Paul Ricoeur Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Paul Ricoeur
OCCUPATION: Philosopher, Writer
BIRTH DATE: February 27, 1913
DEATH DATE: May 20, 2005
EDUCATION: University of Paris
PLACE OF BIRTH: Valence, France
PLACE OF DEATH: Châtenay-Malabry, France

Best Known For

Paul Ricoeur is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished philosophers of the 20th century. He taught in both France and the United States.

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Paul Ricoeur

APA Style

Paul Ricoeur. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 02:16, May 24, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208.

Harvard Style

Paul Ricoeur. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208 [Accessed 24 May 2013].

MLA Style

"Paul Ricoeur." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 24 2013, 02:16 http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208.

MHRA Style

"Paul Ricoeur," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208 [accessed May 24, 2013].

Chicago Style

"Paul Ricoeur," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208 (accessed May 24, 2013).

CBE/CSE Style

Paul Ricoeur [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 24] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208.

Bluebook Style

Paul Ricoeur, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208 (last visited May 24, 2013).

AMA Style

Paul Ricoeur. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-ricoeur-9458208. Accessed May 24, 2013.

Synopsis

Paul Ricoeur was a French philosopher best known for his preoccupation with the hermeneutic of the self. Ricoeur was captured during World War II and used his five years in captivity working out his philosophic ideas. He taught and lectured in France through 1956 and then in the U.S. His most widely read works are The Rule of Metaphor, From Text to Action and Oneself as Another.

Quotes

On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet this brief period when we appear in the world is the time in which all meaningful questions arise.

– Paul Ricoeur

Profile

Philosopher and theologian, born in Valence, SE France. A pupil of Gabriel Marcel, he studied at the University of Paris, and became professor at Strasbourg (1948–56), Paris-Nanterre (1956–70), and Chicago (1970). Influenced by Heidegger, Jaspers, and Husserl, his wide-ranging works cover topics such as the essence of language, individual action and will, and freedom and evil. He was an influential figure in French and Anglo–American philosophy, engaging critically with various contemporary methodologies - structuralism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and hermeneutics - across a whole range of problems. His publications include Philosophie de la volonté (3 vols, 1950–60, Philosophy of the Will) and La Métaphore vive (1975, The Living Metaphor), Temps et récit (1983–5), and Soi-mme comme autre (1990). In 2000 he published his last major work, La Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli (Memory, History and Forgetting).