Religion for Thought : Writings and Lectures

Since the last decade of the twentieth century, there has been talk of a return of religion in Western societies - the very societies that were regarded by many people as undergoing an irreversible process of secularization. Paul Ricoeur's philosophical writings on religion are contemporaneous with this movement of secularization and return, while at the same time his work complicates the schema. In Ricoeur's view, religion is part of the universe of convictions in which subjects live concretely, convictions that deserve to be heard and placed under the lights of argumentation and discussion.

For Ricoeur, religion is the other of philosophy, the non-philosophical par excellence. He did not write a systematic philosophy of religion, but he wrote extensively about religion as a meeting place for language and conviction. The essays in this volume, written between 1953 and 2003, attest to the coherence, richness, and variety of Ricoeur's secular and philosophical approach towards religion. They range over the problem of guilt, the legitimacy or otherwise of Freudian, Marxist, and other critiques of religion, the relation between experience and language in religious discourse, the study of biblical hermeneutics, the nature of religious belief, and reflections on sacrifice, gifts, and debt. Ricoeur draws on religion to think, while not neglecting the analysis of religion itself.

These texts by one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy and theology and to anyone concerned with the enduring role of religion in the modern world.

Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished philosophers of the twentieth century. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago. His many works include Freud and Philosophy, Time and Narrative, and Oneself as Another.