PARCOURS DE LA RECONNAISANCE

This book is a direct continuation of the preceding one, Memory, history, oblivion. It explores one of the paths left open by its predecessor: recognition. Ricoeur pursues the diverse acceptations of this theme, starting off from its various definitions in dictionaries: recognition as a process of identification (I recognise this table); self-recognition (I recognise myself as the same I was yesterday or twenty years ago even if I have changed); mutual recognition (I acknowledge your difference and I even feel thankful towards you). Paul Ricoeur makes a bet that this lexical diversity does not prevent the constitution of a unified philosophy of recognition which does not yet exist and which he is the first to attempt.

Paul Ricoeur who has for a long time taught jointly at Nanterre University and in the United States is the author of a vast oeuvre nourished by his knowledge of the most contemporary approaches in the humanities and his reading of philosophers from all parts of the world. At the age of 90, he has preserved an intact capacity for discovery which inspires admiration.