophy in terms of liberalism and communitarianism, a few authors stand out. The first is the American Bernard Dauenhauer, who was the first to publish a full scale presentation of Ricoeur’s political thought, in the book Paul Ricoeur: The Promise and Risk of Politics

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(1998). However, in this matter we can rely mostly on a more recent essay, entitled Ricoeur and Political Theory: Liberalism and Communitarianism (2010). Dauenhauer describes Ricoeur’s political philosophy paradoxically as “communitarian liberalism” (Dauenhauer 1998, 149–50; 2002, 238; 2010, 109–12). 49 He argues that Ricoeur’s political philosophy is based on a conception of personhood that combines the advantages of both liberalism and communitarianism, without their respective disadvantages. Whereas liberalism ensures the recognition of individual autonomy, it does so on the basis of strongly individualist presuppositions. These individualist presuppositions are in danger of making liberalism self-subverting, because the impulses against anything that interferes with individual freedom threaten the stability of the very system that is supposed to protect individual rights (Dauenhauer 2010, 103–6). Communitarianism on the other hand acknowledges our dependence on the communities that constitute our identity and hence requires politics to protect and promote these communities. But communitarian politics runs the risk of forcing people into frameworks they reject. Referring to terms used by Michael Walzer, Dauenhauer identifies this as the dangerous “associative impulses” of communitarianism, as opposed to the dangerous “dissociative impulses” of liberalism (Dauenhauer 2010, 106–9). Dauenhauer’s labeling of Ricoeur as a communitarian liberal was mainly based on his conception of personal identity. As we know, this conception rests on the distinction between idem-identity, which is the collection of empirical dispositions that constitute one’s spatiotemporal sameness, and ipse-identity, which is the self-constancy that underlies the capacity to make and keep promises and, hence, to be held accountable for one’s actions. Ricoeur describes personal identity as a narrative identity that combines idem- and ipse-identity in a way that gives expression to both human indebtedness and the power to initiate novelty. Dauenhauer emphasizes that this conception of the human person honors the liberal focus on the self as a unique individual, in the sense that Ricoeur only recognized the personhood of individual human beings: “With the liberals, Ricoeur argues that every action, even though it is always part of some interaction, is imputable to a particular agent as his or her own individual performance. There are, for Ricoeur, no higher order agents. To maintain its capacity to act and thereby to express its ipse-identity the Ricoeurian self must be able to dissociate itself when necessary from persons or institutions that threaten to prevent it from exercising its ability to initiate” (Dauenhauer 2010, 111). Nevertheless, Ricoeur also honors the communitarian focus on the fact that human action is dependent on communal resources. The recognition of the fact that communal resources are constitutive of one’s idemidentity results in the necessary associative impulses. The core of what Dauenhauer calls Ricoeur’s communitarian liberalism is the idea that every individual citizen has will-independent duties with regard to society, includ-

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ing an obligation to commit oneself to the preservation of the communal framework for others, with the important proviso that these obligations are a matter of critical loyalty (Dauenhauer 2010, 111–12). A similar description of Ricoeur’s political philosophy in terms of liberalism and communitarianism is to be found in the work of Johann Michel. In his bulky study of Ricoeur, Paul Ricoeur, Une philosophie de l’agir humaine (2006), Michel describes how the dialogue with liberal and communitarian authors was very important in the development of the little ethics in Soimême comme un autre. He clearly indicates how Ricoeur combined elements from both sides, especially the anti-individualism of the communitarians and the anti-contextualism of the liberals. Michel highlights this with regard to the foundation and application of principles of justice. With regard to the foundation of principles of justice, Ricoeur criticized Rawls’ formal and procedural approach. He argued that the input of moral intuitions as they are embodied in historical-cultural tradition is necessary in order to relate principles of justice to their ethical source. However, with regard to the application of principles of justice, Ricoeur rejected communitarian contextualism in his reliance on practical wisdom with universal ambitions: Il faut reconnaître ici l’originalité de la théorie ricoeurienne de la justice dans le panorama de la philosophie politique contemporaine. Sur le trajet régressif ressortissant à la fondation des principes de justice, Ricoeur, venant de la tradition herméneutique, est plus proche en un sens de penseurs multiculturalistes comme Charles Taylor que de Rawls lui-même. À mi-distance d’un paradigme contractualiste en d’un paradigme communautariste, Ricoeur propose une “justification réciproque,” procédurale et transhistorique, des principes de justice. . . . En revanche, sur le trajet progressif, Ricoeur n’a rien abandonné de l’horizon d’universalité des principes de justice et s’oppose clairement à la position d’un contextualisme intégral prôné par les communautariens. (Michel 2006, 410–11) 50

Therefore, Michel characterizes Ricoeur’s reflections on justice as communitarian qua foundation, but liberal-universalist qua application. Hence, although he doesn’t use the term himself, we could also say that Michel describes Ricoeur as a communitarian liberal. Also German-American political philosopher Fred Dallmayr, who played an important role in the dissemination of Ricoeur’s political thought in the United States, characterizes Ricoeur’s thought as a middle course between liberalism and communitarianism, on the basis of his pursuit of an equilibrium between universalism and contextualism: In terms of contemporary public life, one of Ricoeur’s most incisive contributions resides in his resolute effort to move beyond the stale opposition between liberalism and communitarianism, and also between universalism and contextualism. . . . One of the central aims of Oneself as Another is to find a “reflec-

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Chapter 4 tive equilibrium” between “the requirement of universality and the recognition of contextual limitations.” . . . What Ricoeur’s public ethics recommends, instead is a tolerantly open public space encouraging respect for persons or groups in their “singularity” without losing sight of the requirement of justice or a general rule of law. Such an ethics maintains a shared horizon of “truth” and “goodness” but allows for multiple, even conflicting interpretations of these terms—without lapsing into a debilitating relativism. (Dallmayr 2002, 227–28)

Hence, Dallmayr also interprets Ricoeur as a communitarian liberal, in reference to his blending of the cultivation of difference and the pursuit of a universal intellectual framework. With these brief but representative examples, it is clear that the common way of framing the confrontation of Ricoeur with Anglo-American political philosophy is in terms of liberalism and communitarianism. That authors such as Dauenhauer, Dallmayr, and Michel are able to provide good arguments for this is beyond dispute. The problem is not that they are wrong to situate Ricoeur somewhere in the middle between liberalism and communitarianism, but rather that doing so they do not say very much. Ricoeur is named a communitarian liberal, in some respects a liberal, in some respects a communitarian, but more importantly neither a real liberal, nor a real communitarian. So, the identification is mostly negative. Saying that Ricoeur is a communitarian liberal is actually like saying Ricoeur is Ricoeur: Being his usual self he worked up both sides and used them both in his own project, just as he did with so many other philosophical currents. Jean Greisch does not call Ricoeur the “pontifex maximus” of contemporary philosophy without reason (Greisch 2006, 170). However, I contend that we can say more about Ricoeur in terms of Anglo-American political philosophy if we take a broader look at Anglo-American philosophy itself, because the liberal-communitarian debate is not the entire story. The Revival of Republicanism During the nineties the stalemate in the dilemma between the individual and the community gave rise to a new focus with the ambition to resolve the dispute. Citizenship was the issue that was brought up (Kymlicka and Norman 1994). It is this focus on citizenship that facilitated the revival of republicanism in Anglo-American political philosophy, led by important authors such as Quentin Skinner, Philip Pettit, and Michael Sandel. Republicanism is a political philosophy at least as old as the Roman republic and it was the dominant theory of liberty in Europe until the eighteenth century, when liberalism took up the baton. 51 The contemporary neorepublicanism takes up the core ideas of this ancient theory. Philip Pettit sums up these core ideas as a threefold concern: the first is a conception of freedom as non-domination,

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the second is the idea of a mixed constitution, and the third is the importance of a vigilant citizenry (Pettit 2012, 5–8). The particularity of republicanism is mainly to be found in the first element, the conception of freedom as the absence of domination. This way republicanism distances itself from the liberal conception of freedom, which characterizes freedom as the absence of interference: “I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others” (Berlin 1969, 122). The republican conception contains a double criticism of this liberal conception of freedom as noninterference. First, republicanism claims that not every interference with the exercise of free will is an infringement on liberty (Pettit 1997, 35–41, 65–66). We may have taken part in the realization of this interference, as an expression of power-in-common, within a democratic decision procedure. In that case there is no domination and hence no infringement of liberty. State interference is, therefore, not necessarily an evil to avoid, as libertarians maintain in their plea for a minimal state. Second, the liberal conception of freedom is not only too encompassing, but in another sense also too narrow. Domination does not necessarily require actual interference (Pettit 1997, 31–35, 63–64; Skinner 1998, 84–93). The Saudi woman who doesn’t drive a car out of her own volition—because she prefers walking or because she is scared of crashing into camels running wild—is not unfree in the liberal interpretation. This freedom, however, is dependent on the alignment of her will with the ruling power. If she changes her mind, and wants to drive, then she suddenly does become unfree, without having any influence on the rule that inflicts these restrictions on her. Although not interfered with yet, the woman is subject to a dominating power, which may inflict arbitrary restrictions. Therefore, she is not free. In light of this republican conception of liberty, individual liberty is essentially linked to the liberty of the political community. A free individual requires a political community without arbitrary domination: “Non-domination in the sense that concerns us, then, is the position that someone enjoys when they live in the presence of other people and when, by virtue of social design, none of those others dominates them” (Pettit 1997, 67). The other two core ideas of republicanism that Pettit sums up ensue from this: a political community without arbitrary domination requires a mixed constitution, which is a constitution that sufficiently restricts those in power: “The mixed constitution was meant to guarantee a rule of law—a constitutional order— under which each citizen would be equal with others and a separation of powers—a mixed order—that would deny control over the law to any one individual or body” (Pettit 2012, 5). In addition, republican freedom also requires a vigilant citizenry, a citizenry on the lookout for infringements of the authorities on their rights and liberties and willing to act against any such

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transgression: “The laws that advance the aims of the republic, institutionalize its forms, and establish regulatory controls, need to be supported by republican civic norms—need to be supported by widespread civic virtue, by widespread civility—if they are to have any chance of being effective; the legal republic needs to become a civil reality. . . . Ordinary people have to maintain the eternal vigilance that constitutes the price of republican liberty” (Pettit 1997, 280). Thus, republicanism sets the bar very high for democracy, as the republican ideal of freedom is dependent on a dynamic democratic process with conscientious citizens. The revival of republicanism broadened the scope of Anglo-American political philosophy. 52 However, contemporary republicanism was not immune to the influence of the conflict between liberalism and communitarianism. As a result two distinct currents of contemporary republicanism came about. On the one hand we find so-called civic republicanism, on the other hand civic humanism. Another terminology talks about a neo-Roman and neo-Athenian version of neorepublicanism (Laborde and Maynor 2008, 1–13). The most important contemporary civic republicanists, or neo-Roman republicanists, are Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit. 53 This current conceives of civic duties from the perspective of freedom as non-domination: self-government, in an active manner, is a necessary countermeasure against domination. This freedom as non-domination should be interpreted—in light of Berlin’s two concepts of liberty (Berlin 1969)—either as an enlarged negative conception of freedom as non-interference (Skinner 1984) or as a distinct third conception of liberty (Pettit 1997). Either way, civic republicanism is opposed to any positive conception of freedom. The main contemporary proponent of civic humanism, or neo-Athenian republicanism, is Michael Sandel (1996). Further back in time, Hannah Arendt (1958) could be categorized likewise. 54 Civic humanism is also based on the three core elements that Philip Pettit puts forward, but the distinguishing feature is the interpretation of the concept of freedom. Civic humanism interprets republican freedom as a positive concept of freedom. Absence of domination is, in that regard, read as self-government. The core idea is that self-government, which requires active and conscientious citizenship, is an intrinsically valuable, necessary, and primary prerequisite for the fulfilment of human life. With the revival of republican thought Anglo-American political philosophy shows a spectrum broader than an opposition between liberals and communitarians. When we look at Ricoeur’s political philosophy in light of this broader spectrum, then we are able to give a better explanation of the meaning of his thought, as we will now show.

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Ricoeur’s Republicanism My claim is that the core ideas of republicanism match those of Ricoeur’s political philosophy. As we have seen, the main idea in Ricoeur’s political thought is the idea of the political paradox. Although this is perhaps not evident on first sight, this paradox implies the three core ideas of republicanism. First, it is important to see that the political paradox, and hence Ricoeur’s political thought in general, is about freedom: “[L]e problème central de la politique c’est la liberté; soit que l’État fonde la liberté par sa rationalité, soit que la liberté limite les passions du pouvoir par sa résistance” (Ricoeur 1964a, 285, original italicization). 55 The important question in this regard is of course: What conception of freedom? Ricoeur gives a very clear statement of his conception of freedom in a commentary entitled Le paradoxe de la liberté politique (1959a). There he explains the paradoxical relation between political power and freedom. Politics is essentially about the realization of freedom. The constitution realizes—through the horizontal relation of power-in-common—equal liberty and fundamental rights, but at the same time it establishes the vertical relation of power-over, which tends toward illegitimate violence to our autonomy. Ricoeur concludes that real political freedom consists of the elimination of the alienation at the dark side of political power; freedom is the absence of illegitimate, arbitrary powerover. In others words, in fact in republican words, we can say that Ricoeur’s conception of freedom is freedom as non-domination: Tel est à mon sens le contenu de l’idée politique de liberté, la fin de l’aliénation politique; et c’est aussi le sens de l’idée de démocratie; quand Lincoln dit: “la démocratie est le gouvernement du peuple par le peuple et pour le peuple” il définit en termes d’institution ce que nous venons de définir en termes subjectifs de liberté; sa formule en effet représente la solution idéale du divorce du pouvoir et du peuple; ce divorce serait résolu en effet si le gouvernement n’était pas seulement gouvernement du peuple, ni même gouvernement pour le peuple, mais gouvernement par le peuple; dans une telle institution l’individu serait politiquement libre. (Ricoeur 1959a, 52) 56

The paradox itself makes this never fully realizable, but the ambition should be to come as close as possible to non-domination, by means of both checks on political power, namely the freedom of contestation, and participation in the exercise of political power itself, i.e., the freedom of participation. Ricoeur’s conception of freedom brings us to the other two elements. In response to the political paradox, the question is how to realize freedom of non-domination. Ricoeur emphasized that the conclusion of the paradoxical nature of politics should not be “défaitisme.” Rather it is supposed to give rise to a vigilant and active citizenry. Given the fact that political power confronts man with opportunity as well as risk, the conclusion is that every

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citizen has a duty to enact political vigilance and the willingness to move from critical reflection to action (Ricoeur 1964a, 275). We have seen how Ricoeur described the corresponding civic virtue in terms of an interaction between the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of conviction. The ethics of responsibility stood for reasonable, prudent political action, aware of the dangers of the paradoxical nature of power. The dialectical interaction with ethics of conviction was to make sure that, along the way, the ideals never get lost out of sight (Ricoeur 1991f, 235–38). This idea of vigilant citizenship was very important in Ricoeur’s political writings in the 1950s and 1960s, but it came again to the fore in the wake of Soi-même comme un autre. The hermeneutical-phenomenological revival of the concept of personhood—with its focus on the relational nature of human action and the interaction of self-esteem, solicitude, and justice—constitutes the background for Ricoeur’s dialogue with Anglo-American liberalism and communitarianism. It is this engagement of Ricoeur with liberalism and communitarianism that gave rise to authors like Dauenhauer and Michel characterizing Ricoeur in liberal and communitarian terms. However, in fact he engaged liberalism and communitarianism, but in distinct, republican terms. He rejected the liberal claim that civic duties are merely conditional, since our capacity to act can only be meaningful in the institutional context of a given community. This positive conception of freedom, whereby human fulfilment requires institutional mediation, implies the duty to preserve these institutions for oneself and others. Ricoeur connected this statement with the Hegelian concept of recognition, a mutual relationship between the political institutions and the individual. On the one hand, political institutions that recognize individual autonomy are a necessary condition for the person to flourish; on the other hand, the person must recognize his debt with regard to the political institutions. As a result the ethical aim to live the good life with and for others in just institutions implies the political responsibility for the institutional framework of the historical community. The person as a citizen has the responsibility to participate in the care for the virtuous exercise of political power. Given the different formulations of the political paradox this responsibility concerns more specifically attending to an adequate equilibrium between political violence and political rationality, between the will to live together and the domination of the one over the other, and between politics as one of the spheres in society and as the overarching instance responsible for the setting and guarding of boundaries. The essential task of democracy was, according to Ricoeur, this balancing between the sides of the paradox. It is the task of the citizen to do his share in this task of democracy. This brings us to the third core idea of republicanism, the idea of a mixed constitution, which is also present in Ricoeur’s inferences from the political paradox. The institutional framework of democracy has to be such that a vigilant citizenry is capable of having an adequate influence, and it should

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also guarantee the necessary automatic checks and balances within the system itself, not leaving the power in single hands. The political rationality expressed in the first restatement of the political paradox implies that the constitution needs to establish institutional techniques that make the exercise of power possible, but the abuse of power impossible, in the words of Ricoeur: “La notion de ‘contrôle’ procède directement du paradoxe central de l’existence politique de l’homme; elle est la résolution pratique de ce paradoxe; il s’agit en effet que l’État soit et qu’il ne soit pas trop; il s’agit qu’il dirige, organise et décide, afin que l’animal politique lui-même soit; mais il s’agit que le tyran devienne improbable” (Ricoeur 1964a, 276, original italicization). 57 The idea of a mixed constitution is all about the separation, the cooperation, and the balancing of powers. These elements are crucial in Ricoeur’s institutional response to the political paradox. They are especially visible in his 1950s reflections in the journal Esprit on communist totalitarianism in the Soviet Union and China. His plea for political liberty was made concrete in, among other things, a call for independent judicial power, freedom of information instead of a monopoly on truth by the authorities, free labor unions, and the right to strike (Ricoeur 1956a, 17–28; 1956b, 905–10; 1956c, 324–35). This issue also came up in an op-ed on the constitutional referendum of 1958, which sealed the French Fifth Republic. There Ricoeur emphasized that there is no such thing as an ideal form of government, while it is in any case crucial that the necessary checks and balances are provided (Ricoeur 1958c). The fact that Ricoeur endorsed the idea of a mixed constitution is clear, even from the very beginning of his career. In the 1947 article La crise de la démocratie et de la conscience chrétienne, he already emphasized the need for constitutional provisions that protect every citizen from both anarchy and despotism (Ricoeur 1947a, 320–23). This conviction remained as vital in his later political thought, as an implication of each of the three restatements of the political paradox. With regard to the first paradox, the constitutional form that is meant to keep the monopoly on violence in check is defined as a democratic system in which not only participation comes to the fore: “À cette participation à la décision, j’ajouterai volontiers, dans une ligne plus proche de la tradition de Montesquieu que de celle de Rousseau, la nécessité de diviser le pouvoir contre lui-même” (Ricoeur 1986h, 446, original italicization). 58 As regards the second paradox, Ricoeur argued that the constitution is primarily the expression of the power-in-common of our will to live together, but he continued that this primacy can only manifest itself within an adequate institutional framework, with sufficient constitutional restrictions on power-over (Ricoeur 1990, 227–30; 2003b, 252–53). Finally, with regard to the third paradox, the issue of a mixed constitution was brought up in Ricoeur’s reflection on the question of the self-limitation of the political

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sphere, for the special function of the political sphere—as sphere next to other spheres and at the same time as border patrol between the spheres— implies that the political sphere must also limit itself. The balance between the roles of the state as “englobing” and “englobed” is, therefore, not only a matter of a strong state, able to resist the border-crossing dynamics of the economic sphere in particular, but also a matter of a state that knows how to deal with a separation of power between different instances and levels (Ricoeur 1995d, 134–42). It should be clear that the three core elements of republicanism are prominent in the concept of the paradox that is so central to Ricoeur’s political thought. In this sense, it is possible to characterize his political philosophy as a kind of republicanism, which does more justice to his particularity than the rather banal description of communitarian liberalism. Nevertheless, Ricoeur never identified himself as such. This should, however, not be surprising. Firstly, Ricoeur already turned out to resist being pigeon-holed within the context of personalism. Secondly, the revival of republicanism in AngloAmerican political philosophy is perhaps too recent to have caught his attention. Finally, and most importantly, republicanism has a different meaning in the French context than it has for Anglo-American neorepublicanism. French republicanism is connected to the heritage of the French Revolution and, as such, it focuses more on popular sovereignty and national self-determination, which is rather incompatible with the emphasis on mixed constitution and contestatory citizenship in Anglo-American neorepublicanism (Pettit 2005, 35–37). For that reason Ricoeur distanced himself from French republicanism. He thought of it as a superseded discourse, especially within the context of the third restatement of the political paradox, where he indicated the fact that the multiplication of the sources of law, both at the supranational and infranational level, had depleted the significance of the concept of indivisible popular sovereignty (Ricoeur 1995d, 122–23, 141–42). A Personalist Republicanism Although Ricoeur’s political philosophy answers the essential requirements to be able to talk about a kind of republicanism, it goes almost without saying that he, nevertheless, preserves a distinct identity in comparison with the authors commonly perceived as representatives of contemporary republicanism. Of course this has much to do with the fundamentally different principles in analytical and continental approaches to philosophy. However, if we bracket this to the maximum extent possible—just as Ricoeur himself tried to do—and if we focus on the content of the political theory, then it strikes us that Ricoeur actually provided an alternative to the division between civic republicanism and civic humanism. As we have shown, he joined both kinds of republicanism with regard to the shared core elements, but at the same

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time he essentially distinguished himself from these two currents. Moreover, his alternative is not just another theoretical option. It is a kind of republicanism that avoids important pitfalls of the common kinds of republicanism. As we have seen, civic republicanism is based on an interpretation of freedom as absence of domination, either as an enlarged negative conception of freedom or as a third conception, neither negative nor positive. Ricoeur shared the perspective on civic duties as a consequence of the idea of freedom as non-domination, in which active citizenship is a necessary countermeasure against the inclination toward domination that political power entails. However, whereas civic republicanists explicitly reject any positive conception of freedom, Ricoeur embraced such a conception. He left no doubt that the conception of liberty that crosses his entire moral and political philosophy is in fact a positive conception. Departing from the ethical orientation in all human action toward living the good life with and for others in just institutions, Ricoeur’s concept of liberty stresses the priority of responsibility over autonomy. The resulting theoretical view of citizenship is that civic duties should primarily be conceived from an ethical perspective. The task of the citizen is not fundamentally different from the ethical task of the person. The political task of the person as a citizen is a particular aspect of the realization of the ethical aspiration. It concerns our reach beyond the interpersonal level, to the third person, the person we will probably never meet in person, but with whom we nevertheless have an institutional relationship. In politics as well as in ethics, the task is to attain critical solicitude, or to act out of care for the realization of the ethical aim to live well with and for others in just institutions, in a way that is conscious of both universal norms and real-life situations. That is Ricoeur’s positive conception of liberty as manifested in his little ethics and the ensuing political reflections. What Ricoeur essentially rejected was the liberal-individualist starting point of civic republicanism, given the fact that civic republicanists in fact remain within the boundaries of liberal individualism. The idea of freedom as non-domination lays a particular stress on the liberal conception of freedom as non-interference. In fact it concerns an interpretation of what must be counted as interference, an interpretation that is sometimes broader and sometimes more narrow than what a liberal usually argues for. That is, then, the basis for their emphasis on the duties of active citizenship. But this remains within the boundaries of the central liberal idea of the priority of the just over the good. Active citizenship is not necessary because it is part of the good; it is necessary in light of the protection of individual rights (Kymlicka 2001, 331–46; Rawls 1993, 205–6). Alan Patten talks about “instrumental republicanism,” in reference to this merely instrumental nature of the plea for active and virtuous citizenship: “Its distinctive feature . . . is the claim that citizenship and public service are goods because they contribute to the realization of negative liberty” (Patten 1996, 26). As such, the difference with

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regard to liberalism becomes, however, very small or even non-existent: “Nothing in liberalism . . . prevents it from endorsing the instrumental republican understanding of the importance of public service and citizenship. To the contrary, liberals like Rawls explicitly assume—with republicans—that we must have a sense of justice, that we have duties to support just political institutions and that legal arrangements may help ensure that we do not throw away our own liberty” (Patten 1996, 36). Civic republicanists are, therefore, confronted with a serious problem. In essence they endorse liberalism, but they add an emphasis on the need for civic virtue. This leaves them all the more vulnerable to the communitarian criticism of liberalism, which argues that liberal principles provide no or insufficient basis to support necessary civic virtue (Sandel 1984; 1996; Taylor 1989). Going more deeply into this extensive debate between liberals and communitarians would lead us too far, but we can accept without a doubt that there is much discussion of the possibility to provide adequate support for civic virtue on the basis of liberal-individualist principles. The fact that civic republicanism relies even more strongly on civic virtue makes it all the more disputable. Ricoeur’s positive conception of liberty makes it possible to circumvent this difficulty. Given his positive conception of freedom, we might be tempted to think that Ricoeur was closer to civic humanism. However, this neglects the fact that Ricoeur’s positive conception of freedom is significantly different from the conception of civic humanists. The core idea of civic humanism is that active participation in the self-government of the political community is intrinsically valuable: “Instead of defining rights according to principles that are neutral among conceptions of the good, republican theory interprets rights in the light of a particular conception of the good society—the selfgoverning republic. In contrast to the liberal claim that the right is prior to the good, republicanism thus affirms a politics of the common good” (Sandel 1996, 25). Ricoeur’s positive conception of freedom, by contrast, was not based on the intrinsic value of self-government. He did not think of selfgovernment as an intrinsic good, but as a necessary condition for the pursuit of the good life with and for others in just institutions, because of politics’ susceptibility to oppression. This difference particularly emerges in Ricoeur’s criticism of both Aristotle and Arendt. He argued that they both insufficiently reckon with the dark side of politics (Ricoeur 1964a, 261–68; 1991l, 75–76; 1995b, 151–52). Along the same lines he denounced any vision that exalts politics to the supreme rank in human existence (Ricoeur 1949b, 156–57; 1991i, 60–63). His plea for vigilant and active citizenship was not based on the direct contribution of political action to a fulfilled human life, but on the paradoxical nature of politics. Being an active citizen is necessary to limit the violence that politics necessarily entails, violence that stands in the way of the actualization of the ethical pursuit. That is,

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according to Ricoeur, the reason why freedom and self-government are connected. Hence, it is a negative argument that dominates, which keeps Ricoeur far away from the positive conception of politics that characterizes civic humanism. The way in which Ricoeur’s political philosophy is republican in nature, while different from both civic republicanism and civic humanism, enables us to identify his thought as a “personalist republicanism.” For it is exactly the personalist dimension of his thought—which is what we have uncovered throughout this book—that distinguishes Ricoeur from the two common currents of contemporary republicanism. In comparison with civic republicanism it is striking that Ricoeur also used a kind of instrumental republicanism, in which participation in self-government is not pursued because of itself. However, civic republicanism was unable to support the necessary civic virtue by a solidary bond among the members of the community, as it remained stuck to a liberal individualist view of mankind. Ricoeur’s anthropology of personhood made the difference. He argued that it is impossible to talk about a personal identity without a relationship with others. His hermeneutical phenomenology attested to the idea that self-constancy is connected to a responsibility to others and the idea that self-esteem is intrinsically connected to solicitude for one’s neighbor and for the other members of the community. Through the reliance on this personalist anthropology, Ricoeur’s political philosophy makes clear that an alternative for liberalism not only needs to complement the focus on rights with a focus on duties, but more fundamentally, it also needs to abandon the theoretical starting point of the self-sufficient individual. The continuing personalist thread in his political thought is what distinguished Ricoeur not only from civic republicanism, but also from civic humanism. It is the personalist stress on the task and the fragility of the political, and on the consequent need for active and vigilant citizenship that was revived in Ricoeur’s political paradox and ensuing political ethics. That is the context for Ricoeur’s rejection of self-government as an intrinsic good. The good is for Ricoeur the ethical pursuit of the good life with and for others in just institutions. In principle this does not mention self-government, were it not for the fact that the political realization of just institutions is in practice confronted with the ambiguity of political power. That is why the fragile equilibria of the political domain must be safeguarded by a conscientious citizenry, vigilant and willing to take action. Just like civic humanism, Ricoeur departed from the priority of the good over the just. But the conception of the good is in his case not the controversial assumption of the intrinsic value of self-government, but rather a broadly formulated ethical pursuit to which his hermeneutical phenomenology attests. 59

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POTENTIAL FOR TRANSNATIONAL CITIZENSHIP Republicanism and Personalism on Transnational Citizenship Ricoeur’s personalist republicanism was able to avoid some serious theoretical flaws in other kinds of republicanism. 60 The controversial assumption that self-government is an intrinsic good was left out, in contrast to civic humanism. Moreover, he provided an ethical and anthropological basis for the required civic virtue, the absence of which remains a weak spot for civic republicanism. In addition, there is another reason why Ricoeur’s republican political thought surpasses the prevalent kinds of republicanism. Perhaps this reason is even more important, as it concerns the biggest contemporary challenge to our conception of citizenship. Globalization has in fact opened up the borders of society, while our conception of citizenship remains understood on the basis of these borders. Economy and media operate on a global scale, while our political system remains state-centered. Yet the realization and continuation of just institutions requires more and more transnational political action. Solutions for the problems of our day—global warming, financial and economic crises, terrorism, and so on—can no longer be achieved on the basis of infranational agreements alone. If the problems are situated on a global scale, then this also counts for the common good. Our political action in light of the common good must, therefore, also consider a broader horizon. 61 In that regard, a contemporary conception of citizenship needs to be able to indicate how the meaning of citizenship allows for the incorporation of this broader horizon. Today, a conception of citizenship is inadequate if it does not bear the potential for transnational citizenship. Contemporary republicanism struggles with this challenge. Civic republicanism actually uses a legalist approach to citizenship. Its concern is the safeguarding of a legal framework of right and liberties within a given state. The borders of the state and the regulation of membership are always presumed (Haakonssen 2012, 733). The neo-Roman vision of world politics is, therefore, bound to an international paradigm. In other words, it is restricted to the relationship between states. When Philip Pettit wants to extend his civic republicanism to the debate on global justice, he is, accordingly, stuck to the following question: “Assuming that states will remain a permanent feature of our world, what is the ideal that we should hold out for the international order” (Pettit 2010, 70)? Hence, civic republicanism lacks the opportunity to connect citizenship with membership in a political community broader than traditionally given, a political community that ultimately coincides with humanity as a whole. Civic humanism struggles with the same problem for different reasons. It links citizenship to the membership of a specific historical community, and its shared history, traditions, customs, and so on. This common framework is

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the source for political collaboration. In the last pages of his book Democracy’s Discontent Michael Sandel paid some attention to the pressures that his theory faces within the context of globalization: “The global media and markets that shape our lives beckon us to a world beyond boundaries and belonging. But the civic resources we need to master these forces, or at least to contend with them, are still to be found in the places and stories, memories and meanings, incidents and identities, that situate us in the world and that give our lives their moral particularity” (Sandel 1996, 349). The question of how civic humanism must deal with this pressure remains, nevertheless, for the greater part unanswered. Sandel indicates that contemporary citizenship must try to keep its balance between the inclination toward fundamentalism, in which people frenetically turn in on their own small community, and the drift toward “formless, protean, storyless selves,” unable to provide content to the political order (Sandel 1996, 350–51). On the question of what the alternative is and how this is to be achieved Sandel used the broad-brush approach. He did not get further than the vague call that “the hope of our time rests . . . with those who can summon the conviction and restraint to make sense of our condition and repair the civic life on which democracy depends” (Sandel 1996, 351). If the evolution toward a kind of transnational citizenship is desirable, which he seems to suggest, then he is confronted with the limitations of his own framework of thought. Civic humanism mainly looks for the sources of citizenship in a historical community. As a consequence, the potential for broader political bonds is lacking or at least complicated. Ricoeur was better equipped to conceive of citizenship within a transnational context. Again it is the heritage of personalism that enabled him to do so. In the first chapter we saw how personalism blossomed in the wake of the papal condemnation of the Action Française and its typical connection of nationalism and Catholicism. The personalist movement sought for a new and better interpretation of the social and political responsibilities of Christians. The focus remained on citizenship, but nationalism was abandoned. As a result the responsibility of the citizen emerged as a universal ethical duty, not only linked to a particular community, but open to humanity as a whole. Nevertheless, personalism steered clear of utopian cosmopolitanism. As we have seen, personalism was to a large extent a communitarian discourse, in which the historical community served as a crucial frame of reference. However, the community always remained subordinate to the person. Consequently, the relationship between persons was more important than the relationship between communities. In that regard personalists did not consider communities as reservations, but rather as solid roots that enable us to approach the other and to come gradually to a more inclusive community, within which every human being is capable of flourishing as a person.

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Jacques Maritain was the pacesetter in this transnational focus of personalism. This was especially clear in his involvement in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, shortly after World War II. His vision of transnational citizenship is particularly described in the last chapter of Man and the State, entitled The Problem of World Government (Maritain 1998, 188–216). There he argued that we should not so much pursue the establishment of a world government, in the sense of a political institution that commands the entire world top-down. Rather we should pursue the establishment of a global political community. Essentially this concerns a gradual extension and intensification of our will to live together: Now, if a world political society is some day founded, it will be by means of freedom. It is by means of freedom that the peoples of the earth will have been brought to a common will to live together. . . . Living together does not mean occupying the same place in space. It does not mean, either, being subjected to the same physical or external conditions or pressures or to the same pattern of life; it does not mean Zusammenmarschieren. Living together means sharing as men, not as beasts, that is, with basic free acceptance, in certain common sufferings and in a certain common task. (Maritain 1998, 206–7, original italicization)

Similar ideas are also to be found in other personalists. In his Manifeste au service du personnalisme Emmanuel Mounier emphasized that his proposed social revolution was not restricted to the nation-state. In fact, the nation-state was considered to be an outdated concept from the personalist point of view. If the person is the primary political concern, then our political responsibility is not bound by state borders: Il n’y a pas pour le personnalisme de politique extérieure: ni de politique nationale qui pourrait jouer son jeu propre, utilisant à son profit les personnes et les communautés qui composent la nation; ni de politique internationale qui s’impose à des États tout faits comme une réglementation impersonnelle, volontairement ignorante de leur contenu. La paix, comme tout ordre, ne peut jaillir que de la personne spirituelle qui seule apporte aux cités les éléments de l’universalité. (E. Mounier 1961c, 629, original italicization) 62

Mounier considered the task implied here to be in line with the essential structure of personhood itself, which is communication. This essential connection of one’s own existence with the existence of others expresses itself politically in the task of creating a society where all institutions and traditions are permeated by this understanding of the nature of the person. Mounier explicitly linked the commitment to this task with a continuing openness toward mankind as a whole: “L’ordre de la personne nous apparait maintenant dans sa tension fondamentale. Il est constitué par un double mouvement, en apparence contradictoire, en fait dialectique, vers l’affirmation d’absolus

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personnels résistant à toute réduction, et vers l’édification d’une unité universelle du monde des personnes” (E. Mounier 1962b, 459). 63 In other words, personalism constantly strives not only to create better services, but to affect an increasingly greater number of persons as well. This task is the responsibility of every human being. It is the communicative structure of personhood that allows us to assume this responsibility. Mounier indicated that upholding the dignity of the person is cumulative and takes place specifically over the course of five steps: (1) by continuously approaching the other, (2) by developing an understanding of another’s point of view, (3) through empathy and (4) generosity, and the final and hardest part, (5) by remaining loyal to this acquired sense of community. The scope of this undertaking was no less than “the movement towards the unification of the personal universe” (E. Mounier 1962b, 451–61). In a nutshell, within a personalist conception of citizenship transnational citizenship is not a revolution, but an evolution that is from the outset present in the meaning of personhood, with its implied civic responsibility. In order to see how Ricoeur’s republicanism contains more potential for the conception of true transnational citizenship we must examine how he carried on this personalist view. The Scope of the Community and the Paradigm of Translation We have seen how Ricoeur emphasized the responsibility of every citizen, on the basis of his further reflections on the political paradox. This responsibility particularly concerned the care for the common good, which is not a given. The common good needs to be formulated step by step in an endless dialogue that requires the active participation of every individual. This dialogue is what constitutes practical wisdom in the institutional domain. In Soi-même comme un autre Ricoeur emphasized the fact that this project of fostering the common good requires a maximal recognition of both contextualism and universalism, in order to be able to arrive at well-considered convictions. The task, then, is to develop a social creativity that allows us to work together on the basis of diverse historical and traditional sources. Hence, we have to cherish our roots, without letting those roots weigh us down: “Il faut rendre nos attentes plus déterminées et notre expérience plus indéterminée” (Ricoeur 1985b, 390). 64 However, Ricoeur did not only consider this task in light of the common good within a given community. The task also concerns the extension of the community, in light of the never ending enlargement of the circle of recognition, particularly in light of the violence that ensues from the exclusive nature of citizenship, which Ricoeur had brought to attention within the context of the first restatement of the political paradox.

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The question of the scope of the political community already came up in the article Le socius et le prochain. There Ricoeur stressed that the love of one’s neighbor not only has an interpersonal meaning, but also an institutional dimension. He went on to argue that this duality implies that the love of one’s neighbor exerts a two-sided critical pressure on the social bond, namely that the bond is never close enough, but also never inclusive enough: “Le thème du prochain opère donc la critique permanente du lien social: à la mesure de l’amour du prochain, le lien social n’est jamais assez intime, puisque la médiation sociale ne deviendra jamais l’équivalent de la rencontre, de la présence immédiate. Il n’est jamais assez vaste, puisque le groupe ne s’affirme que contre un autre groupe et se clôt sur soi” (Ricoeur 1964b, 109–10). 65 Within the context of what he described as the dialectics of the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility, Ricoeur identified this double pressure as the core of the input of the ethics of conviction in the ethics of citizenship. Moreover, he did this in explicit reference to Emmanuel Mounier’s idea of a personalist and communitarian utopia, that is the idea of a universal community that allows every human being to develop into a complete person (Ricoeur 1964d, 312–13; 1965c, 18–20; 1991b, 254–55). Later he returned to the issue by means of Kant’s reflections on the duty of universal hospitality. Ricoeur’s starting point was the fact that our initial membership in a community is always a given, without a clear reason. The way to understand the community, therefore, comes about by opposing ourselves to others: “[P]our rendre raison de notre identité collective nous avons besoin de nous comparer avec les autres. . . . La compréhension de nousmêmes ne sort du non-dit et ne commence de s’expliciter qu’en se faisant comparative, différentielle, oppositive” (Ricoeur 2006, 268). 66 The result is a world in which we are strangers to one another. Yet we all share the same planet. This led Kant to the deduction of a universal right to present oneself as a member of a society, as the surface of the earth is finite and, originally, nobody has more right to live in a certain place than someone else (Kant 2011, 30–33). Ricoeur, however, indicated that, within the context of the current globalized society, the duty of universal hospitality contains more than the mere tolerating of strangers on one’s own soil. This is particularly manifested in what Ricoeur described as “the crying contrast between the mobility of labor on a global scale and the closing of the political space of citizenship,” 67 in which political exclusion in fact comes down to the rejection of the other. The civic responsibility for the common good, therefore, implies the task of pursuing an ever larger political community, both institutionally as with regard to mentality (Ricoeur 2006, 271–72). Ricoeur identified the so-called “paradigm of translation” as the model for the enlargement of the political community (Ricoeur 2001d, 135–36; 2006, 270). The first principle of this paradigm is the plurality of languages, in contrast with the universality of linguistic competence. Everyone speaks,

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but there are thousands of different languages in the world. The second principle is the fact of translation. Man has always produced translations, which implies that he has the ability to learn and to use a language other than his own (Ricoeur 2001d, 126–31). If languages were radically heterogeneous, translation would be theoretically impossible. The opposite hypothesis, namely that there is a common basis to all languages in the sense of an original or implicit universal language, is no less problematic. However, despite these theoretical difficulties, we do translate in practice: “Oui, il faut en faire l’aveu: d’une langue à l’autre, la situation est bien celle de la dispersion et de la confusion. Et pourtant la traduction s’inscrit dans la longue litanie des ‘malgré tout.’ En dépit des fratricides, nous militons pour la fraternité universelle. En dépit de l’hétérogénéité des idiomes, il y a des bilingues, des polyglottes, des interprètes et des traducteurs” (Ricoeur 2001d, 131, original italicization). 68 Based on this finding, Ricoeur characterized translation as a task. It is obviously a task for the purposes of utility, often from the simple need to get something done, but for things as complex as trade or war as well. He referred, however, to a deeper dimension of the task of translation, namely “the desire to translate,” a desire that relates to Bildung and the broadening of one’s own horizon. Ricoeur emphasized the important fact that the task of translation is double. The translator has to restate something that was stated elsewhere, in a different linguistic and cultural context, drawing on the resources of his own linguistic and cultural context. This implies that he has to find a place in his own language for elements of another language, hence creating an opening in his own language to be able to phrase things in a different way. Ricoeur talked about this as “the spirit of translation, consisting in transporting oneself into the sphere of meaning of the foreign language and in welcoming the other’s discourse into the sphere of the target language” (Ricoeur 2001a, 39–40; 2001d, 132–34; 2004a, 7–20). The fact that translation can serve as a model for enlarging the political community comes from Ricoeur’s emphasis on the ethical dimension of translation: “Il me semble, en effet, que la traduction ne pose pas seulement un travail intellectuel, théorique ou pratique, mais un problème éthique. Amener le lecteur à l’auteur, amener l’auteur au lecteur, au risque de servir et de trahir deux maîtres, c’est pratiquer ce que j’aime appeler l’hospitalité langagière. C’est elle qui fait modèle pour d’autres formes d’hospitalité que je lui vois apparenter” (Ricoeur 2001d, 135, original italicization). 69 Linguistic hospitality highlights the ethical dimension of the desire to translate. It refers to the aspiration of bringing together oneself and the other, but with the risk of betraying both. It refers to overcoming one’s fear of the unknown and the feeling of one’s identity being threatened. It also refers to recognizing the impossibility of performing a perfect translation. The ethics involved is a distinct dimension of justice. It is the realization of the equivalence between

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the familiar and the strange, without reducing the one to the other: “equivalence without identity” (Ricoeur 2001a, 40; 2001d, 135). Ricoeur raised this ethical model of translation to the status of a paradigm for all rapprochement between people: “[P]artout où il y a de l’étrangeté, il y a place pour la lutte contre la non-communication” (Ricoeur 2001a, 32). 70 Linguistic diversity contributes to the plurality that is so crucial to being human. Linguistic differences are associated with different identities and, hence, with the fragmentation of humanity. Ricoeur emphasized the political implications of this phenomenon: “Le politique plus que tout est affecté par cette condition de pluralité. Il y a des États parce que d’abord il y a des communautés historiques distinctes auxquelles l’instance politique confère la capacité de décision. À ce niveau hautement conflictuel, le rapport ami/ ennemi tend à muer en inimitié intraitable la diversité politique à la faveur de la revendication de la souveraineté, forme politique de l’identité” (Ricoeur 2001a, 34). 71 In this regard, Ricoeur referred to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, where the introduction of linguistic differences led to the dispersion of peoples and, eventually, hatred and war. Brotherhood was no longer a given, but a task. Hence, for Ricoeur, the myth of the Tower of Babel is symbolic of the human condition: “Comme toute la suite des récits de séparation que l’affaire de la Tour de Babel couronne, le mythe peut être lu comme l’avènement pur et simple de la condition langagière de fait : nulle récrimination, nulle déploration, aucune accusation. . . . À partir de cette réalité, ‘traduisons!’” (Ricoeur 2001a, 35). 72 Hence, Ricoeur emphasized how the myth illustrating the setback of plurality among people is, first and foremost, an appeal to realize harmony. Translation is the first step in that direction and, moreover, it is the model for the entire enterprise. In the same way that linguistic plurality models human plurality in general, the difficulties of plurality in translation model every endeavor to overcome the problems of dispersion and difference: La traduction est de bout en bout le remède à la pluralité en régime de dispersion et de confusion. . . . Cette bataille avec la pluralité, ses méfaits et ses bienfaits, se poursuit dans des sphères de plus en plus éloignées du travail proprement dit sur la langue et les langues. C’est sur cette voie de l’élargissement de la problématique que la traduction opère comme paradigme. L’humanité, disions-nous, n’existe que fragmentée. À cet égard les communautés historiques, avec leurs traits ethniques, culturels, juridiques, politiques, leurs religions dominantes, peuvent être comparées à des ensembles linguistiques hétérogènes soucieux de protéger leur identité confrontée à la diversité. (Ricoeur 2001a, 37, 38–39) 73

What this paradigm suggests is that different communities should be considered collections of meanings, with internal links and concepts that can be

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transposed in the same way that a language can be transposed into another language, with all of the same possibilities and limitations: “Blocks of meaning, blocks to be translated” (Ricoeur 2001a, 39). This means that in that context, we also have to search for equivalence without identity and that we have to recognize the fact that there is no overarching perspective that illuminates these relations once and for all. It is a step by step—“de proche en proche”—process in which an understanding of another’s view and an enrichment of one’s own view is achieved. Just as we assume that no language is untranslatable a priori, we can also assume that no community, culture, or outlook on life is radically alien. Through hard work, we can come closer and closer to one another and enlarge the circle of brotherhood (Ricoeur 1995a, 7–8). It is important to see that the paradigm of translation and the idea of linguistic hospitality do not appear out of nowhere in Ricoeur’s work. Just as Emmanuel Mounier connected the path toward the universal unity of persons with the identification of communication as the basic structure of personhood, Ricoeur’s concepts of translation and linguistic hospitality are essentially linked to his anthropology of personhood. The possibility of opening oneself to the other and of enriching oneself by experiencing the other are linked to an interpretation of selfhood that leaves room for the other, not only as a stranger, but as a part of oneself. That is the core of the anthropology developed in Ricoeur’s Soi-même comme un autre. The entire dialectics of selfhood and alterity is about this relationality whether it is a question of the ability to interpret oneself as another and another as oneself—the dialectics of sameness and selfhood—or a question of the constitution of personal identity, not only as a matter of characteristics that stay the same, but also as a matter of staying true to oneself because others are counting on you. Hospitality is ingrained in a self that is not self-sufficient. The self can only find itself by setting itself free without losing itself in the other. The way in which openness toward humanity as a whole puts into perspective the notion of the self-determination of communities, and the possibility of working step by step toward unification closely resemble the relation between oneself and the other on the personal level. It is the personalist understanding of the basic structures of human existence that lays the groundwork for a political philosophy in which transnationality is not an exotic concept. The relationship with the other is already implied in the very structure of personhood, not only as a given, but particularly as a hopeful aspiration. 74 Ethics of Transnational Citizenship in the Making The concern for the inclusiveness of the political community is an integral part of Ricoeur’s conception of civic responsibility. We have seen how the political paradox results in a duty of vigilant and active citizenship. Our

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political responsibilities as citizens were, then, placed in line with our ethical responsibilities as human persons. The concern for just political institutions is part of the ethical aim of living the good life with and for others in just institutions, particularly in light of the fragility that plagues those institutions. Given the political paradox every citizen is called to participate in maintaining sound equilibria between rationality and violence, between action-inconcert and domination, and between modesty and regulation. The fact that a just institutional framework enables us to develop ourselves as persons implies a duty to preserve this framework, not only for ourselves, but also for others. This responsibility does not stop at the borders of a historical community: “[L]a justice ajoute à la sollicitude, dans la mesure où le champ d’application de l’égalité est l’humanité entière” (Ricoeur 1990, 236). 75 Eventually, our responsibility concerns an institutional framework that enables literally every human being to develop themselves as a person, in line with Emmanuel Mounier’s ideal. In his late hermeneutical phenomenology of personhood, Ricoeur considered this task in light of the ethical dimension of translation, i.e., the risky but hopeful ambition of bringing the self and the other closer together. This opened onto an ethics of transnational community building, seen as an integral part of the responsibility of the person as a citizen. 76 The aim of this ethics of transnational community building is clear. It is about finding an institutional framework that will allow every human being, wherever they may be, to fully flourish as a person. The question remains how this can be realized, or rather approximated, given the utopian nature of the goal. Of course, the question of how to realize this goal in real world institutions is part of this query. At this point in history, no one has a clear picture of how to organize a global political community. The institutional problems of the European Union show how hard it is to develop transnational political structures that will be broadly supported. Even on this relatively modest level, all known models of federalism fall short. When we raise this to a global level, we are confronted with the same problems only magnified. However, Ricoeur emphasized that even the most ingenious blueprint does not get us very far here. The perfect cosmopolis on paper is null and void in practice if it lacks an adequate bottom-up dynamic: “Il serait en effet faux de croire que des transferts de souveraineté au bénéfice d’une entité politique qui reste entièrement à inventer puissent réussir au plan formel des institutions politiques et juridiques, sans que la volonté d’opérer ces transferts emprunte son dynamisme à des transformations de mentalité touchant à l’éthos des individus, des groupes et des peuples” (Ricoeur 1992e, 107, original italicization). 77 Given the aspiration of developing a universal political community, Ricoeur considered the realization of this dynamic to be a part of every individual’s civic responsibility, and especially of cultural, academic, and religious communities.

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Ricoeur considered this project of mentality integration to be the preeminent locus for the ethical paradigm of translation. He elaborated this in three steps, each with an increasing degree of significance. The first step pertains strictly to the sphere of translation. Ricoeur used translation as a model based on the insight that there is no language, only languages, in the plural. Human communication is manifested in a variety of different languages, each with its own sounds, words, grammar, and style. Fortunately, languages are not closed systems. There is always the possibility of producing a translation, thanks to the skills of bilingual translators who look for “optimum commensurability between the distinctive resources of the receiving language and those of the original language.” Ricoeur stressed the fact that this is not only an art of transfer, but also an ethical matter of linguistic hospitality: “Il s’agit bien d’habiter chez l’autre, afin de le conduire chez soi à titre d’hôte invité” (Ricoeur 1992e, 109). 78 On a practical level, this responsibility is expressed in the task of learning foreign languages and participating in the activity of translation. Eventually, the hospitality will not so much concern the language itself, but the foreign culture that expresses itself by means of the language in question. Hence, translators have an important role to play in the transfer of meaning, ranging from the meaning of customs and beliefs to that of social principles. Being sensitive towards another language makes it easier to be sensitive toward other cultures and other ways of thinking and acting. In this way, linguistic hospitality fosters the ethical impulse for more sympathetic political interaction between persons and for political integration (Ricoeur 1992e, 108–9; 2003a, 136). The second step follows from the preceding step. What is exchanged by means of translation is, to a large extent, a matter of distinct memories that are linked to a community’s identity. Hence, the second step concerns the exchange of memories. Given the narrative conception of identity, different identities come to the fore in different stories. These stories can always be revised. They can be told in a different way. Moreover, the stories that compose a community’s identity are always linked to the stories of others. This brings a different dimension of hospitality to the surface: Ce qu’il s’agit ici de briser, c’est le principe de fermeture toujours susceptible de contaminer ce que j’ai appelé l’identité narrative. Il importe toujours de se souvenir que nous sommes enchevêtrés dans l’histoire des autres. . . . De là naît la tâche d’échanger les mémoires. Elle consiste à assumer en imagination et en sympathie l’histoire des autres à travers les récits de vie qui les concernent. Cette exigence va loin; elle nous demande d’apprendre à nous raconter autrement à travers les récits que les autres font à notre sujet. (Ricoeur 2003a, 136–37) 79

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By enriching the stories of one’s own community, the stories of others’ linguistic hospitality become narrative hospitality. The primary step, then, is to resist the temptation to consider the identity of one’s own political community as a given. In this regard, Ricoeur referred to the specific role of community-founding events, such as the French Revolution, in his own case, or the Declaration of Independence, in the American case. The task is to learn to read these historic events in a pluralistic way, by introducing the perspective of minorities and other communities. That is the way to keep traditions alive and to open up new meanings that can bring people and communities closer together (Ricoeur 1992e, 109–12; Ricoeur and Aeschlimann 1994, 18–22; Ricoeur 2000, 82–111, 574–89; 2003a, 136–37). 80 The third step of the integration process again follows from the preceding. The shared recollection of memories is usually painful. In this process, we inevitably encounter what Ricoeur described as “the broken promises of history.” This points to the fact that throughout history, every community has confronted suffering, both in the sense that its members have endured suffering and in the sense that they have caused suffering to others. The aim of narrative hospitality in this respect is to start from the suffering of others, before our own suffering. At this point, the exchange of memories shifts into the domain of forgiving: Or, cet échange exige plus que l’imagination et la sympathie invoquées plus haut. Ce plus a quelque chose à voir avec le pardon, dans la mesure où le pardon consiste à “briser la dette.” . . . Sa puissance “poétique” consiste à briser la loi d’irréversabilité du temps, en changeant, sinon le passé en tant que receuil de tout ce qui est arrivé, du moins sa signification pour les hommes du présent; il le fait en levant la charge de culpabilité qui paralyse le rapport des hommes agissants et souffrants à leur propre histoire. Il n’abolit pas la dette, dans la mesure où nous sommes et restons les héritiers du passé, mais il lève la peine de la dette. (Ricoeur 1992e, 114) 81

Hence, the enlargement of political brotherhood requires a radical step, not so much to offer to forgive the other from a superior position, but primarily to ask for forgiveness in humility. Here, Ricoeur seems to have left the domain of politics. However, he framed this in terms of the dialectics of love and justice, which indicate that the striving for justice occasionally requires input from the logic of the gift, rather than the strict logic of reciprocity. Moreover, he referred to historical examples that make the theory more tangible, such as the prostration of German chancellor Willy Brandt in Auschwitz or the speech of Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat before the Knesset (Ricoeur 1992e, 113–16; 2000, 593–656; 2003a, 137–38). The final, formal goal of the course of community building that Ricoeur outlined was not unambiguous. However, there is no doubt that from a very early stage, Ricoeur was convinced that the nation-state was a largely outdat-

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ed concept. In both moral theological and philosophical essays, he underlined how the paradigm of the nation-state clashes with the global scale of economy, science, and technology. This led him to stress the need to work toward a universal cultural and political understanding (Ricoeur 1958b; 1964n; 1965b). However, he expressed serious reservations with regard to the idea of a world-state. Referring to the criticism of Éric Weil, he deemed the dimension of conflict and violence intrinsic to politics to be incompatible with the idea of a unified world-state. Therefore, he argued that the idea was both necessary and basically unfeasible in the nuclear era (Ricoeur 1986h, 443–44). He spoke more concretely about the construction of institutions that take up the same role among states as states do with regard to their own citizens. He insisted, however, that this cannot be a super-state: “De même que les États ont retiré l’exercice de la violence à leurs citoyens, nous sommes à la recherche de nouvelles institutions politiques qui pourront faire à l’égard des États ce que chaque État a fait à l’égard de ses propres membres. La solution n’est pas de créer un super-État, mais des institutions d’un type nouveau qui d’une certaine façon, marqueront la mort de l’État” (Ricoeur 1991e, 6). 82 Although Ricoeur was skeptical regarding the utopian nature of a world-state, he considered the cosmopolitan idea to be the vague horizon of a striving for integration. Thus, his focus was more on the course than on the final destination. The transnational dimension of Ricoeur’s conception of civic responsibilities picked up the ideas of personalism and elaborated on them. He reiterated Maritain’s plea for a bottom-up, gradual enlargement and deepening of the will to live together, instead of a super state pushed through top-down. Like Mounier, he based this plea on the radical relationality of the self and the other. However, where Mounier talked about communication as a structure of personhood that summons us to approach the other, Ricoeur’s reflections on translation provided the missing link. Mounier had been forced to admit that his five-step course toward unification on the basis of communication was doomed to failure. He had discovered structural impediments in an ineffable residue found in alterity, in the opacity of our own existence and in a general inclination toward isolation (E. Mounier 1962b, 455–56). All that was left was what Ricoeur called Mounier’s “tragic optimism.” Ricoeur himself, however, identified what it is that justifies this optimism, by referring not just to the human capacity to communicate, but more specifically to our capacity to translate. What enables us, despite all the strangeness we encounter, to enlarge the circle of brotherhood is the capacity to gradually settle in the world of the other and to welcome the other into one’s own world. Ricoeur recognized the importance of community, but he tied this to a striving for inclusiveness. That is what his three-step ethics of transnational community building is meant for, in the sense of a non-exhaustive guideline. Moreover, his ethics of translation clarified the idea that the aim is not to

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come to a total fusion, but rather to a will to live together as equals. The relevant ideal is not fusional cosmopolitan brotherhood, but “equivalence without identity” (Ricoeur 2001a, 40; 2001d, 134), or “a just distance” (Ricoeur 1991n, 193; 2004b, 376–77). NOTES 1. For a similar emphasis on a turn in Ricoeur’s political thought, see Le Goff 2010, 237–38; Portier 2010, 208–14. 2. “[Ricoeur] has never lost the marks, the anchoring of a political thought. . . . Nevertheless—and this sentiment has caused among commentators and readers the idea of a caesura— the political reflection of Ricoeur became structured by concepts that were less dramatic, less influenced by the work of Jaspers or the post-War climateˮ (own translation). 3. On institutions as the intersection of ethics and politics in Ricoeur, see also Vincent 2011. 4. “The distinction between two sorts of other, the ‘thou’ of interpersonal relations and the ‘each one’ of life in the context of institutions, appeared to me to be firm enough to allow the passage from ethics to politics and to provide sufficient anchoring for my earlier or contemporary essays on the paradoxes of political power and the difficulties inherent in the idea of justice.” 5. In Parcours de la reconnaissance Ricoeur continued along the same line by showing through the confrontation of Hobbes and Hegel that politics has an ethical basis (Ricoeur 2004b, 227–318). 6. “Man defines himself fundamentally by means of powers that don’t achieve their full achievement unless under the regime of political existence, in other words, in the context of a political community” (own translation). 7. “Political power is, throughout all levels of power considered above, in continuity with the power by which we have characterized capable man. In return, it bestows upon this edifice of power a perspective of duration and stability, and, even more fundamentally, the horizon of public peace, understood as tranquillity of the orderˮ (own translation). See also Ricoeur 1995c, 38. 8. “Justice, by means of its distributive character, brings the element of distinction, articulation, coordination, that lacks in the notion of the will to live together, which, without this important corrective, would yield to the fusional decline of the relation to the other, like nationalisms and other reductions of the political bond to an ethnic bond verify” (own translation). 9. This term is difficult to translate. It is somewhere in between “outside” and “out of reach.” 10. “The constant reminder of the paradoxes that affect the position of the State as power is what can defend us from supra-ethical exaltation” (own translation). 11. Ricoeur also focused on this distinction in his preface to the French translation of Arendt’s The Human Condition (Ricoeur 1991i). 12. “Even if it is true that all States have their origin in violence, . . . it is not violence that defines the State but its finality, namely, helping the historical community to make its history.” 13. “The State is then the synthesis of the rational and the historical, of the efficient and the just. Its virtue is prudence. . . . Let us understand by this that its virtue is to hold together the criterion of number-efficiency and the criterion of the living traditions that give the community the character of a particular organism, whose aim is independence and longevity.” 14. “All modern States have arisen out of the violence of the consolidators of land. . . . So there is no contesting the fact that the most reasonable State, the State of law, bears the scar of the original violence of the tyrants who made history. In this sense, the arbitrary is of a piece with the very form of the State.” 15. “Finally, a residual violence continues to afflict even the State that comes closest to the ideal of the State of lawn for the reason that every State is particular, individual, empirical.

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Whereas technico-economic structure is, in principle, worldwide, the political community is, in principle, particular and different—preserving its identity being part of its function.” 16. “My interpretation is as follows: the constitution of power in the context of human plurality . . . has the status of something forgotten. But this forgetting inherent to the constitution of the consent that constitutes power does not refer to a past. . . . In this sense, forgetting without nostalgia. Forgetting of what constitutes the present of our living-together” (own translation). 17. “One cannot talk about authority of tradition in Arendt, but rather about a tradition of authority. . . . Succeeding, that is, establishing a sustainable regime, is only possible for those revolutions that are able to authorize themselves on the basis of past foundational events. In this sense, all revolutions authorize themselves mutually, enhancing the one by the foundational ambition of the other” (own translation). 18. See for example how Pierre-Olivier Monteil connects Ricoeur’s interpretation of Arendt with his analysis of the crisis of democracy in 1947 (Monteil 2013b, 41). 19. “A second source of fragility comes from the interweaving, on the level of power, between a vertical relationship of domination/subordination and a horizontal relationship constituted by the will-to-live-together of a historical communityˮ (own translation). 20. “The authority implied in the hierarchical relation tends to mask, even to inhibit and suppress, the will-to-live-together, the true source of power. The ultimate fragile is this will-tolive-together, which is foundational without knowing and does not recognize itself unless in danger—the country is in danger!—and more painfully in the defeat where everything is undone, like the word itself indicates. What is undone in the defeat is the bond of cooperation, so hidden and so buried that is like forgotten. Yet it is on that will-to-live-together that the relation of domination is grafted, for it only functions well unless on the basis of what La Boétie called ‘voluntary submission’” (own translation). 21. “[Representative democracy] shows itself to be more and more fragile given that my elected representative, in principle taken to be my alter ego, turns out, barely elected, to belong to a different world, the political world that obeys its own laws of gravity” (own translation). See also Ricoeur 1995b, 94. 22. For Ricoeur’s dialogue with Lefort, see especially Padis 2006, 226–29. 23. “The same person who considers herself autonomous, finds herself alone” (own translation). 24. A discussion of Walzer took already a prominent place in Soi-même comme un autre (Ricoeur 1990, 293–94), as we have seen. For an extensive analysis of the work of Boltanski and Thévenot, see Ricoeur 2004b, 299–310. The discussion of both works in light of the formulation of the third political paradox is mainly to be found in Ricoeur 1995f, 1995d. 25. “[Politics] nowadays appears to constitute both one sphere of justice among the others, in the sense that political power itself is also a good to be distributed, and the envelope of all the spheres, in the sense that it is the guardian of the public space in which the social goods that constitute the spheres of justice confront one another” (own translation). 26. “[One] cannot limit oneself to the establishment of one city among the others; what the social contract establishes is the city itself, the city simple, namely the constution of the social bond in its absolutely englobing character” (own translation). 27. “What this puts the finger on is the new paradox, that which I have called the third paradox, namely, that, nowadays, politics does not know anymore how to situate itself, does not know anymore whether it is the englobing or the englobed” (own translation). 28. Pierre-Olivier Monteil argues extensively that Ricoeur’s ideas on the political paradox contain a powerful reply to neoliberal discourse (Monteil 2013b, 149–93). 29. “This apparent aporia is perhaps the revealer of a characteristic problem for the modern democratic state, which, at the end of the theologico-political, has lost its sacred anointing that put it beyond any ambiguity above all spheres of justice and principles of justification” (own translation). 30. “The state is fundamentally perishable. Its survival depends on us” (own translation). 31. “We feel required, enjoined by the fragile . . . enjoined to do something . . . , to help, certainly, but better yet, to make grow, to allow for accomplishment and flourishingˮ (own translation). See also Ricoeur and Aeschlimann 1994, 24–25.

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32. “If the fragile is in all circumstance the object itself of responsibility, like Hans Jonas teaches us in The Imperative of Responsibility, then politics, because of its own fragility, is left in the vigilance and care of the citizens” (own translation). 33. In that regard Ricoeur defined his own political philosophy as a reflection on citizenship (Ricoeur 1986h, 439). Olivier Mongin summarized Ricoeur’s political philosophy as a reflection that proceeds from the polis to citizenship and from citizenship to civism (Mongin 1988, 24). 34. “[T]hese capacities would remain virtual, even aborted and repressed, in the absence of interpersonal and institutional mediations, the State figuring a problematic place among these latter.” 35. “It is a hypothetical construction that represents the retroactive projection of an achievement of social evolution, namely the promotion of the autonomous individual to the top of the hierarchy of values of human society” (own translation). 36. “[If] the individual considers himself as originally bearer of rights, he will take society and all of the ensuing efforts to be a mere instrument of security under the protection of which he will pursue selfish goals and he will consider his participation as conditional and revocable. If, however, he takes himself to be in debt by birth with regard to institutions that exclusively enable him to become a free agent, then he will consider himself obliged to these institutions, particularly obliged to make these institutions accessible to others” (own translation). 37. “In other words, it is not allowed that the individual reaps the benefits of belonging to a community without paying his dues. Belonging develops an obligation, to the extent that the capacities of which the flourishing depends on this belonging are themselves worthy of respect” (own translation). 38. “In this regard it would be rather difficult to give a status to the political among all institutions if one would not ask in a legitimate way the question of the integration of partial project in a common project” (own translation). 39. See also Thébaud 1988. 40. “The compromise is always weak and revocable, but it is the only way to reach for the common good. We cannot reach the common good unless by means of compromise, between strong but competing claimsˮ (own translation). 41. “A compromise is honest if it recognizes the force of the claims of all sides, but at the same time it is creative, because it clears the road towards the search for new and broader principlesˮ (own translation). 42. “The weighting, like the name indicates, weighs the pros and cons of toleration without limits in risk of letting the most fragile get hurt in the name of liberty and the risks of a return to intolerance under the cover of the moral order. A major expression of this weighting would be to renounce the reconstitution of a moral consensus that cannot exist in a pluralist society. Wisdom is to be content with fragile compromises, in the line of what Rawls calls ‘overlapping consensus,’ itself corrected by what he calls ‘recognition of reasonable disagreements’” (own translation). 43. John Rawls used the notion of “reasonable disagreements” to indicate the fact that there are so-called “burdens of judgment,” such as the vagueness of distinctions or conflicting evidence, that make it very difficult and often even impossible to come to an agreement, even if all parties remain within the bounds of reason (Rawls 1993, 54–58). What distinguishes Ricoeur from Rawls is the emphasis on the unmentionable, beyond reasonable disagreement. 44. “For a superficial study it is, for each of these two functions, the almost pathological side that come first to the surface. Accordingly, we are content with defining ideology as a process of distortions and concealments . . . ; ideology is, then, purely and simply equalized to a social lie or, even worse, to an illusion in protection of our social status, with all its privileges and injustices. But in the other direction, we willingly accuse utopia of being nothing but an escape from reality, a kind of science-fiction applied to politics” (own translation). 45. “In fact, it seems that we are always in need of utopia, in its fundamental function of contestation and projection of a radical elsewhere, to ensure the completion of an equally radical critique of ideologies. But the contrary is true. Everything happens as if—to cure utopia from the folly in which it incessantly risks to sink—we must rely on the healthy function of

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ideology, on its capacity to give a historical community the equivalent of what we could call a narrative identity” (own translation). 46. “With respect to the notion of conflict, a democratic State is that State which does not propose to eliminate conflicts but to invent procedures allowing them to be expressed and to remain open to negotiation. . . . As for the definition of democracy in relation to power, I shall say that democracy is the form of government in which participation in the decision-making process is guaranteed for an ever increasing number of citizens.” 47. All the same Ricoeur argued that intellectuals have a crucial role to play, namely clarifying public debate (Ricoeur 2003a, 135). He described the task of political philosophers, in particular, as a matter of alerting us to the plurivocity of the big concepts in politics and the relativity of the forms of society that we take for granted (Ricoeur 1991j, 168–70, 172–73). 48. “This rhetorical fragility does not condemn political language. Rather, it entrusts it to our care and protection and it obliges us to ensure that it functions as good as possible, given the proper level of argumentation—namely again the rhetorical level, which places it in the vulnerable zone between rigorous proof and fallacious manipulation” (own translation). 49. David Kaplan describes Ricoeur along the same lines as a “communitarian-liberal socialist” (Kaplan 2003, 2). 50. “Here we have to recognize the originality of Ricoeur’s theory of justice within the context of contemporary political philosophy. On the regressive trail falling within the remits of the foundation of the principles of justice, Ricoeur, coming from the hermeneutical tradition, is in a sense closer to multiculturalist thinkers such as Charles Taylor than to Rawls himself. Midway between a contractualist paradigm and a communitarian paradigm Ricoeur proposes a ‘reciprocal justification,’ procedural and transhistorical, of the principles of justice. . . . On the other hand, on the progressive trail Ricoeur has not abandoned anything of the horizon of universality of the principles of justice and clearly opposes the position of integral contextualism defended by the communitarians” (own translation). 51. For historical studies of republicanism, see Pocock 1975, Skinner 1998, Van Gelderen and Skinner 2002, and Viroli 2002. 52. For a review of the contemporary republicanism debate, see Laborde and Maynor 2008. 53. Other prominent representatives of civic republicanism are Cass Sunstein (1988), John Maynor (2003), Victoria Costa (2009), and Frank Lovett (2010). 54. Other prominent representatives of civic humanism are Benjamin Barber (1984), Adrian Oldfield (1990), Paul Rahe (1992), Iseult Honohan (2002), and Derek Heater (2004). 55. “The key problem of politics is freedom; whether the State founds freedom by means of its rationality or whether freedom limits the passions of power through its resistance.” 56. “This is in my view the meaning of the idea of political liberty, the end of political alienation, and it is the meaning of the idea of democracy as well. When Lincoln says ‘democracy is government of the people by the people for the people,’ he defines in institutional terms what we have come to define in subjective terms of liberty. His formula in fact represents the ideal solution of the divorce of the power and the people. This divorce would in fact be resolved if the government was not only government of the people, not only government for the people, but government by the people. Within such an institution the individual would be politically free” (own translation). 57. “The notion of ‘control’ derives directly from the central paradox of man’s political existence; it is the practical resolution of this paradox. To be sure, it is, of course, necessary that the State be but that it not be too much. It must direct, organize, and make decisions so that the political animal himself might be; but it must not lead to the tyrant.” 58. “To this participation in decision making, I should like to add, following a line closer to the tradition of Montesquieu than to that of Rousseau, the necessity of dividing the power against itself.” See also Ricoeur 1993b, 14; 1995f, 80. 59. For an early statement of this argument, see Deweer 2013b. 60. An earlier version of parts of this section “Potential for Transnational Citizenship” was previously published in Deweer, Dries. 2015. “Communication, Translation and the Global Community of Persons.” Études Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies 6 (1): 46–56. 61. Ricoeur emphasized this connection especially in a couple of essays on the bearing of human action (Ricoeur 1958b, 1991d).

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62. “There is no foreign policy for personalism: neither national politics that would play its own game, using persons and communities that constitute the nation for its own benefit; nor international politics that would impose itself on existing states as an impersonal rule, voluntarily ignorant about their content. Peace, like any order, cannot shoot up unless from the spiritual person who is the sole source of the elements of universality in political communities” (own translation). 63. “The order of the person now appears to us in its fundamental tension. It is constituted by a double movement, apparently contradictory, but in fact dialectical, towards the affirmation of personal absolutes that resist all reduction, and towards the construction of a universal unity of the world of persons” (own translation). 64. “We have to make our expectations more determinate and our experience less so.” 65. “The theme of the neighbor therefore effects the permanent critique of the social bond: in comparison to love of neighbor, the social bond is never as profound or as comprehensive. It is never as profound because social mediations will never become the equivalent of encounter or immediate presence. It is never as comprehensive because the group only asserts itself against another group and shuts itself off from others.” 66. “To make sense of our collective identity we need to compare ourselves to others. . . . Our self-understanding does not break silence and does not begin to explicitate itself unless in a comparative, differential, oppositional wayˮ (own translation). 67. “Le contraste criant entre la mobilité du travail à l’échelle mondiale et la clôture de l’espace politique de la citoyenneté.ˮ 68. “Yes, we need to confess, from one language to the next, the situation is indeed one of dispersion and confusion. And yet translation is part of a long litany of ‘in spite of all that.’ In spite of fratricide, we campaign for universal fraternity. In spite of the heterogeneity of idioms, there are bilingual, polyglot people, interpreters and translators.” 69. “It seems to me that translation poses not just an intellectual, theoretical, or practical labor but also an ethical problem. To bring the reader to the author and the author to the reader, at the risk of serving two masters, is to practice what I would like to call ‘linguistic hospitality.’ It is the model for other forms of hospitality that I see as akin to it.” 70. “Everywhere where there is the foreign, there is a place for the struggle against noncommunication.” 71. “Politics more than anything else is affected by this condition of plurality. There are states because first of all there are distinct historical communities upon which their political form confers a capacity for decisions. At this highly conflictual level, the relation friend-enemy tends to transform political diversity into unbending feelings of animosity, owing to claims for sovereignty, a political form of identity.” 72. “Like the whole sequence of narratives that the Tower of Babel story crowns, the myth can be read as the pure and simple advent of our factual linguistic condition: no recrimination, no deploring, no accusation. . . . Starting from this reality: ‘Translate!’” 73. “Translation is from end to end the remedy for plurality in a world of dispersion and confusion. . . . This struggle with plurality, its failures and successes, continues in spheres more and more distant from that of work properly speaking applied to language and languages. Translation functions as a paradigm by which to expand the problematic. Humanity, I said, only exists as fragmented. In this regard, historical communities, with their dominant ethnic, cultural, juridical, political and religious features, can be compared to heterogeneous linguistic conglomerations concerned to protect their identity when confronted by such diversity.” 74. For the relationship of Ricoeur’s idea of linguistic hospitality with his philosophical anthropology, see also Jervolino 2006, 229–38; Monteil 2013b, 339–44; and Vincent 2010, 251–307. 75. “Justice in turn adds to solicitude, to the extent that the field of application of equality is all of humanity.” See also Ricoeur 1991j, 162; 1991n, 182. 76. See also Dauenhauer 2002. 77. “Indeed, it would be a mistake to believe that transfers of sovereignty in support of a political entity which is entirely unrealized can be successful at the formal level of political and juridical institutions without the will to implement these transfers deriving its initiative from changes of attitude in the ethos of individuals, groups and peoples.”

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78. “It is really a matter of living with the other in order to take that other to one’s home as a guest.” 79. “What we are supposed to break here is the principle of closure that always threatens to contaminate what I have called narrative identity. It is important to always remember that we are entangled in the story of others. . . . That is where the task of exchanging memories has its origins. This task consists in assuming the history of others in imagination and in sympathy through the life stories that concern them. This demand goes a long way, it asks us to learn to narrate ourselves differently through the stories that others tell about us.” 80. Farhang Erfani and John Whitmire argue that Ricoeur’s theory of narrative identity also opens another path to transnational citizenship. Their interpretation does not so much concern the connection of existing identities. It rather concerns the invention of a new plot that is not centered on geographic situatedness, but on the sharing of values. Concretely, this implies that we have to try to stop reading our political identity in terms of historic and geographic communities, but rather in terms of membership of transnational pressure groups, such as Greenpeace or Human Rights Watch (Erfani and Whitmire 2008). 81. “This exchange demands more than the imagination and sympathy which were called for above. This ‘extra’ has something to do with forgiveness insofar as forgiveness consists in ‘shattering the debt.’ . . . Its ‘poetic’ power consists in shattering the law of the irreversibility of time by changing the past, not as a record of all that has happened but in terms of its meaning for us today. It does this by lifting the burden of guilt which paralyses the relations between individuals who are acting out and suffering their own history. It does not abolish the debt insofar as we are and remain the inheritors of the past, but it lifts the pain of the debt.” 82. “Like states have withdrawn the exercise of violence from their citizens, we are looking for new political institutions that could do with regard to states what each state has done with regard to its own members. The solution is not to create a superstate, but a new kind of institution that, in some way, marks the death of the state” (own translation).

Conclusion

The discovery of the continuity of the personalist dimension to Ricoeur’s thinking offers certain emphases that unlock a new perspective with respect to the significance of his work and that point to the potential for a personalist perspective within contemporary philosophy. This was revealed in light of Ricoeur’s position vis-à-vis Anglo-American political philosophy. Until now, this positioning occurred along the lines of the debate between liberals and communitarians. The introduction of the resurgence of republicanism in this discussion better highlights the unique qualities of Ricoeur’s thinking since I have demonstrated that Ricoeur’s political philosophy meets the defining criteria of modern-day republicanism: freedom as the absence of domination, the idea of a mixed constitution and the emphasis on vigilant and active citizenship. These three elements were all proven to be connected to the core idea in Ricoeur’s political thinking, the idea of the political paradox. This way, his political philosophy can be seen as a form of republicanism. I was ultimately able to describe the form that republicanism took in Ricoeur’s work as a personalist republicanism because his personalist emphases were precisely what distinguished him from conventional articulations of contemporary republicanism. This became evident, first, in the reasons why Ricoeur distanced himself from the core idea in civic humanism, namely that active participation in the self-government of the political community is intrinsically valuable. The core elements of personalist political philosophy reverberated in Ricoeur’s reflections on the nature and implications of the political paradox. Ricoeur’s rejection of civic humanism was based on this, for self-government has no intrinsic value in this context. For Ricoeur, the good is the ethical quest for the good life with and for other in just institutions. Because the realization and the upholding of just institutions is affected by the political paradox, citizens are responsible for the careful 213

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balance that this paradox implies. The personalist-inspired negative argument (so the fact that political conditions for the realization of our positive freedom would otherwise be compromised) thus connects freedom and selfgovernment in an instrumental manner. Like civic republicanism, Ricoeur’s political thinking can also be understood as an instrumental republicanism. The personalist dimension to Ricoeur’s political philosophy also appeared to make an important difference with respect to this form of modern republicanism. In both cases, a civic virtue was required for instrumental reasons, but civic republicanism was unable to support the required civic virtue by way of a solidary connection to others in the community. Ricoeur, however, did not share the individualist presuppositions and the implied negative concept of freedom. His own approach to the personalist vision of humanity and positive freedom, in the form of his anthropology of personhood, was what made the difference because civic virtue could be linked to the attestation of an ethical quest in which self-constancy and solicitude for the other are inextricably tied. The third and final personalist element in Ricoeur’s political thinking that distinguished him from civic republicanism and civic humanism concerned the potential for transnational citizenship. Against the backdrop of globalization, the general interest is to be sought at the global level more and more. This calls up questions concerning the potential for transnational citizenship. For personalism, transnational citizenship was no revolution, but rather an evolution that was always implicit in the meaning of the person as a citizen. The manner in which this idea surfaced in Ricoeur’s work unlocks a potential that cannot immediately be found in other forms of republicanism. We were able to determine that, in his early reflections on citizens’ responsibility, Ricoeur subscribed to Mounier’s plea that community could never be inclusive enough. This element moreover proved to be as important in his later political thinking in which he further defined the extension of the political community using the paradigm of translation and the idea of linguistic hospitality, which was directly related to his recovery of the concept of personhood. The potential for being open to another was after all connected to the attestation of oneself as another. Ricoeur’s ethics of citizenship consequently included a concrete striving toward sameness without identity by way of translation, exchange of memories and forgiveness. The finding of Ricoeur’s personalist republicanism was the result of four preceding steps. To determine the extent to which Ricoeur’s political thinking links in with personalism, we first needed to understand the political theory of personalism. The first chapter consequently briefly discussed the context of the personalist movement and in particular offered an analysis of political theory in the work of Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, and Paul-Ludwig Landsberg. This revealed that, from their shared personalist

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vision of humanity, they came to similar conclusions about the responsibility of the human person as a citizen. They defended a personalist democracy, one they understood as a political system that establishes a framework of freedom, responsibility, and justice against which each person can learn and fulfill his calling and this way develop into a full person. This is the bonum commune that politics should make its objective. Against the then larger background of failing democracies, they at the same time very much recognized the weakness of such a system. They consequently also characterized their personalist democracy as fundamentally distrustful of power. Democracy all too easily devolves from support to oppression of the human person. To guarantee an authentic personalist democracy, personalist thinkers developed both institutional and ethical guidelines. The need for vigilant and active citizens who keep the political powers that be in check was key. This emphasis on the political responsibility of all humans was part of the positive notion of freedom than runs like a continuing thread through personalist discourse, so the freedom to look for your own calling in life and commit to realizing that calling. The personalist democracy is responsible for the conditions of possibility of that freedom but every person, as a citizen, is responsible for the functioning of democracy. Freedom supposes the assumption of responsibility in the battle against political oppression and abuse of power. Only then can the political community approach the personalist and communitarian ideal of a community in which every person can fully live their freedom. This requires democracy’s institutional framework to facilitate the maximum participation and control of citizens, but it also calls for an extensive commitment from citizens. They all share the tragic responsibility of striving for the good within a particular historical context and with the associated risks of political power. Each of the three authors we discussed consequently offered up a political ethics rooted in two ideas: striving for the good, taking into account the evil. The second chapter discussed Paul Ricoeur’s own involvement in the personalist movement in the quarter century that followed the end of World War II. It demonstrated how he bridged the distance between personalism and existentialism by using the insights of thinkers like Gabriël Marcel, Karl Jaspers, Jean Nabert, and Edmund Husserl in an idiosyncratic manner, and how he explored the possibility and nature of a personalist socialism in which the collective realization of solidarity serves the development of every person. His contribution to the personalist debate this way was shown to be very multifaceted, though it always came down to a reflection on politics and the responsibility of citizens. The development of Ricoeur’s human ontology was not just focused on the theoretical discussion with existentialism, but also served as the basis for the development of a personalist political philosophy. The emphasis on freedom’s cultural mediation and human fallibility in

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the phenomenology of the will was directly connected to the ambivalent relation between politics and freedom in his political thinking, with political institutions both enabling and threatening human freedom. As far as personalist socialism was concerned, it was also obvious that concerns about its political dimension overshadowed attention to cultural and economic concerns. He emphasized that socialism needed to be accompanied by a permanent political vigilance, from a recognition of the autonomy of the political realm and political alienation. Ricoeur this way integrated the essential features of personalist political philosophy into the personalist approach to socialism, namely the ethical approach to democracy as a political system that, based on liberty and equality, is focused on enabling every person to find and realize their own vocation in life, connected to a distrust based on the weakness of politics, which in turn makes vigilant and active citizenship an indispensable requirement for realization of that political mission. It was no surprise, then, that Ricoeur capped his contribution to personalism with a political theory. An initially moral-theological reflection on the breadth of charity, in which Ricoeur also pointed to active citizenship fueled by concerns about just institutions as a dimension of charity, was given a philosophical counterpart in an analysis of democracy and the history of political philosophy. We saw how Ricoeur related the crisis of democracy to the fact that humans neglected their responsibility as citizens, while this responsibility was connected to a paradox inherent in politics. The idea of the political paradox this way fulfilled a central role. The original, concise formulation focused on the coherence of the greatness of politics—its crucial role in the establishment and application of constitutional freedom and equality—and the political evil connected to the acquiring and preserving of power. In this vision, virtuous citizenship amounted to vigilant and active use of the freedom to contest and participate and this from a dialectic between ethics of responsibility and ethics of conviction that connects awareness of the political paradox to a lasting focus on the personalist and communitarian ideal of a universal community in which every person can fully develop. This view of citizenship was central to Ricoeur’s contribution to personalist thinking. In the third chapter, we saw how Ricoeur’s engagement with personalism was not confined to that early period, as has traditionally been assumed. We contrasted how he distanced himself from traditional personalism with his attempt to breathe new life into the core ideas of personalism so that a critical loyalty vis-à-vis personalism became visible as a continuing thread throughout his entire oeuvre. The points of critique that Ricoeur subscribed to— concerning the personalist ideal of community, the doctrinal pretentions, and the defenselessness vis-à-vis structural analysis—after all each were duly addressed in his later work. In his early essays, Ricoeur had already refined

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the personalist ideal of community in which direct interpersonal relations of love and friendship also served as a model for relations between individuals in a larger community, but he built on this further with the three-part structure of personhood he had unveiled in Soi-même comme un autre. With his hermeneutic phenomenology of the speaking, acting, and narrating person, Ricoeur attested to the fundamental structures of personhood that served as the foundation for a personalist ethics of the human being who only becomes fully human in his attachments to others and within an institutional framework focused on the development of each person. His ethics safeguarded and strengthened the core arguments of personalism, while the critiques on the weak foundations of traditional personalism were addressed in the attestation of the structures of personhood that buttressed his ethics in spite of, or rather, thanks to the confrontation with analysis. We paid special attention to the critique that personalism was dependent on a Christian religious belief. We were able to determine that the unmistakable mix of theological and philosophical reflections from his early years was absent from Ricoeur’s later work, while he did indicate that his postHegelian Kantian approach to philosophy was connected to his Christian faith. His philosophy was steeped in this dialectic mode of thought, but it was especially evident in the dialectics between love and justice that highlighted a lack of meaning in his philosophical work. In light of the controversy around this in secondary literature, we concluded that multiple interpretations are feasible, but that it remains possible to consider his philosophical work on its own, as long as we acknowledge that a duly modest philosophical reflection cannot be but open-ended. From the realization that Ricoeur also maintained a critical loyalty vis-à-vis personalism in his later philosophical work, we were able to return to his political thinking in the fourth chapter, which we learned remained greatly consistent throughout his oeuvre in spite of evolutions in society at large and this because of a lasting affinity with the political theories of personalism. The hermeneutic phenomenology of Soi-même comme un autre offered an anthropological and moral-philosophical framework to further develop the themes of the political paradox and the responsibility of the human person as a citizen. In ethics, the attestation of personhood translated as a quest for the good life with and for others in just institutions. The third element of this formula indicates that the political task of persons is an extension of their ethical task. Ricoeur this way reaffirmed this political task as a question of building and safeguarding a robust institutional framework that enables everyone to fully develop their human potential. At the same time, he did not neglect the particularity of the political realm through his distinction between solicitude and justice, and his focus on political humility. This last element again connected the overall vulnerability of personhood to an emphasis on

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political fragility, with the political paradox this way again moving to the forefront. We saw how the originally rather vague description of the political paradox was further developed in three reformulations in the course of the last two decades of Ricoeur’s career. Through his reading of Éric Weil and Hannah Arendt, he arrived at a first reformulation in terms of the tension between form and force. Form pointed to the rational, formal side to the establishing of political power, as manifested in the constitution, which guarantees equality before the law as well as the mutual checks and balances of the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers. Force refers to the irrationality of original and residual violence that remains connected to seeking, acquiring, and maintaining power. The paradox expressed that political power is always a meeting between both elements. In light of this paradox, the rule of law is characterized by a weak balance in which force remains secondary to judicial form, which humanizes and institutionalizes it. In the second reformulation, Ricoeur focused on the tension between a horizontal and vertical axis in political power. The horizontal relation of the will to live together here threatens to be overshadowed by the vertical relation between rulers and subjects. Ricoeur found the main expression of this fragility in the modern legitimacy crisis. The legitimacy of the vertical relation is meant to spring from the horizontal relation, which is never a given but itself springs from the weak, overlapping consensus that can be debated anew each time. The third reformulation, finally, started with the irreducible plurality found in society, as discussed by Walzer and Boltanski and Thévenot. Ricoeur emphasized that the political realm is not a realm like all others because it is not just responsible for the distribution of a realm-specific good, but also for protection of the borders between society’s different realms. This unique quality was revealed in the paradoxical tension between an “englobing” role and an “englobed” role. Ricoeur especially saw this tension at work in the context of contemporary neoliberalism in which the state has to limit the expansive tendencies of the economic realm while its umbrella role is under pressure. As was previously the case, attention to the political paradox seamlessly morphed into a vision of citizens’ responsibility, in the sense that vigilant and active citizenship was meant to safeguard these fragile balances. This proved to be part of an overall vision on responsibility as a reaction to fragility, but also of the ethical approach to citizenship that was part of his hermeneutic phenomenology. The fact that political institutions enable us to strive toward the good life with and for others in just institutions, connected to the fragility that these institutions are subject to, makes solicitude for these political institutions an integral part of the ethical quest. His reformulations of the political paradox moreover enabled Ricoeur to more precisely define citizens’ responsibility. Citizens’ constant personal commitment and organization are meant to ensure that reason prevails over violence, that governing remains tied to a

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horizontal will to live together, and that the state is able to fulfill its role with sufficient modesty and assertiveness. We also saw that Ricoeur linked the maintaining of these balances to the dialogue about the bonum commune as horizon that we approach step by step, without ever arriving at our destination. Citizens are thus called upon to actively participate in that dialogue. Democratic ethics this way were revealed to be a particular kind of argumentation ethics, one focused on seeking compromise. Ricoeur in this regard emphasized the role of our imagination—to imagine ourselves as other people and in other roles and to conceive of a better society—as a force that enables us to reach perpetually fragile compromises in spite of plurality and conflict, especially from a healthy dynamic between ideology and utopia. At the same time, he also highlighted that this political dialogue, too, is itself fragile, which means citizens’ responsibility includes a tragic dimension as a hopeful pursuit of a bonum commune that always remains out of reach and is only ever approached in weak compromises. It was eventually this discovery of the continuity of the personalist dimension to Ricoeur’s thinking that revealed its relevance in the contemporary debate on republicanism. The answer to the question of the extent to which Ricoeur’s thinking is marked by a personalist imprint that enables him to pave the way for a personalist approach in contemporary political philosophy offers a result that plays out across three levels. First, we now have more clarity on the status of personalism in contemporary philosophy. Personalism in its original form is dead and gone, but its core ideas clearly are not. My primary aim was not to demonstrate whether Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology is beyond all criticism. Instead, it was to spotlight the viable possibilities to develop personalist ideas. We cannot see personalism as a closed chapter or, even worse, a footnote in the history of philosophy when a personalist perspective is shown to offer unique possibilities to better understand political ethics today. This brings us to the second level, for these possibilities exist. The conversation between liberalism and communitarianism eventually placed the notion of citizenship at the heart of political philosophy. Their impasse revealed the need for a form of republicanism. While the usual articulations of republicanism showed weaknesses, a personalist form of republicanism carries the potential to remedy these weaknesses. Both civic republicanism and civic humanism struggled with the openness toward transnational citizenship. Civic republicanism moreover found itself criticized for its inability to distinguish itself from liberalism, which means that it was doubly confronted with the difficulties of liberalism to support the required civic virtue. Civic humanism, meanwhile, is very dependent on a very controversial, particular vision of the good, namely the assumption of the intrinsic value of selfgovernment. Ricoeur’s implicit personalist republicanism was able to steer clear of or respond to each of these tensions. This is where we approach the

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opening toward a constructive personalist perspective within the contemporary political-philosophical debate around citizenship. Finally, the journey we completed offered deeper insight into the multifaceted oeuvre of Paul Ricoeur. We saw how the influence of personalism was necessary to grasp the development of and the particularities of his thinking, not only in his early work but across his oeuvre, especially at the level of political philosophy. Ricoeur cannot be neatly categorized as a personalist or personalist republicanist, much like he is not simply a phenomenological or hermeneutic thinker (Agís Villaverde 2012), or simply a traditionalist, modernist, or postmodernist thinker (Michel 2004). Personalism does offer an important and overlooked angle to better understand his oeuvre, especially since every new analysis contributes to a better understanding of the totality, and this in the spirit of Ricoeur’s own motto: “Expliquer plus, c’est comprendre mieux” (Ricoeur 1986b, 25). 1 NOTE 1. “To explain more is to understand better.”

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Index

Action Française, 2, 3, 5–6, 33, 195 Alinsky, Saul, 11 Althusser, Louis, 92 Anscombe, Elisabeth, 110–111 Apel, Karl-Otto, 131 Aquinas, Thomas, 1, 2, 3, 5–6, 7, 12–13, 19, 24, 25, 35, 36n5, 36n9, 39, 93, 100, 103, 157n4 Arendt, Hannah, 122, 164, 167–172, 186, 192, 206n11, 207n18, 218 Aristotle, 36n5, 47, 75, 118, 119–120, 122, 123, 128, 132, 138, 192 attestation, 51, 87n21, 107, 120, 138–139, 143, 149, 151, 156, 165, 193, 214, 216–217 attitude, 27, 95–98, 135, 142, 155, 157, 177 Austin, John, 103, 109 authority. See power Barth, Karl, 39, 87n22, 100, 101 Benveniste, Émile, 103 Bergson, Henri, 3, 14, 100 Berlin, Isaiah, 186 Boltanski, Luc, 172–173, 207n24, 218 bonum commune. See common good Brunschvicg, Léon, 99–100 Camus, Albert, 42, 53, 83 capitalism, 1, 3, 14–15, 57–58, 60 Chevalier, Jacques, 3, 100

Chomsky, Noam, 103 Christian philosophy, 3, 42–43, 93, 99–102, 146, 149, 153–154 civic education, 11, 23, 41, 64, 66, 80, 81, 85, 168 common good, 6–7, 8, 9, 12, 22, 31, 33–34, 57, 70, 79, 125, 176–178, 180, 192, 194, 197–198, 215, 219 communism. See Marxism communitarianism, xii, 164, 181–184, 186, 188, 190, 192, 213, 219 compromise, 177–178, 219 crisis, 56, 73–74, 78, 85, 96–98, 117, 135, 157, 177; of legitimacy, 172 critical theory, 95, 105 Davidson, Donald, 110–111 Descartes, René, 5, 45, 107, 139 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 104 Domenach, Jean-Marie, 59, 87n26 Esprit (movement), x, 4, 14, 18, 24, 27, 33, 35, 37n13, 39–40, 57, 87n26, 91–92 ethics of conviction/ethics of responsibility, 32, 35, 38n28, 58, 80–82, 85, 88n50, 145, 188, 216 existentialism, xi, 17, 19, 35, 41–56, 82–83, 86n11, 92, 152, 215 fascism, 3, 14, 32, 33, 74 Frankfurt School. See critical theory 237

238

Index

Freud, Sigmund, 95, 101, 104 freedom: positive freedom, 10, 29, 34, 52, 54, 69, 72, 74, 77–79, 83, 186, 188, 191, 192, 214, 215; as non-domination, 31, 184–187, 191 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 105 Golden Rule, 120, 124–125, 129, 137, 147–148, 159n34 Gramsci, Antonio, 92 Greimas, Julien Algirdas, 103 Grice, Herbert Paul, 109 Gurvitch, Georges, 21, 22 Habermas, Jürgen, 105, 131–132 Hobbes, Thomas, 206n5 Hegel, G.W.F., 54–55, 75–76, 118, 127–128, 132, 143–145, 146, 157n2, 165, 188, 206n5 Heidegger, Martin, 42, 86n8, 105, 138, 140 Hume, David, 114 Husserl, Edmund, 24, 44, 45, 83, 139–140, 158n15, 215 idem/ipse-identity, 108, 110–117, 129, 133, 137, 140, 156, 182, 201 ideology, 3, 27, 32, 65, 71; versus utopia, 178–179, 219 Jaspers, Karl, 42–43, 83, 86n8, 100, 164, 215 Jonas, Hans, 160n45, 174–175 Kant, Immanuel, 19, 24–25, 48, 55, 113, 118, 123–125, 129, 131, 132, 141, 144, 146, 150, 198 Kantianism, 19, 25, 53, 130, 143–145; Post-Hegelian, 54, 143–146, 152, 157, 217 Kierkegaard, Søren, 42, 55 Lachelier, Jules, 99 Lagneau, Jules, 99 Landsberg, Paul-Ludwig, x, 4, 20, 24–32, 33–35, 36n2, 38n28, 40, 67, 78, 79, 81, 85, 86n7, 88n50, 93, 95–96, 98, 117, 135, 157n4, 214 language, 47, 60–61, 88n51, 107–110, 136, 177, 198–201, 203. See also paradigm

of translation Lefort, Claude, 92, 159n40, 172, 207n22 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 103 Levinas, Emmanuel, 95, 106, 121, 140 liberalism, ix, xii, 74, 163, 175, 181–185, 186, 188, 190, 191–193, 213, 219; political, 65–66, 74, 85, 144, 164 Locke, John, 114 logic of the gift/logic of reciprocity, 147–149, 204 Luther(anism), 5, 70 Macchiavelli, Niccolo, 6, 76 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 116, 119, 181 Maine de Biran, Pierre, 139 Marcel, Gabriël, 17, 39, 42–44, 45, 83, 85n2, 86n8, 100, 129, 215 Maritain, Jacques, x, 3, 4, 5–17, 23, 31, 33–35, 36n4, 36n6, 37n11, 37n13, 38n28, 39, 67, 69, 78, 93–94, 103, 196, 205, 214 Marx, Karl. See Marxism Marxism, ix, 2, 3, 14–15, 33, 39, 56–57, 59, 60, 63–66, 74, 76, 84, 87n29, 87n32, 88n45, 92, 101, 164, 167, 189 Maurras, Charles. See Action Française Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 44, 45, 63, 84, 87n31, 92 Montesquieu, Charles L. de, 189 Mounier, Emmanuel, x, 3, 4, 14–23, 27, 31, 33–35, 36n6, 37n13, 38n28, 38n29, 39–40, 42, 45, 51, 55, 57, 66, 67, 74, 78, 81, 86n7, 88n50, 92–94, 97, 99, 100, 135, 137, 150, 156, 157n4, 164, 172, 196–198, 201–202, 205, 214 Nabert, Jean, 44, 46, 215 narrativity, 104, 114–117, 119–120, 133–134, 135, 137, 156, 182, 203–204, 211n80 natural law. See Aquinas, Thomas neighbor/fellow man, 68–69, 94, 122, 137–138, 155, 198 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 42, 46, 93, 101 original affirmation, 44, 46, 48–49, 51, 52–53, 55, 83, 98, 101, 102 pacifism, 31, 34, 81, 88n50

Index paradigm of translation, 198–201, 203, 210n74, 214 Parfit, Derek, 114 Patočka, Jan, 177 Paul (apostle), 68, 70 Péguy, Charles, 4, 14, 161n58 Pettit, Philip, xii, 184, 186, 194 phenomenology, 3, 4, 24–25, 27, 35, 39, 44, 46–47, 61, 82–83, 91, 93, 139, 141, 174; hermeneutic, xii, 47, 50, 87n21, 98–99, 103–107, 117, 133, 134, 137–138, 140, 141–142, 146, 149, 152, 155, 157, 158n15, 165, 166, 176, 188, 193, 216–219 Philip, André, 39, 41, 87n22, 88n50 Plato, 48, 76, 139 political paradox, x, xii, 67, 75–82, 85, 88n48, 128, 163, 165, 166–180, 187–190, 193, 197, 201–202, 207n28, 213–214, 216–218 political pedagogy. See civic education power, 13, 14, 16, 34, 51, 65, 71, 76, 78–79, 165, 167, 169, 173, 180, 189, 215; kinds of, 22–23, 122, 169–170, 189; power-in-common, 122, 128, 185, 187, 189 prophet(ical), 11, 20, 31, 64, 66, 70–71, 81 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 21, 22 Rawls, John, 10, 37n11, 125–127, 137, 159n38, 164, 178, 181, 183, 192, 208n34 Renouvier, Charles, 2 republicanism, xii, 184–197, 213–214, 219–220 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 5, 75, 189

239

sameness/selfhood. See idem/ipse-identity Sandel, Michael, xii, 184, 186, 195 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 42, 43, 48, 52–53, 55, 83, 86n8, 86n11, 92, 98 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 103 Scheler, Max, 24–32, 34, 37n22, 93–94, 96, 103, 155 Searle, John, 109 Skinner, Quentin, xii, 184, 186 socialism, xi, 4, 26, 27, 41, 56–67, 74, 82, 83–84, 144, 163–164, 215 socius. See neighbor/fellow man solicitude, 120–122, 123, 129–130, 135, 156, 166, 188, 191, 193, 202, 214, 217–218 sovereignty, 9, 16, 21, 174, 190, 200, 202 Spinoza, Baruch de, 138 Strawson, Peter, 103, 108, 112, 136, 139 structuralism, 92, 97–98, 103–104, 152, 155 subsidiarity, 11, 16, 22, 31, 34, 35 Taylor, Charles, 181, 183 transnational, xii, 31, 58, 194–205, 211n80, 214, 219 Thévenot, Laurent. See Boltanski, Luc Thomism, Neo-. See Aquinas, Thomas Walzer, Michael, 127–128, 172–173, 181, 182, 207n24, 218 Weber, Max, 32, 35, 58, 80–81, 122, 167–168 Weil, Éric, 78, 85, 95, 97, 135, 143, 155, 159n30, 167–168, 171, 205, 218 Weil, Simone, 3, 36n4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 159n28 Wright, Georg Henrik von, 113

About the Author

Dries Deweer has studied philosophy (BA, MA, PhD) and comparative and international politics (MSc) at KU Leuven (Belgium). He has written a doctoral dissertation on the political philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, supported by a PhD fellowship of the Research Foundation (FWO)—Flanders. This dissertation earned him the Mgr. Arthur Janssen Award for Christian Ethics. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Tilburg University (Department of Philosophy), in the Netherlands. Recent publications include articles in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Appraisal, Archivio di Filosofia, Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies, and International Journal of Philosophy and Theology.

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