The philosophy of Paul Ricoeur is rarely viewed through the lens of
political philosophy, and yet questions of power, and of how to live
together in the polis, were a constant preoccupation of his writings.
This volume brings together a selection of his texts spanning six
decades, from 1958 to 2003, which together present Ricoeur's political
project in its coherence and diversity.
In Ricoeur's view, the political is the realm of a tension between
"rationality" (the attempt to provide a coherent explanation of the
world) and "irrationality," which manifests itself in force and
repression. This "political paradox" lies at the heart of politics, for
the claim to explain the world generates its own form of violence: the
more one desires the good, the more one is inclined to impose it.
Ricoeur warns citizens, the guardians of democracy, against any
totalizing system of thought and any dogmatic understanding of history.
Power should be divided and controlled, and Ricoeur defends a form of
political liberalism in which states are conscious of the limits of
their power and respectful of the freedom of their citizens.
Ranging from questions of power and repression to those of ethics,
identity, and responsibility, these little-known political texts by one
of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century will be of interest
to students and scholars of philosophy, politics, and theology and to
anyone concerned with the great political questions of our time.
