Roger W. H. Savage - Paul Ricoeur and the Lived Body

Paul Ricoeur and
the Lived Body

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 Ricoeurs thought. Second, we extend Ricoeurs 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 Ricoeurs 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.

Recent Titles in the Series

Paul Ricoeur and the Lived Body , edited by Roger W. H. Savage

A Companion to Ricoeurs The Symbolism of Evil, edited by Scott Davidson

Narrative Medicine in Hospice Care: Identity, Practice, and Ethics through the Lens of Paul Ricoeur, by Tara Flanagan

A Companion to Ricoeurs Fallible Man, edited by Scott Davidson

Ricoeurs Hermeneutics of Religion: Rebirth of the Capable Self , by Brian Gregor

Ideology and Utopia in the Twenty-first Century: The Surplus of Meaning in Ricoeurs Dialectical Concept , edited by Stephanie Arel and Dan R. Stiver

Ricoeur and the Third Discourse of the Person: From Philosophy and Neuroscience to Psychiatry and Theology , by Michael T. H. Wong

A Companion to Ricoeurs Freedom and Nature, edited by Scott Davidson

Paul Ricoeur and
the Lived Body

Edited by
Roger W. H. Savage

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020933377

ISBN: 978-1-7936-0597-9 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN: 978-1-7936-0598-6 (electronic)

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Contents

Richard Kearney

Roger W. H. Savage

Annemie Halsema

Galle Fiasse

Anne Glonec

Stephanie Arel

Roger W. H. Savage

Scott Davidson

Timo Helenius

Maria Cristina Clorinda Vendra

Dan R. Stiver

The idea of publishing a collection of essays on Paul Ricoeur and the lived body was initially conceived by Cyndie Sautereau and Gonalo Marcelo. I am grateful to Cyndie and Gonalo for setting in motion an endeavor that for me has proven to be intellectually enriching. Although the shape this project ultimately took differs from its original outlines, the themes and topics addressed by this volumes contributors advance new insights into how engaging critically with a reflection on the body as ones own enhances our understanding of our mode of incarnation in the world. From the way the body figures in the construction of identity to a consideration of how feelings and passions weigh on our dispositions and deeply held beliefs, the chapters in this book attest to the enduring power of Ricoeurs reflections and analyses of the body as lived through extending the critical reach of their explorations into the connections between our incarnation as flesh and ethics, affects, our cultural and social condition, and ideology critique.

I want to thank Greg S. Johnson and Dan R. Stiver, who are the editors of the series Studies in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur, for their encouragement. I also want to thank Jana Hodges-Kluck, who is the editor at Lexington with whom I worked, for her advice and support in preparing this volume for publication.

I owe a special word of thanks to my research assistant, Mehrenegar Rostami. Negars meticulous attention to formatting requirements, references, bibliographical information, and indexing has been invaluable. Moreover, her enthusiasm for this project has been a source of encouragement that the critical engagement with the work and thought of Paul Ricoeur continues to speak to a new generation of emerging scholars.

Finally, I wish to thank the following publishers for permission to quote from works by Paul Ricoeur for which they hold the copyrights:

Republished with permission of Northwestern University Press, from Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary , Paul Ricoeur, Translated by Erazim V. Kohk. Copyright 1966. All rights reserved.

Republished with permission of Fordham University Press, from Fallible Man: Philosophy of the Will , Paul Ricoeur, Translated by Charles A. Kelbley. Copyright 1986; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. All rights reserved.

Republished with permission of Chicago University Press, from Oneself as Another , Paul Ricoeur, Translated by Kathleen Blamey. Copyright 1992. All rights reserved.

The Swing Door of the Flesh

Richard Kearney

Although Ricoeur never devoted a single full-length study to the body, his work makes significant contributions to our understanding of the subject. In the 1950s, Ricoeur developed a phenomenology of embodiment as part of his investigations into the relationship between freedom and nature, or more precisely between the voluntary and the involuntary (to cite the early titles of his overall philosophy of the will). But before this early phenomenology could develop into a full diagnostics of carnal signification, Ricoeur took his famous linguistic turn in the 1960s refocusing his attention on a hermeneutics of the text. There are however some fascinating insights into the role of the body throughout Ricoeurs explicitly hermeneutic periodas several essays in this volume attestand in his later writings, most notably Oneself as Another (1990), Ricoeur reopens a dialogue between his initial phenomenology of the flesh and his mainstream hermeneutics of language.