Critique and Conviction

In this new book Paul Ricoeur - one of the greatest contemporary philosophers - offers a personal reflection on his life and on the themes which have preoccupied him over the course of his career. Ranging across topics in ethics and metaphysics, psychoanalysis and hermeneutics, history, politics and religion, Critique and Conviction provides unique insight into the ideas and sources of influence which have shaped Ricoeur's philosophical approach and defined his core concerns. Ricoeur also discusses in detail a number of topics about which he has not written extensively before, including questions of aesthetics and current affairs. This remarkable testimony by one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century will be of great interest to students of philosophy, theology, literary theory and social and political theory.

Note to the Reader. 1. From Valence to Nanterre. 2. France/United States: Two incomparable histories. 3. From psychoanalysis to the question of the self, or thirty years of philosophical work. 4. Politics and totalitarianism. 5. Duty of memory, duty of justice. 6. Education and secularism. 7. Biblical readings and meditations. 8. Aesthetic experience. Notes.