R Paul

We reproduce here the text of a lecture held by Paul Ricoeur at Naples in 1997. Ricoeur sees in Patočka’s work an elliptical movement with two foci: the phenomenology of the natural world and the question of the meaning of history. Ricoeur evidences the new features of Patočka’s a-subjective phenomenology compared to Husserl’s transcendental idealism and Heidegger’s existential analytics. The transition from the phenomenology of the natural world to the problematic of history suggests in any case a substantial dialectical thread that starts from the phenomenology of the movement of life, weaves through the problematic and tragic character of history and ends in the idea of the solidarity of the shaken

Summary Beginning with the paradoxical fact of the plurality of philosophical systems, the irrationality of this situation is examined, first, from the point of view of two solutions — the Hegelian solution and that which dissolves the paradox by denying that systems are exclusive of one another — judged to be inadequate; and then from the viewpoint of the contrast between the claims of genuine philosophy and its actual historical practice. The idea of system is examined from the perspective of Spinoza's Ethics and, finally, M. Gueroult's idéalisme intégral serves as a guide in exploring the result of subordinating the historical features of philosophical activity to its systematic features.RésuméPartant du fait paradoxal de la pluralité des systèmes philosophiques, l'auteur examine l'irrationalité de cette situation d'abord du point de vue de deux solutions — celle de Hegel et celle qui résoud le paradoxe en niant que les systèmes s'excluent mutuellement — solutions qui sont jugées inadéquates; puis du point de vue du contraste entre la véritable philosophie et sa pratique historique effective. L'idée de système est examinée dans la perspective de l'éthique de Spinoza et, enfin, l'idéalisme intégral de M. Gueroult sert de guide pour explorer les conséquences d'une subordination des aspects historiques de l'activité philosophique à ses aspects systématiques.ZusammenfassungAngesichts der paradoxen Situation der Pluralität von philosophischen Systemen wird die Irrationalität dieser Situation untersucht: zunächst vom Gesichtspunkt zweier Lösungen — nämlich der Lösung Hegels und derjenigen die darin besteht, die Unvereinbarkeit der Systeme zu leugnen —, die beide als inadäquat verworfen werden; dann von einem Standpunkt aus, der zwischen den Ansprüchen echter Philosophie und deren tatsächlicher historischer Praxis unterscheidet. Der Begriff des Systems wird aus der Perspektive von Spinozas Ethik untersucht und schliesslich wird M. Gueroults integraler Idealismus als Führer verwendet, um das Ergebnis einer Unterwerfung der historischen Züge philosophischer Tätigkeit unter ihre systematischen Züge zu durchleuchten.

At the outset, I would like to thank the Royal Institute of Philosophy for inviting me to add my contribution to the general theme of the present session. Mr Vesey suggested that I speak on the notion of guilt from the twofold perspective of Ethics and of the Philosophy of Religion. I was very happy to accept his proposal, for it gave me the opportunity to gather together my own reflections on this difficult topic, which up to now have been somewhat scattered. My principal task will be to determine the distinction between ethical discourse and religious discourse on the question of guilt. These will be the two main divisions of my analysis.

At the outset, I would like to thank the Royal Institute of Philosophy for inviting me to add my contribution to the general theme of the present session. Mr Vesey suggested that I speak on the notion of guilt from the twofold perspective of Ethics and of the Philosophy of Religion. I was very happy to accept his proposal, for it gave me the opportunity to gather together my own reflections on this difficult topic, which up to now have been somewhat scattered. My principal task will be to determine the distinction between ethical discourse and religious discourse on the question of guilt. These will be the two main divisions of my analysis.

En el texto se analiza la experiencia del sufrimiento. No se persigue orientar el acto terapéutico sino tan sólo comprender esta experiencia común y universal. Se distingue entre dolor y sufrir, a la manera de tipos ideales, para mostrar que el sufrimiento no es sólo físico sino que afecta a todo el ser humano, en todas sus dimensiones. Se proponen dos ejes de análisis de esta experiencia: la relación sí-mismo-otro y la relación entre el hacer y el padecer. Todo sufrir y toda expresión del sufrimiento puede ser comprendida en este marco. Pero, ¿el sufrimiento enseña? Para evitar el dolorismo y el sentimentalismo es preferible decir que el sufrimiento “interroga” y “apela”. El sufrir es también un “aguantar” y un perseverar en el esfuerzo por existir. Así queda trazada una fenomenología hermenéutica del sufrimiento.

In an intentionally provocative essay published in the journal Esprit (January, 1983) on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, I ventured the following slogan: “Death to personalism; long live the person!” I was attempting to suggest that Mounier's formulation of personalism was, as he himself readily admitted, connected with a certain cultural and philosophical constellation which is no longer ours today: existentialism and Marxism are no longer the only opponents. They are no longer even opponents at all, against which personalism would be required to define itself, at the risk of becoming one or another system or `ism'. I concluded my essay with the following citation from Mounier's Qu'est-ce que le personnalisme?: “We are witnessing [...] the first meanderings of a cyclical course where the explorations pursued to exhaustion along one path are are given up only to be rediscovered farther on, enriched by this forgetting and by the discoveries for which it cleared a path” (p. 11). In addition, I wanted to say that the person is still the most appropriate term to designate those investigations for which neither the term `con-sciousness', nor `subject', nor `individual' really apply, for the various reasons that I invoked at the time. I would like to discuss some of those investigations here, beyond the point reached in that essay, where I restricted myself to defining the person by an attitude in Eric Weil's sense, or as one would say in hermeneutics, by the everyday understanding that we have of it. Following Paul Landsberg, I used the criteria of crisis and commitment, adding to the latter certain corollaries such as fidelity over time to a higher cause, and acceptance of alterity and difference within personal identity. Now I would like to make use of contemporary investigations into language, action and narrative in order to provide the ethical constitution of the person with a substratum and roots, comparable to those explored by Emmanuel Mounier in Traité du Caractère. In this sense, the present study is an extension of Mounier's book