SUNY series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

RICOEUR AS ANOTHER

Lenore Langsdorf, editor

The Ethics of Subjectivity

Edited by
Richard A. Cohen
James L. Marsh

State University of New York Press

Contents

Published by
State University of New York Press} Albany

2002 State University of New York

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
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Introduction by James L. Marsh

vii

Sigla

XV

PART ONE. RICOEUR IN HIMSELF

1. Personal Identity

Charles E. Reagan

2. The Doubleness of Subjectivity: Regenerating

the Phenomenology of Intentionality

For information, address State University of New York Press,

90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Lenore Langsdorf

Production by judith Block

Marketing by Anne Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ricoeur as another : the ethics of subjectivity

I edited by Richard A. Cohen,

James L. Marsh.
p. em.- (SUNY series in the philosophy of the social sciences)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-51895 (alk. paper)-ISBN 0-79145190-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Ricoeur, Paul. 2. Ethics. 3. Subjectivity. I. Cohen, Richard A. II. Marsh,
james L. Ill. Series.

33

3. Rethinking Subjectivity: Narrative Identity

and the Self
David Rasmussen

57

4. Can There Be a Science of Action?

John van den Hengel

71

5. Literary and Science Fictions: Philosophers

and Technomyths

Don Ihde

93

PART TWO. RICOEUR IN RELATION TO OTHERS

B2430.R554 R53 2002

194--dcZl

2001031188
10 9 8 7 6

543 2 1

107

6. Ricoeur and Levinas: Solicitude in Reciprocity

and Solitude in Existence

Patrick L. Bourgeois

109

7. Moral Selfhood: A Levinasian Response to

Ricoeur on Levinas

Richard A. Cohen

127
v

vi

CONTENTS

8. Between Conviction and Critique: Reflexive

Philosophy, Testimony, and Pneumatology

Eric Crump

161

9. At the Limit of Practical Wisdom: Moral Blindness

David PeUauer

187

10. Response to Rawls

Bernard P. Dauenhauer

Introduction

203

11. The Right and the Good: A Solution to the

Communicative Ethics Controversy
]ames L. Marsh

223

About the Contributors

235

Index

237

After an initial reading nf Ricoeur's Oneself as Another, we have the impression of ave!}' sjgnificant work. One may or may not go all the way with
Charles Reagan, one of the contributors to this volume, when he says that
this is "Ricoeur's most elegantly written, clearly organized, and closely argued
work" (2), or, later in his essay, that the book is "the very model of his
philosophical style" (33). But we do have a sense nonetheless that the work
brings to a tentative conclusiont always open to further developmerit 1 a series

of different but related inquiries carried out over the course of a lifetime into
the self, freedom, interpretation, narrative, and critique.

One relatively new aspect of the work is that the last four chapters. represent Ricoeur's first fully systematic and sustained statement of his ethics
and its ontological implications. Ethics is not a fully new concern of Ricoeur's,
but his reflections in the .past have been mote momentary and episodic and
most often in the context of pursuing something else. This relatively new
ethical aspect of his work is related to other kinds of inquiry that have been
typical Ricoeurian themes, such as action theory, the semantics and pragmatics of language, and narrative theory. All of the themes in this new book,
however, are unified by the theme of the self as another and as related to the
other.
One of Ricoeur's early works, Freedom and Nature, was a sustained phenomenological inquiry into the nature and limits of freedom. We are lefr at
the end of that work, however, with a question about the ethical implications of his inquiry into freedom. Oneself as Another can be taken as his most
mature- answer to that question.

Much, of course, intervenes in the time between Freedom and Nature and
Oneself as Another. Soon after writing that first book,"Ricoe1lr in Symbolism
take his famous henneneutical rum, moving fro~ direct
'" phenomenological description of human experience to interpretation of that

olBVil begins to

vii

ix

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

experience. I read such a turn to interpretation as complementing rather

linking of earlier themes and methodologies with the method and content

than replacing direct description, which Ricoeur continues to employ through

of ethics. At the same time, in contrast to the very comprehensive, cosmo~

the rest of his career. Such a turn continues in subsequent works such as

logical, metaphysical orientation of Tnne and Narrative, Oneself as Another is

a concentrated focusing of attention on the human self.
Our book is a collection of essays by North American authors, all of
whom are already well known for their work in Continental philosophy and
its various sub-fields of phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, and
postmodemism, and all of whom are animated by a sense of the importance
of Ricoeur's work past and present. In contrast to some of his mote flashy
French counterparts, who attract because of the extremeness and colorfulness of their formulations, what Ricoeur has going for him most of the time
is that he is simply right or close to being right on the issues UP for discussion. I am tempted to say that, in his dialectical nuance and balance, Ricoeur
is as about as Hegelian as one. can be in the twentieth century while still
remaining intellectually honest. This book links opposites such as sense and

viii

Freud and Philosophy, The Conflict of Interpretations, The Life of Metaphor,

Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, and Time and
Narrative. At the same time, Ricoeur is broadening his inquiry into analytic
theories of action, exploring the implications for politics in Ideology and
Utopia, and intervening in the Habermas-Gadamer debate over the relative
merits of hermeneutics and critical theory.
In one sense, then, Oneself as Another represents a concentrated taking up
and linking of previous themes in philosophy of language, action theory, and
theory of narrative with the relatively new theme of ethics. In another sense
the work represents the completion of a decades-long inquiry into the self in
its phenomenologically accessible, linguistic, hermeneutical, and ethical aspects. Like Freedom and Nature in the career of early Ricoeur and InterPretation Theory in his early hermeneutical phase and Time and Narrative in the
later hermeneutical phase of his work, Oneself as Another represents a very
tightly constructed, argued synthesis of earlier, more disparate inquiries into
the self, language action, narrative, and ethics.
1

One senses here in this work, as in Ricoeues other work, a dialectical

interplay between particular and universal, analytic and synthetic, experiential and interpretative, hermeneutical and explanatory, disparate and synthetic lines of inquiry. Freedom and Nature brings to synthetic completion
earlier universal, eidetic phenomenological inquiries into Husserl, Jaspers,

Marcel, and other related thinkers and themes in phenomenology and existentialism. At the same time, that work opens onto more concrete reflections

on existential freedom in Fa!Uble Man and evil in .SymboUsm of Evil. The

reflective inquiry into the hermeneutics of the symbol in Symbolism of Evil
opens onto a series of inquiries finally completed in the much more. universal
and synthetic Interpretation Theory presented in the middle 1970s. Themes
from phenomenology, analytic action theory, philosophy of language, theory
of metaphor, and literary theory are integrated in the magisterial 1lme and
Narrative. Again, as already stated, themes from philosophy of language,
acrion theory, hermeneutics, and ethics are integrated into one whole in

Oneself as Another.
Ricoeur's book, then, represents a tentative completion of earlier inquiries

into the free, embodied self going back to his very earliest work. What kind
of ethics is implied by his account of the free, embodied, social self, which
is in the world and mediated by structures of language and by a psychological
and social unconscious? The book at the same time represents a synthetic

reference, particular and univetsalt interpretation and explanation, history

and fiction, the right and the good, dury and happiness, justification and
application, the self and the other. The contemporary ethical Humpty Dumpry,
which has been split up and carved up hy Aristotelians and Kantians,
communitarians and Rawlsians or Habermasians, universalists and advocates
of application to the particular, Ricoeur attempts to put back together again.
In the opinion of at least some of the authors of this. volume, contested
somewhat by others, Ricoeur largely succeeds in that task But all agree about
the importance and philosophical provocativeness of what he has tried to do.
The editors have divided the volume into parts, the first dealing primarily
with Ricoeur's thought itself and the second dealing with his relations to
other thinkers. Charles Reagan's essay, which starts off the volume, reflects
on how Ricoeur's sense of personal identity is inextricably bound up with the
other; how Ricoeur's philosophical ethics is the first major statement of his
ethics,. a Ricoeurian groundwork fur the metaphysics of morals; and how
Ricoeur's style of philosophy, his dialogal and dialectical respect. for other
thinkers from whom he learns as well as criticizes, enacts and instantiates the
relationship between self and other articulated and defended in the book.
Lenore Langsdorf's essay, following hints given by Ricoeur himself, develops a mode of intentionality correlative to Husserlian intentionality. This
new mode of intentionality) generative intentionality~- is characterized by a
dependence on human others as helping to constitute the self, the anchoring
of the self in a lived body that is agent and patient in relation to the world,
and the ongoing composition of the lived body from physical constituents of
other bodies during and after the process of birth. Such a conception of

INTRODUCTION

intentionality leaves us with a conception of self that is not vulnerable to

contemporary critiques of the subject, because such a conception does not
leave out the messier aspects of human existence. The self that emerges is a

mediated self, multiple, mutable, and permeable, significantly fragmented in

creatively powerful ways.
David Rasmussen's essay, in contrast to Langsdorf's emphasis on multiplicity, stresses the narrative identity ofRicoeur's conception of the self. Rasmussen
questions whether or not it is possible to retrieve the phenomenon and
concept of subjectivity under the category of the narrative unity of the self.
His answer is that Ricoeur is largely successful in this project. He has narratively resolved the discontinuity between calendar time and internal time
through the integration of the self in a larger temporal framework. Speech
act theory, as done by Searle or Habermas, has largely undermined selfidentity. Only by pushing beyond speech act theory into a conception of
narrative identity more adequately relating the self to the world can one
come up with a more adequate conception of personal identity.
John van den Hengel asks in his essay whether for Ricoeur there can be
a sc~ence, of action. He situates his questiOn in noting the distinction and
tension between epistemi, that which can be known with certainty, and doxn,
which is vague opinion. This is a tension going all the way back to the
Greeks. Ricoeur, steering between the Scylla of a strong foundationalism and
the Charybdis of a postmodern relativism, unites understanding and explanation into one hermeneutical whole. Hermeneutics, however, leads into

ethical action, which cannot be encompassed within science. Van den Hengel's
answer to the question; "Can there be a SCience of action?'1 is~- therefore,
"
" anduno""
yes
: yes t' to the extent that expJanation is essential to under,
standing,- 'fno" to the extent that human action involves and implies attes~
tation, a committed trust, a "believing" in what the self says and what it

does.
Don lhde in his essay suggests that Oneself as Another may be the capstone
book of Ricoeur's career, because his dialectical and hermeneutical moves are
"more subtly made, less visible in the foreground, and placed in the most
complex and synthetic display of his philosophy to date" (97). In his essay
lhde interrogates Ricoeur~ linking of analytic philosophy and hermeneutics
from the perspective of his (Ihde's) own work in hermeneutics and philosophy of science. In his use of science fiction versus literary fiction to characterize the differences between analytic philosophy and hermeneutics, Ricoeur
correctly criticizes- science fiction>s attempt to render contingent the corpo..

real and terrestrial condition which the hermeneutical tradition takes to be

unsurmountable.

INTRODUCTION

xi

But then Ricoeur surprisingly and mistakenly identifies the science fiction
version of science with technology as such. Ricoeur recognizes Parfit's
technomyth, but does not recognize his own. Deepest of all, however, is

another set of parallels embedded in the two technomyths, two radically

different body technologies. Here Ricoeur is more insightful than analytic
philosophy, and by arguing for the phenomenological sense of body as flesh
shows how analytic body theory may be called a neo-Cartesianism.
Patrick Bourgeois begins Part Two with a discussion ofRicoeur and Levinas.
One interesting connection in this volume is that between Bourgeois's essay,

which with some qualification .interprets and defends Ricoeur's critique of

Levinas, Richard Cohen's essay, which is sharply critical of Ricoeur's take on
Levinas, and Marsh's essay, which includes a defense of Ricoeur's critique of
Levinas.

While a bit too severe on Levirias,_ Bourgeois argues, -Ricoetir's ac.-

count can be altered slightly but without substantially changing his overall
position. Thus~ Ricoeur's nuanced position can be seen-as an adequate link

ing of Levinasian exteriority to Husserlian intentionality analysis. Bourgeois's

other main thesis is that Ricoeur, by incorporating an essential element from
Levinas in a broader phenomenological and ethical account of the.relationship between self and other, is a legitimate, preferable alternative to
postmodern deconstruction. Thus, the issue with postmodernism is joined.
Richard Cohen's essay is a sustained critique of Ricoeur's interpretation of
Levinas. As such, it represents a challenge that all defenders of Ricoeur have
to meet. Responding to Ricoeur's preference in chapter 7 for a normativity
based on moral Solicitude -over Levinas's sociality- operative prior to the
emergence of such normativity, Cohen argues that Levinas's stance puts into

question the very Parmenidean-Hegelian model of mediation presupposed by

Ricoeur. For Levinas the other qua commanding-judging other, the moral
other, is the condition of the possibility for any hermeneutic of the good life.
The respect for the other in the reciprocal exchange of giving and receiving
cannot be called moral unless the moral dimension as such is already opera
tive through a prior encounter with alterity as such. Moreover, the Levinasian

self is not so separate as-to be inviolate, closed, out of relation) simply passive
as Ricoeur claims, but is more passive than any passivityt because it arises in
pure subjection to the other.

Arguing further against Ricoeur's critique in chapter 10 that Levinas's self

is too closed in, incapable of receiving and unable to discriminate, Cohen
indicates aspects of Levinas's account of the erotic that shows it to be in
relation and to be receptive, and claims that Ricoeut misses that Levinas's
account works at a more radical level than Ricoeur's, forsaking epistemology
altogether.

xii

INTRODUCTION

Eric Crump's essay, responding to criticisms that Ricoeur; contrary to his

intentions, does not preserve philosophy's autonomy from theology, develops

the often overlooked influence of Roger Mehl and Pierre Thevenaz on Ricoeur's
thought. Ricoeur's philosophy of the "I am" is articulated as a reflective and
deepening of the French reflexive philosophical tradition. In so doing, Crump
clarifies the relationship of philosophy to theology in Ricoeur's thought, saving
him from any reprehensible subordination or dependence.
David Pellauer's essay uses the issue of moral blindness to test the limits
and adequacy of Ricoeur's theory of the self. Pellauer argues that Ricoeur's
dialectic between ontological and teleological dimensions teaches us a kind
of philosophical and moral humility and fallibilism. Our solutions to dilemmas arising on the level of practical wisdom are fragile and revisable. Expe
riencing their limits helps us to keep the dynamic aspect of the dialectic
alive. We may not see all that there is to see, even when we trace our way
back to primary ethical affirmations. Within the dialectic is also a place for
reflection on evil as well as good. In the deepest sense, evil may not be an
incapacity to do the good or find the just solution within some moral order,
but rather a failure to see a moral problem in all of its aspects and ramifications.
But because it is a failure to see for which we are responsible, we can be held
accountable for it.
Bernard Dauhenauer's essay presents Ricoeur's critique of Rawls's thesis

concerning the priority of the right over the good, and then assesses the
strength of that critique. Dauenhauer argues that Rawls argues illegitimately
for an obvious clarity to rights and duties as they are spelled out in consti
tutions. Because there is a necessary ambiguity and indeterminacy in consti~
tutional law, we are inevitably forced to reflect on a people's prior sense of

ethical life, in the light of which constitutions are interpreted and revised.
Ricoeur's theory does more justice to this concrete historical sense of a people's
ethical life, "the aiming for the good life, with and for others, in just institutions," than does Rawls. Ricoeur's understanding of ethical life better corresponds to a societis understanding that its citizens are pursuing some.

common good, in the light of which they become aware of complex distributional questions that call for universal norms~ and hence require a consti.rution that rules out scapegoating. The citizenry learns that this constitutional
imperative can never be definitively satisfied and hence that there is no
alternative. to an ongoing exercise of practical wisdom. Ricoeur thus provides
a preferable alternative to Rawls's insistence on the priority of the tight over
the good. There is a reciprocity between right and good that Rawls does not
see, as well as a rooting of abstract reflection on universal norms in a people~s
prior sense of the good life.

INTRODUCTION

xiii

Jim Marsh's essay, in that it synthetically takes on the whole book, but
especially the last four essays, touches on all or most of the themes rased in
Part Two. Marsh argues that ethical theory has recently been besieged by a
series of ethical antinomies between "is" and "ought," concrete individual

other and reflectively justified norm, justification and application, deontology and teleology, duty and happiness, self and other. Ricoeur has taken a
significant step toward putting this ethical Humpty Dumpty back together
again. At the same time, Marsh does raise a few questions concerning Ricoeur's
achievement. Is the ethical level prior to the moral level in the way Ricoeur
claims? Is there not in our everyday experience a lived sense of deontology
and tight that coexists with and relates to our striving for the good? Again,
does not Habermans, following Gunther, develop criteria for application of
norms that Ricoeur needs to take into account? Does he not make the move
too quickly to prudence and conviction?
What should be apparent in this brief. summary of the essays in this
volume is that Oneself as Another is a book rich in insights and potential
consequences. As is characteristic of all of Ricoeur's works, it opens up questions for further discussion. From Part One, for example, we may ask whether
Ricoeur's narrative account of the self does not give us a richer, deeper sense

of self than the relatively thin accounts of thinkers such as Habermas, Rawls,
or Ape!. In his critique of analytic notions of literature, does not Ricoeur
give in to his own technomyth, and thus inadvertently endorse an excessively negative sense of technology? Does Ricoeur's notion of the self move
between the Scylla. of foundationalism and the Charybdis of relativism in
such a way that he provides a genuine alternative and implicit critique to
postmodem claims concerning the death of the self? Is there an opening to
and use of intentionality analysis in Ricoeur's work that would imply and
require a more explicit thematizing of the relationship between phenomenology and hermeneutics in his work?
Part Two similarly opens up a rich vein of questioning. Three of the essays
deal in whole or in part with the issue of Levinas versus Ricoeur. Does
Ricoeues j_lldicious "yes't and ''no', to Levinasian otherness and mediation
with conscious, responsible selfhood work; or is such criticism and mediation

open to fundamental challenge? Does Ricoeur's mediation of otherness provide an alternative to and corrective to postmodemism,_ or does postmodernism
have resources for a reply? ls Ricoeur's rejection of the priority of the right

over the good and his privileging of ethical life in community over reflective
justification of ethical norms a convincing answer to thinkers such as
Habermas and Rawls? Is Ricoeur's insistence on ethical universalism in
form and content, at the same time recognizing the rights of particular

xiv

INTRODUCTION

communities and traditions, a convincing answer to communitarians such as

Macintyre and Taylor? Finally, does Ricoeur put the ethical Humpty Dumpty
back together again or does he at least take significant steps toward doing so?
What would or could communitarians, Kantian, Rawlsian, or Habermasian

universalists, postmodemists, and Oadamerian prudentialists and traditionalists say in reply? Thus, Oneself as Another, the contributors to this volume
think and have tried to show, is a huge step forward, not only in the ques-

Sigla

tions it asks and answers, but in the questions it raises. 1

James L. Marsh

NOTE
I. I wish to express my appreciation to Kirk Kanzelberger, my graduate
assistant, for his work in scanning, word processing and editing this work.
His care and competence have certainly contributed to whatever quality the
work may have.

Cc

La CritUjue et la conviction. Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1995.

Ci

Le Conflit des interpreuuions. Essais d'herrneneutUjue. Paris: Editions

du Seuil, 1969.

CI

The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics. Ed. Don Ihde.

Evanston, Ill., Northwestern University Press, 1974.

OF

De !'interpretation. Essai sur Freud. Paris: Le Seuil, 1965.

Ora

Du texte ill' action. Essais d'herrneneutique, II. Paris: Le Seuil, 1986.

EBI

Essays on Biblical Interpretation. Ed. L. Mudge. Philadelphia: For

tress Press, 1980.

FM

Fallible Man. Trans. Charles Kelbley. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965.

FN

Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary. Trans. E. V.

Kohak. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966.

FP

Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. Trans. Dennis

Savage. New Haven: Yale University Press; 1970.

FS

Figuring the Sacred: ReUgion, Narrative, and Imagination. Trans. David

Pellauer, ed. Mark Wallace; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.

HHS

Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Ed. and trans. John Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

HT

Hisrory and Truth. Trans. Charles Kelbley and others. Evanston,

Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1965.

IT

Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Mearting. Fort

Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976.
XV

xvi

SIGLA

L1

Lectures I: Autour du politique. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 199!.

L2

Lectures 2: La Contree des philosoph.s. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1994.

1.3

Lectures 3: Aux frontiers de Ia philosophie. Paris: Editions du Seuil,

1994.

Lf

Finitude et culpabilit. I. I:homme faillibTe. Paris: Aubier, 1960.

LJ

Le ]uste. Paris: Editions Esprit, 1995.

Lmv

La metaphore vive. Paris: Le Seuil, 1975.

LV

La Volontaire et l'involontaire. Paris: Aubier, 1950.

OA

Oneself as Another. Trans. Kathleen Blarney. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1992.

PA

Platon et Aristote. Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire,

PART ONE
RICOEUR IN HIMSELF

1960.

RF

RefTexions Foiles. Autobiographie intelTectuelle. Paris: Editions Esprit,

1995.

RM

The RuTe af Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation af

Meaning in Language. Trans. R. Czemy with K. McLaughlin and J.

Costello. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.

Sa

Soi-meme comme un autre. Paris: Le Seuil, 1990.

sa

La semantique de I'action. Ed. Dorian Tiffaneau. Paris: Ed. du Cen-

I
I

tre National de !a Recherche Scientifique, 1977.

TA

From Text to Action. Trans. Kathleen Blarney and John B. Thompson. Evanston, !11.: Northwestern University Press, 199!.

TN1

Time a:nd Narrative. Vol !. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David

Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

TN2

Time a:nd Narrative. Vol2. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David

Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

TN3

Tone a:nd Narrative. Vol3. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David

Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Tr

Temps et Recit. Tomes I, II, III. Paris: Le Seuil, 1983, 1984, 1985.

ONE
Personal Identity
Charles E. Reagan

Dring

the decade of the 1980s, Paul Ricoeur published five major

works: three volumes of 1lme and Narrative;' From Text to Action,' an edited
version of many of his articles published in English during the late 1970s and
early 1980s; and, most recently, Oneself as Another.' In 1980, at the beginning of this prolific period, Ricoeur had already retired from the University
of Paris-Nanterre and was thinking of reducing his teaching at the University of Chicago. Several years later, he was named the John Nuveen Professor
Emeria_;s at the University of Chicago and limited his teaching there to one
quarter per -year. He was then sixty~seven years old, and, afi:er an extraordi~
nary intellectual career, was widely known and highly regarded both in France

and in the United States. He had clearly earned his retirement.

But retirement is not his style. Rather, he began a new intellectual journey, which expanded beyond the hermeneutics he practiced in the 1970s to
an understanding of the philosophical power of narratives. His three-volume
work, T<me and Narrative, excited a renewed interest in his philosophy after
a ten-year, self-imposed exile from the French university scene. During this
period Ricoeur lived, worked, lectured, and published primarily outside of
France. Thus, in the mid-1980s, his French readers needed to "carchup"
with the work he had been doing since the last major work he had published
in France, La metaphme vive.+ The articles, which are in edited and abridged
form in the collection Du texte a !'action, were, with a few exceptions, either
written and published in English, or they were written in French but published outside of France.
After finishing the third volume of 1lme and Narrative, Ricoeur began
work on the Gifford Lectures, which he gave in Edinburgh in the winter of
1986. The lectures were written in French and an abridged English version

CHARLES E. REAGAN

was actually read. Ricoeur then revised the first version by expanding several
chapters. The second edition follows closely the order and topics of the first
edition. This version was first given as lectures at the University of Munich

in the same year. Yet Ricoeur was not satisfied with his text and continued
for two more years to work and rework it. This was time well spent: Oneself
as Another is, in my opinion, Ricoeues most elegantly written, clearly orga.nized, and closely argued work. This is high praise for an author whose work
as a whole exemplifies these traits.
What I intend to do here is to give a synopsis of the book in order to show
what the question of personal identity is and how Ricoeur progressively
argues for a concept ofpersonalidentity that is i11extricably bound up with
a co11~ept ()f the other and the rel~tiol) between theselfaiid the. oth~l':ib~D.;
j wlll giv~ a more detailed acZ~~nt of the three chapters on ethics. These
chapters are interesting in their own right, and they come as close as anything Ricoeur has written to being a clear accountof his "philosophisal
ethics." He has written many articles on-individual moral or political c~n
cepts and concerns, but he has 11ever written a theoretical work on..e.rhics.
These chapters serve as his "groundwo;k. for a metaphysics of morals." ....
My second goal in this essay is to p~iiit out some of the things ;,;~~ his
students, learned about philosophy from Paul Ricoeur, as well as to comment
on some of the constant features in his philosophical style. Above all, Paul
Ricoeur is a teacher of philosophy. He taught us to do a .careful reading of
philosqphical texts, to always give the m()st generous inte,Pietation(oiiili='
big;;~us or obscure texts, and togi~e full credit to th()se. we havereada!;.d
f[(;'n:;;.;hom we have leamed. His fundamental thesis as a philosopher is that
vrtually everY ph.itosopher, ancient, modem, or contemporaryl has seen a
piece of the truth. Now our task is to adjudicate among competing interpretation.s, each of which daiinstobe ~bsolute.
. ...
The. tit!~ itself~ this book, Oneself as Another, indicates the three converging themes that make up this work: a reilexive Jn~.<litatiotl onthe self or
subject;. a QigJ.ectic_J)J:l, Jh~. rne_ar:t~ng. of the word mbne or"it~ln~;, fri ilie sense
of identical (idem) or in the sense ~f "one and the same" (ipse), or sellhoo<l;
a ciiai~tticJ?en~:en_ ~~-self_ and~-~- '~other.'; Ri~oeiii>S rrieditatio~- tak~s place
with-;;, the ~~l:lt.,">i of the history Of the philosophy of the subject and, in
particular, of the philosophy of Descartes and Nietzsche. For Descartes, the
cogito is both indubitable and the ultimate foundation of all that can be
known. For Nietzsche, on the contrary, the cogito is the name of an illusion.
Ricoeur, in his typically dialectic mode, says, "the her.meneutics of J;!le..s.!:lf
is placed at an equal distance from the apology of thecogiio and fromits
overthrow" f:'l-).
.
.

PERSONAL IDENTITY

One of the most important dialectics in Ricoeur's philosophy is between

the autocfoundatiortal claims of idealis.tic:.ph(!Q80phles...QLthe. self, such as
Des(~;t~~;~-;~d. Hus;erl's, and. th~ ~k;ptical.hil()~['JtieLoL!!t~.~-II1""'!ets.of
_~~i?j{~11~;,-~NretzSdie~ Marx, and p;;~d~-"-The reflective and hermeneutic
philosophy Ricoeur practices is the contrary of a philosophy of the immediate. This is why Ricoeur, the French translator of Husserl's Ideen 1, rejec!":l_.
from the beginning both the transcendental epochi and the idealistyetiO!l
of Husserl's phenomenology. Ricoeur.sa.ys;TI;e"msfmith:..::(;;m, I thinkremains as ab~tlJI.cLQ empty as it is invincible;jt has to be 'mf<ii'l~e.<l'.kx
5
the -id~;::-~~~~9!1_$ 1 --~q_~s, _ _ ifls~it':ltions_, -~nd lll?numents that _obje_~ti!V _it."
Th~,'R:ic;;~ur rej~crs the classical picture 6f consciousness
v~ridical
"mirror of nature" and says we gain self-k.llo."'_g,<fg~t!tr()'!!l~)..QMJP.ll.te..oi
the ~~"t~!PJ.~tg._tion~_<?L . t~~.t?-t . . illQDJJ!1l~Il~r....~D.:~ . :t}~~~~~JoJ.ffi:
Ricoeur's goal is to develop a hermeneutic of the self that i?_ri_~~:tll"::!l~P
between the cogito and the aoti-cogito. He asks, "To what extent can one say
that the hermeneutics of the self developed here occupies an epistemological
(and ontological, as I shall state in the tenth study) place, situated beyond
the alt~mative ofth~ cogito al1dtheanticcogito?" (16).
In hi.; prd~~e, Ricoeur sets i;;rt:h.tkeeco;:;~;ptual themes that guide his
study of the self: the Use(lf''self''if.l.l1atl'r~li>ll~~s, "~~Ill~: in the sense
of idem and ipse, and the cotrel~ti()J:lRe!'l"eet!nthes<ilil!n<!.th~9!h~~thaJ1:s_~lf.
"To these three grammaticaffeatures correspond the three major features of
the hermeneutics of the self, namely, the detour..c>Lre!le<:ti<Jil.E.Y..~'!Y
of analysis, the dialecticofelfhood and SlU1lenes~,and fil1:"lly the dial~<:ti<::
of selfhOOd awl othet;,ess" (16). The whole hermeneutic is led by the question, \;;llo: ;.,hospeaksl who acts? who tells a story? and whoisthea!lc~9t
of m.<i_~Gi!li>@iE@ir

as ..,.

The first grouping (chapters 1 and 2) is based on a P~!itJ!.ol'~~-oL~

both as semantics and as pragmatics. This analytic stage is made necessary by
the indir~ci:"stat;:;;;ofthO'se!f.''i:fermeneutics is always a philosopltygf..d~t()IJI;
the hermeneutics of the self must rake a detour thO_l!gh~-~~:~.~'!lY~i~.9Lth..l'
language in which we talk about the self. -n;;;-;~co.;cr;;;:.;~p (chapt~;; 3.
4) i~ based on a phjwsophL~f<J<:~&n in
the sense this has taken in analytic philosophy. The interest here is in language about action a.!l<l.in sp~"<:h.act"' where the agent of an action designates-hi;;;s~l(~~:th~ O!l~Wh() acts ...''The questions 'Who is speaking?' and
'Wiw is acting?' appear in this way to. be closely interconnected" (17). Ricoeur
reminds us that these long analytic forays are "characteristic of the indirect
style of a hermeneutics of self, in stark contrast to the demand for immediacy
belonging to. the cogito" ( 17).

a.;d

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

to ~e'll1i!eJessthanthe ()neand more than the other" (21 ). It is opposed to

The third grouping (chapters 5 and 6) is centered on the question of

persDrll!l~ntit:j. This is the place of the dialecticbetVI/eeni<.lentitY (idem)_aJ1<:1
identity, (ip~~) which arises from the. second- grammatical tra,\;of.soi-meme
(oneself) af[d the~~bi~ity ~fthe Vllotd meme (sa!Ilel Here Ricoeur links

ultimate an<CLself,-foundingknowledge" (21). Attestationisa kif[d of belief,

not in the doxic serise of "Ibeli.eve that ... ,, but in the s~.;..~ of "(!J~ii~~e

t~!iili:Loaf!iM?n'' (mimesiS!.

cfaltr.s of the cogito,

n~~~i~~-~id~n:tity with the_ J'~~fos_oPhv _of_a~~iqgt-~!!~~-}!:~!!'~~iY~::~-~-.!h~--_'.'~m~,.~. -

''At thesame time; arid corre!at:tvefv, d1e~vj~st

of the action recounted will begin t? correspond ro. the broaq~r con~ept of
the acting and suffering indivldi.ial,.whichour analytic-he~~eneutical prcice:
clt.lie is capable of eliCititlg"(i8).
The fourth group(chapters 7, 8, and 9) makes aJiJ)aldetoQf through the
ethical and moral determinations of action. "It is in the three ethical studies
that tneaiafectlc.ofthe~;;;n;,-;;;;J the.other will find its appropriate philosophical development" (18). Ricoeur admits that his studies appear to be
fragmentary and lack a unity,. He says, "The fragmentary character of these
studies results from the analytic-reflective structure that imposes arduous
detours on our hermeneutics, beginning as early as the first study" (19). The
thematic unity is found in human action. But human action does not serve as
,;i,-.Jti;;;;;~ f~~nd;ti~;} ofsomeset~f derived disciplines. Rather, there is an
aJ1alogi<;a(l1nity becalJ,S<' of the. polysemy of "action" and pecaus>()(':th.,
v;;l;ty an.tl <:~~;ing~ncy of the questions that activate the analyses l~adin.g
i;;:,azt;th~r~ft~ctlononth~ self' (19.:.20); .
. "fh~~tl\readihatooJ.tk;R;coel!r's analyses is descriptio!h!1!JITiltion,.pres.cxiptioncNa;ratbre.idet>tity serv~~ ,;; ;~~~~~;i:~gq ~~lation\l!ftJ'!~t!fl!lJ>e!VIIeen
the descrlmionthat_prevai!s)l!~.;:~alyt:icalph!lCl8o.Phies()f actipn and the
presc~lp~ion that desig,:;~~es.allthedetet'tninations ofaction by me:n:sof'!
generis t~rmon the basis of the predicate~ 'go~d' and '~bligato11'"' (20}.
The final study (chapter 10) explores the ciritologiCal consequences of the
hermeneutics of the self. Ricoeur claims that the dialectic between the "same"
and the "other" will prevent an ontology of act and power from bec<oming
encased in a tautology. "The polysemy of otherness, which 1 shall propose in
the tenth study, will imprifltupon the entire ontology of acting the seaLof
the diversity, qfsefl'e that foils the ambition of arriving at an ultimate foundation, characteristic
cogito phi!cisophies" (21).
A;;"~(h~;:a:;;;,:~~t~ri;~ic th~t clistir!g;;-i~hesRieaeur's hermeneutic of the self
from the philosophies of the cogito is the t)IP" of certainty appropriate to the
hermeneutics, in contradistinction to the claims of self-evidence ancl self-
{~;;..dation of the philosophies of the cogito. ~icoeur us.es the. word attestation
to describe the level of certitude appropriate to his herrnene.utics. With re~
spect to the "epistemological e~~ltation" ofTh!scartes's cogito and irs destruction by Nietzsche and his followers, Ricoeur claims, ''Attestation !lla~app~~

of the

~ kind of certainty, claims o(ljlliieifie;:iitsctf"rici;;''taken in theseriseOf

in. ..." Since attestation is a much weaker claim than the fou~dati~Uar

it is alwaysvulrie"t'able:

"Th;;, ~.;l~e~abilltv~;;,iffbe~ex:

pressed in the pe#irt~"gtthtil.tofs~sp\~i()f), if we allow that suspicion is the

specific contrary of attestation. The kinship between attestation and testimony is verified here: there is np -~-true~.-t~.."?.ti:tn9!W w~~o~t . .(false'. _testil!1ony.
But there is no recourse against false testimony th~-~~~th~~"ili~-r-i;~;~re
credible; and there is t>or~~Ol1.rse~;~gainstsuspicion put a '?ore reliable attestati()f):'J22). Another way Ricoeur defines attestationisa8 ''the@8_~r~!ifg:6j
~Of!"~el[acting andsuffering. This assurance remains the ultimate retOljrse
ag~.lJ!st al!sll;piclori" (:ZZ]. ftefinishes laying out his thesis and hls.pl;;~f
study by saying, "As cree"l~e.l>l_ith().ut~"flY!luar!ln!ee, bur also as trust~g~~r
th"flany suspicion, the hermeneutics of th~selfcan clai'? ~o hold itself ~t
an eql!af:~istan~e from .the . cogtto . exalteJ:~iQ.:ggres.a11d fi:o~tli~:0~it~
that Niet;sche proclaimedf!:l!f~it. The reader will judge whether the investigations that folio;;, live up to this claim" (23 ).
The notion of ''~t~~G:ttion" is a mi~dle g_ro~nd between apodictic cer-tainty-which is only r~elyattainable_:::;;;:;,r pe~tual suspicion, and it is,
he says, the level of certainty appropriate to hermeneutics. In his influential
article "The Model oftheText/'6 R.icoeur.uses .the analogy withjudicial
reasoning and discourse td show the kind of certainty, appropriate to hermeneutical interpretatiofts in literary ciitkism and ln the soda! sCiences: the
k~y is iliepdleinkal characterofvalidati6n.. Ricoeur says,
In front of the court, the plurivocity, common to texts and to actions
is exhibited in the form of a conflict of interpretations, and the final
interpretation appears as a verdict to whicb it is possible to make
appeal. Like legal utterances, all interpretations in the field of literary criticism and in the social sciences may be challenged, and the
question "what can defeat a claimn is common to all argumentative
situations. Only in the tribunal is there a moment when the procedures of appeal are exhausted. But it is because the decision of the
judge is implemented by the force of public power. Neither in literary criticism, nor in the social sciences, is there sucb a last word. Or
if there is any, we call that violence.'

In juridical arguments, we recogoize levels of certainty appropriate to different situations, such as "probably cause," "preponderance of -the evidence,n

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

"beyond a reasonable doubt." For Ricoeur, the task of philosophy is to avoid

the skepticism that doubts everything while at the same time abandoning
the ideal of total certainry.

makes sense. "Now" refers to events contemporaneous with the speaking

In a special section at the end of the preface, Ricoeur explains to his

readers why he omitted from this book two chapters that were originally part
of the Gifford Lectures. They were called "The Self in the Mirror of the
Scriptures" and "The Mandated Self." The first of these dealt with the naming of God through the Old and New Testaments. In the symbolic network
of the Scriptures, we find the ,l<ce~ry!l!l!J~tic ..dinwt1Siondistin~ighed from the
arfl"IJ:l:.".':'tative mode of philosophy. The second lecture d~alt .,;lth f:h.; ;;;;;.~
mtlves.J:)f :'voi:iition,?'.:Ql::th<>:<OaLiiag.afthe.prophets. and dis~;iples, and the
understanding of the self contained in the..response.to the calL "The relation
between c~l[."':'~.t:~~po~;;.,;as therefore the strong co:;.;,:,-;,ction b~~;~;:;
these t1;vo lectu~es" (23).
- ~ ~~~

. Rl~~euto,;.ltted the lectures from his work for two reasons: (1) He wanted
this book to be an autonomous philosophical discourse by putting into parentheses the convictions that tied him to his biblical faith. This has been
a guiding principle in all of his philosophical work. (2} If Ricoeur has defended his work from becoming a "crypto-theology," he also defends biblical
faith from becoming a "crypto-philosophy." In particular, he does not want
biblical faith to replace the cogito as a form of foundation against which his
hermeneutics has fought continually.

PERSONAL IDENTITY
Ricoeur begins his studies of the self by looking at the linguistic means
at our .dispQ,f!lto.identifyanyrhi!lg, to refer to individual ~hit)gsaiiapl<Ok
them out of a group of similar things. He claims that aperso;.. is, at the
lowest level possible, "one of the things that we distinguish by means of
identifying reference" (27). He will begin with a linguistic study of the
qpera\i<?(!~ ?fJ!lcJividuali;:~tion found in natur.al languages. Definite descriptions create a class with single mem:ber {e:g.:;ihefirst man to walk
on the moon}, while proper names refer to a single individual without,
however, giving any information about the individual (e.g., Socrates).
The third category of individualizing operators is made up of pronouns
(e.g., you, he) and deictics such as demonstratives (e.g., this one, that
one), adverbs of time and place (e.g., now, then, here, there), and the
tenses of verbs. These operators individualize with reference to the speaker.
"Here" means in the proximity of the speakerl in relation to which {'there"

itself. At this point, none of these individualizing operations privileges

the person.
In moving from the identification of any kind of particular to .the
identification ofpersons, Ricoeur follows P. E Strawson, who in his book
Individuals' claims that there are only two kinds of basic particulars, things
(physical objects) and persons. Every identification refers ultimately to one
of these two classes of individuals. At this point, what is important are the
sets of predicates appropriate to each basic particular.
Strawson's second main thesis is that the first. basic particular is the body,
or physical object, because it satisfies the criterion of having a unique spatiotemporal location. Persons are also bodies, but they, unlike bodies, are a
referent for two series of predicates, physical and psychological. The importance of this claim is that souls (a Ia Descartes), ideas,. percepts, etc., are not
fundamental or basic particulars. This cuts off any temptation to relapse into
subjectivism or idealism. It also means that the person cannot be considered
as a pure consciousness to which is added a body, as is the case in classical
mind/body dualisms. The importance of this .double attribution of predicates
to the same thing is that we eliminate any double reference to body and soul
by two series of predicates.
The first study follows one of the two linguistic approaches to the problem
of the self, that of identifying reference. In the second chapter, Ricoeur takes
up the other approach, enunciation, or speech-acts. Speech-acts immediately
involve the '"I" and the (!you" of interlocution, whereas referential
identification is centered on the "he." "The question will be finally to determine how the 'I. .you' of interlocution can be externalized in a 'him} or a 'her'
without losing its capacity to designate itself, and how the 'he/she' of identifying reference can be internalized in a speaking subject who designates
himself or herself as an I" (41).
The theory of speech-acts, begun by Austin and perfected by Searle, is
well known. A fundamental element of the theory is the distinction between
performatives and constatives. The latter describe a state of affairs; the former
are speech-actions, where the saying is the doing itself. Their paradigm illusJration is a promise, where saying ~~r promise you" is -to make a promise and

not to describe a promise. Other examples would .be tendering a verdict,

making a proclamation, naming a child, etc. The importance of this is that
it is a principal intersection between the theory of language and the theory
of action. Secondly, reflexive speech implies both an "I" who speaks and a
"you" to whom the speech is addressed. "In short, utterance equals interJo. .

cution" (44).

10

11

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

ACTION AND AGENT

is '1what distinguishes intentional actions from unintentional ones?"

Anscombe's answer is that actions are intentional if a certain sense of ~'be,
cause" applies to them. This sense is that the because gives a "reason for
acting" (69). This opens a whole range of answers to "why?' that are mixed
or even counterexamples. Aristotle reminds us that in some cases the ques,
tion "why?'' doesn't have any sense: cases where the action was the result of

The next two chapters link up the linguistic analysis of identifYing reference
and speech-acts with the philosophy of action. In chapter 3, Ricoeur deals
with the concepts in the philosophy of action, devoid of reference to a
particular agent. The following chapter introduces the imputation of agency.
"What does action, we shall ask, teach about its agent? And to what extent
can what is learned in this way contribute to clarifYing the difference between ipse and idem?" (56).
At the level of identifYing reference, the network of concepts with which
we describe action refers to an agent as being spoken about. But this is far
different from an explicit self-imputation of an action to an agent. Only at
the end of Ricoeur's next chapter will. we see the interrelationship between
identifYing reference and self-designation of an "acting subject.''
For the purposes of this study, Ricoeur puts "in parentheses" the unifYing
principle of chains of actions, that is, the "practical unities Of a higher order."
These include teclrniques, skilled crafts, arts, games, all of which order chains
of actions so that some actions ate understood as parts of higher-order actions. This means that at this point he willset aside ethical predicates that
evaluate actions, or chains of actions, as good, just, etc.

Action and agent belong to the same conceptual schema; this includes
concepts such as motive, circumstance, intention, deliberation, voluntary,
constraint, intended consequences, and so forth. The important thing is,

they form a coherent network such that one must understand how all of
them function and what they mean, in order to understand any one of them.
The network as a whole detetmines what will (1count as" an action. One way
of seeing this network is that it constitutes the list of questions that can be
asked of an agent about an action: when, under what circumstances, with

what intention, wby (what motive), what influences, and so forth.

Within the framework of identifying reference, the question "who?" can
be answered with a proper name, a demonstrative, or a definite description.

Ricoeur believes that analytic philosophy of action has created problems for
itself by focusing its discussion on the question of what will count as an
action among the events that lwppen in the world. This has led it to couple the
question "what?' with the question "why?" such that distinguishingbetween
an action and an event depends on the mode of explanation of the action
(the "why?"). "The use of 'why?' in the explanation of action thus becomes
the arbiter of the description of what counts as actions" (61).'
Ricoeur now looks at the analytic philosophy of action as it interprets the
meaning of "intention.'' The fundamental and guiding question of this view

ignorance or of constraint. Ricoeur claims that the main victim of this kind
of analysis is the dichotomy between reason for acting and cause. He says
that there is a whole spectrum of answers to "why?" and only at the far
extremes of the spectrUm do you find a pure opposition between reason and
cause. In the case of "backward-looking" motives such as vengeance, the line
between cause and reason is completely erased. He condudest ''But one can

see how fluid the border is between reason-for-acting, forward-looking motive, mental cause, and cause as such (a grimacing face made me jump). The
criterion of the question 'why?' is therefore firm; its application surprisingly
flexible" (69).
According to Ricoeur, the analytic philosophy of action has been preoccupied with the question "what-whyf' to the exclusion of the question "who?".
He says, "In my opinion, it is the exclusive concern with the tntth of the
description that tends to overshadow any interest in assigning the action to
its agent" (72). This is the same reason that analytic philosophy has neglected the sense of intention as '~intending~to''; the present intention to do
something in the futute. The dilemma is. that the rruth of such an intention
claim rests on the nonverifiable declaration of the agent, or leads to a theory
of internal mental events. For Ricoeur, only a pl~e."."_~'?l()~_()f".~t~~~~i~n
can account for "it>tenditlg-to.'' The criteriot> of I:!'IJ;b..)s not tbe verifiability
of a descriptio;;,-; but ilie~o~fiel.;nce in a testi!TI;;ny. Even a declared intention
belongs to the category ota-snare<Icontesslon-and not to the category of a
public description. In concll!sioli; meiniention-to,'' relegated to the third
rank by conceptual analysis of the type done by Anscombe, finds itself in the
first rank from the phenomenological perspective. This is because this seJ:lS.~
of itltenti<m is very close tothe .act of promisit)g.
In Ric~ur's first three chapters, the question "whor' was eclipsed by
semantic considerations of the pair "what/why?". In chapter 4, he returns to
the central focus of "who?", or the relation between the agent and the action. Earlier studies con~~nttated on distinguishing actions from events and
on the relationship between intentional explanations and causal explanations. In returning to the role of the agent, Ricoeur recalls the theses of
Srrawson discussed in his first chapter, and the linguistic act of as0Ptiotk
Strawson;s principal theses are that petS<)."'_.".re_':tJ;;g~c~p~-~;'c~fais''a.r'd.aL

12

n/

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

a~trib!.!ltoJ.l.9fPredi"~.te,~js_~>[persons or bodies; certain predicates are attributable l'r'rLt()!'~rs~s and tb.~y:-;;;.;-11:;;r reducihluo.51!l.Y. on~.arJID)'.set.o
predic:ate_s_attributablt; to bodies. Secondly, we attribute both body predicates
and person pt~il!~a_t_e_s_to_th~=;ame.Jhing,..thatis, .P~r~ 0ns. Finally, Il!~ntal
predicates-are-attributable to ourselves and others without haymg_a_Qiffi,rt;llt

()fl'.h~!~~.(>dies and to tha!_clf_f'".':S.()I!!, therefore lies at the point of articu.lation of the r;;wer to act which is ours and of the course of things which
belongs to the world order'' (111). So, the power of acting is rooted in a
ph~p.QmellOlogy-ofthe:'!.s_'!!}:' and the ontology of the "livec{~.J:<>ciy;;

__ mean.J_~g.
Tuffiing his attention to contemporary theory of action, Ricoeur wants to

show that ascription has a different meaning than attribution. Each term in
the network of action (what? why?), refers back to the who?. When we speak
of the action, we ask who did it. When ;;;.;~k for the motive, we refer
directly to the agent. Ricoeur notes that these inquiries are not symmetrical:
1

the question 'who?" is answered when we name or otherwise indicate the

agent; the search for motives is interminable.

Ricoeur asks why contemporary philosophy of action has resisted any kind
of profound analysis of the relation between the action and the agent. He
gives two reasons: Much of th~ dlScu;sion is dominated by ,J'l ;;;.;;:~logy of
events {Davidson) and other analyses are dominated by an ontology of "things
in general" (Strawson).
Ricoeur rejects, however, the claim that moral or judicial imputation of
an action to an agent is merely a strong form of ascription. The first reason

is that moral imputation makes no sense in cases of banal actions or simple

acts disconnected from a practice or a complex human action. Secondly,
imputation properly applies only in cases of actions that are praisewotrhy or
blamable. But to condemn an action is to submit it to an accusatory process

of the "verdictive" type. The third reason is that imputation is on a different

level from the seff-desigoation of a speaker because it implies the power to
act, including the causal efficacy-however explained-of this power.
But what does "power to act" mean? The third problem arises from the fact
that "to say that an action depends on its agent is to say in an equivalent
fashion that it is in the agent's power" (101). With an analysis of the "power
to act," efficient causality, .ejected from physics by Oalileo, .rediscovers its
native land: the experience we all have of the power to act. Ricoeur claims
that this experience is a "primitive fact." This does not mean -it is a given
or a starting point, but that it will be seen as such at the end of a dialectic.
The dialectic will have a disjunctive phase, where efficient causality implied
in the power to act is seen as different and disconnected from other forms
of causality. It will have also a conjunctive phase where the primitive cau,
sality of the agent is shown to be connected with other fonns of causality.
Ricoeur proposes an ontQlogyof the Uvedbody (corps propre), "that is, of
a body which is also my body and which;
its double allegianceto.d.teordeJ:.,

by

NARRATIVE IDENTITY
Up to this point, Ricoeur limited his discussion to semantic and pragmatic
considerations of the theory of language and theory of action with respect to
the constitution of the self as self-desigoation and as agent of an action. At
the end of his analyses, he reintroduced the phenomenological concept of a
"lived body" as the intermediary between action and agent. All of this served
as a "propadeutic to the question of selfhood [ips&ti]" (113). In addition, the
whole problematic of personal identity has been omitted.
To tie these two themes together, considering the contemporary debates
in Anglo-American philosophy about personal identity, Ricoeur will introduce the dialectic between sameness (memeti) and seljhood (ipseiti) and the
central idea of narrative identity. Once he has been able to show the advantages of this narrative identity in resolving the paradoxes of the problem of
personal identity, he can finally tum to the thesis stated in his introduction,
"namely that narrative theory finds one of its major justifications in the role
it plays as a middle ground between the descriptive viewpoint on action, to
which we have confined ourselves until now, and the prescriptive viewpoint
which will prevail in the studies that follow. A triad has thus imposed itself
on my analysis: describe, narrate, prescribe--each moment of the triad im
plying a specific relation between the constitution of action and the constitution of the self' (114-115). Narrative already contains, even in its most

descriptive moder evaluations, estimationsf and value judgments. In this sense,

it serves as a preparation for ethics proper.
It is here that Ricoeur clearly lays out the two meanings of identity and
begins to show their dialectical relationship. In one sense, ideiitiry..m~ans
sameness; its other sense is seljhood. The context for this discussion of identlty..lsi)ermanence through time:"Wbat does it mean to say that someone or
something is identical at two different times? On the most basic level, identity means numerical identity-there is one and the same thing, rather than
two or more different things. Another sense of identity is qualitative, or the
substitutability of one thing for another. Determining identity in cases separated by rime, as in cases of law where we claim that the defendant is the
same person as the person who committed the crime, can be very difficult.

14

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

This leads to a third sense of identity, that of uninterrupted continuity between two stages of development of what we take to be the same individual.
This kind of identity overcomes the problem of a lack of sameness or similarity required in the qualitative sense of identity. Another sense is perma-

selfhood; and promising, where selfhood is maintained in spite of change, or

in the absence of sameness. Ricoeur thinks that narrative identity is the

nence in time represented by, say, a genetic code, or a structure, or the

organization of a combinatoty system. All of these meanings of identity are

tied in some way to the idea of sameness.

The question now is whether selfhood implies a form of permanence in
time that .does not depend on a substratum of sameness. What we are looking
for, says Ricoeur, is "<i form of permanence in time that is a reply to the
question 'Who am !?'" ( Il8). His proposal is that there are two models for
this kind of identity, character and keeping a promise. In the first case, identity
in the sense of one's character is very close to identity in _the sense of

sameness, an enduring and reidentifiable substratum. In the second case, the

selihood implied in keeping promises is antithetical to sameness .. For example, I say that even though I have different opinions, values, desires,
inclinations, I will keep my word.
But what does "character'' mean? "By 'character' I understand' the- set of
distinctive marks which permit the reidentification of a human individual as
being the same" (119). This will include all of the descriptive traits of
"sameness'' such as "qualitative identity, uninteirupted continuity and per..

manence in time" (119). Ricoeur reminds us that he has dealt at length with
the concept of character in two of his previous works. In Freedom and Nature, character was seen as an absolutely permanent and involuntary aspect

of our experience (along with our birth and our unconscious) to which we
could, at most, consent. 10 It was the nonchosen perspective on our values
and our capabilities. In Fallible Man, character represented a finite restriction
on my openness to the world of things, ideas, values, and persons." In the
present work, Ricoeur wants to modify his view of character by situating it
within the dialectic of identity. What is at issue is the immutability of character, which he took as a given in his previous works. "Character, l would
say today, designates the set of lasting dispositions by which a person is
recognized" (121). Here, sameness is constitutive of selfhood.
But if identity in terms of sameness and identity in terms of selfhood find
convergence in the idea

of character, they are seen as divergent- in the

analysis of a promise kept. To keep a promise is not to remain the same

through time but to defy the changes wrought by time. "Even if my desire
were to change, even

if I were to change my opinion or my inclination, 'I

will hold firm"' (124). So the dialectic of sameness and selfhood has two
poles~ character, where sameness and permanence of dispositions constitute

15

mediating concept.

His thesis is that the true nature of narrative identity is found only in the
dialectic of sameness and selfhood, and the dialectic itself is the main contribution of the narrative theoty to the constitution of the self. His arguments are in two steps: First, in an analysis of emplotment (mi!;e en intrigue/
along the same lines as we found in Time and Narrative, the construction of
a narrative plot integrates diversity, variability, and discontinuity into the
permanence in time. In short, it unifies elements that appear to be totally
disparate. Secondly, this same emplotment, transferred from action to. characters--characters in a narrative as distinct from "character" as a fundamen..-

tal element of the existing individual-creates a dialectic of sameness and

selfhood.
After giving a brief description of configuration, one of the principal concepts in Time and Narrative, Ricoeur undertakes to compare narrative

configuration with impersonal description. He claims that narration occupies

a middle place between description and prescription. He must now show its
relation to both end-terms.
One touchstone of the difference between narrative and description is the
role of event, On the one hand, an event appears to be totally contingent,
and thus from the narrative point of view, a discordance, On the other hand,
it advances the narrative and is seen as necessary to it. Thus, it is a concor..

dance, The paradox of narration is that it transforms contingent events into

necessaty episodes by providing a context or link with other events.
Narrative identity has as its challenge to create a dynamic identity out of
Locke's incompatible categories of identity and diversity. Ricoeur's thesis
here is, "that the identity of the character is comprehensible through the
rransfer to the character of the operation of emplotmenr, first applied to the
action recounted; characters, we will say, are themselves plots" (143 ). But
what is the relation between character and narrated action? The personage
has a unity and an identity correlative to those of the narrative itself. This
is captured in the concept of a role, Our understanding of a narrative is that
it is about agents and victims (patients). Ricoeut says, "For my part, I never
forget to speak of humans as acting and suffering" (144-145}. This shows, I
think, the close relation between narration and ethics.
What is the relation between narrative identity and ethics, between narrating and prescribing? In the first case, narration always deals with actions
that ate "subject to approval or disapproval and agents that are subject to
praise or blame" (164). Ricoeur also says that literature is a grand laboratoty

16

CHARLES E. REAGAN

of the imagination where experiments are conducted in the realm of good

and evil.
In the narrative dialectic of the character, one pole is the character, a
constant set of dispositions that remains the same across- time. The other
pole is the self-constancy represented by commitment made and kept. In the
ethical version of the dialectic of identity, character is in the role of sameness:
this is what is identifiable and reidentifiable in me, through time and across
all of my experiences and actions. The pole of selfhood, or identity in spite
of diversity, is responsibility, or acting is such a manner that others can count
on me and thus make me accountable for my actions. Narrative identity is
berween the poles of sameness as character and selfhood as responsibility.

ETHICS AND MORALS

At this point, Ricoeur begins his extensive discussion of the moral and
ethical dimension of selfhood, which is added to the linguistic, practical, and
narrative aspects discussed previously. The guiding questions for these four
groups of inquiries are: "Who is speaking? Who is acting? Who is telling his
or her story? Who is the moral subject of imputationr' ( 169). The key predicates here will be "good" and "obligatory.'t Ricoeut says, I(The ethical and
moral determinations of action will be treated here as predicates of a new
kind, and their relation to the subject of action as a new mediation along the
return path to the self' (169).
But what is the difference between the terms ethical and moral for Ricoeur?
He wants to distinguish between what is "considered to be good" and what
"imposes itself as obligatory.'' "It is, therefore,

by convention that I reserve

the term 'ethics' for the aim of an accomplished life and the term 'morality'
for the articulation of this aim in norms characterized at once by the claim
to universality and an effect of constraint {later I shall say what links these
two features together)" ( 170). From a historical point of view, we see the
ethical concern of Aristotle in the teleological interest in the "good life.'' The
moral point of view is found in Kant's deontology. In this chapter, Ricoeur
seeks to establish the primacy of ethics over morals, the necessity for the goal
of ethics to pass through the screen of norms (moral rules), and the recourse
of such norms to the ethical goal. "In other words, according to the working
hypothesis I am proposing, morality is held to constitute only a limited,
although .legitimate and even indispensable, actualization of the ethical aim,
and ethics in this sense would then encompass morality'' (I 70). But what is
the relation berween these tenns and selfhood? Ricoeur answers, "To the

PERSONAL IDENTITY

17

ethical aim will correspond what we shall henceforth call self-esteem, aod to
the deontological moment, self-respect" (171).
Ricoeur argues at length for the primacy of ethics over morals. But what
is the goal of ethics (visee ethiqw)? "Let us define 'ethical intention' ali aiming
at the 'good life' with and. for otlters,.mjust institutions" (172). The. "good life"
is the aim of ethics. If we distinguish between practices and a "life-plan," the
former are lower on the. scale than the latter and their integration is found
in. the nanative unity of a life. Jn this discussion, which is well centered on
Ari.srotle's Nicomachean Ethics,. there is a hierarchy in which practices, in
eluding professions, games, and art,. are subordinate to the idea of "the good
life."The linkage with self-esteem is the following: Our practices are defined
byconstrl.lctive rules aod standards of excellence.. In appreciating the excellence or success in our actions, we begin to appreciate ourselves as the author
of those actions. R.icoeur points out that "life" in the expression "good life"
does not have a biological .meaning .as much as. a social meaning that was
familiar t() the Gre.eks. They spoke of a "life of pleasure," a "political life,"
a "contemplative life," etc. For Ricoeur, "life" has this sense as well as the
notion of the rootedness of our lives in the biological sense of "to live."
Finally, it is in the narrative unity of a life that the estimations applied to
particular actions and the evaluation of pen;~ themselves are joined to
gether. In fact, Ricoeur claims that there is a sort of "hermeneutical circle"
between our Hves as a whole under the idea of the "good life," and our most
important particul~r choices; such as_ career1 spouse, leisure- pursuits, etc. But
this is not the 9nlY hermeneutical connection. "For the agent, Interpreting
the text of an action is interpreting himself or herself' (179). A bit further,
Ricoeur says, ''On the ethical plane, self-interpretation becomes self-esteem.
In return, self-esteem follows the fate of interpretation" ( 179 );
If the "good life" is the goalof erhiq, it. is lived with aod for others. This
becomes the b.asis for the second part of Ricoeut's reflection o.n ethics.. He
designates this concern for the other as solicittk. It is not something added
to self-esteem from the outside but is l!ll internal, dialogical dimension "such
that self-esteem and. solicitude cannot be eJ<perlenced or reflected upon one
without the other" (180). Self-esteem is not founded on accomplishment,
but on capacity; the ability to judge (to esteem) Is based on the ability to act
(le pouvoir-faire). "The question is then whether the mediation of the other
is not required along the route from capacity to realization'' (181). The
importance of this question is found in certain political theories in which
individuals have rights independently of any social connections and the role
of the state is relegated to protecting antecedently existing rights. According
to Ricoeur, this view rests on. a misunderstaoding of the role of the other as

19

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

a mediator between capacity and effectuation. For Aristotle, friendship (amini)

plays a mediating role between the goal of the good life found in self-esteem,

structures that extend beyond simple interpersonal relations but are bound
up with the latter through their function of the distribution of roles, responsibilities, privileges, goods, and rewards. Ricoeur asks if justice is found on
the level of ethics and teleology or, as Rawls and Kant would have it, only
on the deontological level of morals. Ricoeur's own answer is that justice has
two sides: the side of the good which is an extension of interpersonal relations, and the legal side where it implies a judicial system of coherent laws.
He is concerned in this chapter with the first sense or aspect of justice.
But what is the relation between the institution, as an abstract organization of distribution of goods and burdens, and the individuals who make up

18

a solitary virtue, and justice, a political virtue. Friendship introduces the

notion of ''mutuality. n "Friendship, however, is not justice, to the extent that

the latter governs institutions and the former interpersonal relations" ( 184).
Equality is presupposed in our relations of friendship, while it is a goal to be
achieved in our political institutions. Ricoeur thus takes from Aristotle "the
ethics of reciprocity, of sharing, of living together" (187). Self-esteem is the
reflexive moment of the goal of the good life, while the relation between the
self and the other is characterized by solicitude, which is based on the exchange of giving and receiving. For Ricoeur, this shows the primacy of the
ethical goal of the good life, including solicitude for the other, over the
moral claims of obligation. As he says, friendship involves reciprocity, while
the moral injunction is asymmetrical.

The inverse of the moral injunction is suffering. "Suffering is not defined

solely by physical pain, nor even by mental pain, but by the reduction, even
the destruction, of the capacity for acting, of being-able-to-act, experienced
as a violation of self-integrity" (190). Ricoeur sees this as laid out on a
spectrum ranging from the injunction coming from the other ("Thou shalt
not...") to the opposite end, where sympathy fat the suffering other comes
from the self. Friendship lies in the middle of this spectrum where the self
and the other share an equality and a common wish to live together. The
mutuality of friendship means that the roles are reversible, while the persons
who play these roles are not substitutable. Ricoeur puts it this way: "The
agents and patients of an action are caught up in relationships of exchange
which, like language, join together the reversibility of roles and nonsubstitutability of persons. Solicitude adds the dimension of value, whereby each
person is irreplaceable in our affection and our esteem" (193).
The ideas of irreplaceability and nonsubstitutability lead to the notion of
similitude, as the result of the exchange between self-esteem and solicitude
for the other. This means that, finally, I understand the other as a self, an
agent and author of his actions, who has reasons for his actions, who can
rank his preferences, etc. All of our ethical feelings, says Ricoeur, refer back
to this phenomenology of the "you~ too" and "like me}; ((Fundamentally
equivalent are the esteem of the other as oneself and the esteem of oneself as
an other" (194).
But Ricoeur wants to extend his analysis of the ethical goal of the good
life from interpersonal relations to institutions, and he extends the virtue of
solicitUde for the other to the virtue of justice. By "institution/' Ricoeur
means those structures of living together found in historical communities,

social institutions? Ricoeur says, -~'The conception of- society as a system of

distribution transcends the terms of the opposition. The institution as regulation of the distribution of roles, hence as a system, is indeed something
more and scmething other than the individuals who play those roles.... An
institution considered as a rule of distribution exists only to the extent that
individuals take part in it" (200). Distributive justice is not a matter of mere
arithmetical equality among individuals but a propordona[ equality which
relates merit to each individual. In conclusion, Ricoeur says that justice adds
equality to solicitude and its range is all humanity rather than interperscnal
relations. This is why he adds 11 in just institutions" to our ethical pursuit of
the '(good lifen lived ''with and for others. 11

Let us sum up the argument so far. At the beginning, Ricoeur announced

three theses that he would tteat in successive studies: "(1) the primacy of
ethics over morality, (2) the necessity for the ethical aim to pass through the
sieve of the norm, and (3) the legitimacy of recourse by the norm to the aim
whenever the norm leads to impasses in practice" (170). We have just dealt
with the primacy of ethics over morality. Let us now consider how Ricoeur
deals with the question of the relation between the goal of ethics (teleology)
and moral norms (deontology).
The criterion of universality is the hallmark of Kant's formalism. It is
anticipated in Aristotle by the "golden mean," which characterizes all virtues. Aristotle's "good life" is approached by Kant's "good will, good without
reservation." But the teleological character of "good" is lost when Kant adds
"without reservation.' What is-more, for Kant it is the wilt that receives the
predicate "good.n

As Ricoeur says "the will, hOwever, takes the place in

7

Kantian morality that rational desire occupied in Aristotelian ethics; desire

is recognized through its aim, will through its relation to law" (206).
Universality is the "royal road" to Kant's view of moral obligation. It is
closely linked with "restraint" and through the latter with the idea of duty.
Kant's genius was -to place in the same person the power to command and

21

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

the,powerto.0he_y,.or.disdbeythe.command. The moral law is "autonomous/'

a universal :law of <:eason that the al;ltonomous subject gives himself. At the
same time, his autonomy means that he can choose >to obey or disobey this
law. But this freedom, this autonomy, is affe,::ted hy the propensity to evil.
What effect dof)S this propensity ha:ve on the stanus of the autonomy of the
will? Ricoeur .says cuhat >there are two .important ideas hete: (l) that evil,
taken back ro the o(igin of the maxims, sho:uld be thought of in .terms of a
real opposition; (2~ cthat in .radicalizing evil, Kant .radicalized the .idea of free
will. Ricoeur concludes., '~Because there is eYil, the .aim of the 'good life' has
to be .submitted to the teSJ: .of moral obligation" (218),
Ricoeur has already shown how solicitude .for the other was .implicitly
contained in the idea .of self-esteem; he wants to show now that r.espect for
others is implicit in .the idea of .obligation, rule, or Iaw. His .argument is .thet
respect .owed to others is tied to solicirude on the level of ethics; and, thet
on the level of morality, ;it is in .the same relation to autonomy that solicitude
is to the goal of the good life on the. ethical1evel.ln fact, Ricoeur daims that
this relation will help us see the relation between .the fi.rst formulation of the
categorical imperative, in terms of obligation, and the second formulation,
which tells us to respect others .as .ends-in<themselv.es. He has previously
distinguished between. the .power to act, whiCh is rhe capacity for an agen.t to
be the author ofhis actions, and powerin-common, which is the capa<;ity of
the menibets of a .community to will to live together. This latter capacity is
to be distinguished from the relation of domination, .which is the source of
political violence. Politi.cal. violence can take many forms, from constraint to
torture and even ro murder. In torture, it is the self-respect of the victim that
is broken. Ricoeur says that all of .these figures of evil are answered by the
"no" of morality. This is why so many moral norms are expressed in the
negative, "Thou ~halt not, .. /'
The second part: of his argument concerning respect for others is to show
its relation to solicitude. The Golden Rule, he says, is In an intermediary rgle
between solicirude and !(ant's second formulation .ofthe categorical!mpera
tive in terms of respect fur persons, He asks, "What, indeed, is it to treat
humanity in my p~rson and in the p~rson of others .as a means, if not to exert
upon the will of others that power which, full of re~traint in the case of
influence, is unleashed in all forms that violence takes, culminating in tor
ture?" (225).
Ricoeur has claimed that justice is .a virrue principally of institutions. He
now takes justice, in the sense of distributiYe justice, as the key intersection
between the goal of ethics and .the deontological point .of view. But the vety
term justice is. ambiguous. One sense .emphasizes separation, in the sense of

what belortgs to me does not belong. to you, Justice is to determine what

should bel0!lg td whom. Another sense, however, puts the emphasis on
cooperation and the community of interests. Related to these two senses of
justice is the--ambiguity between two senses of '~equal"~: as i:rt atfthmettc~
where all parts are exactly the same, and as proportiortal, where the parts to
be distributed are proportional to some other measure such as merit, social
standirtg, or power.
theti> have been many attempts to establish the principles of jnutice,
especially on the social level. One of the most ertduting is the "social contract/' whete justiCe iS foYnded ort a contract be'tween individtials who, by
this corttract, create a commurtity arid establish the rules fot the distribution
of goods and obligatidfis, tights artd privileges, duties, and burdens. Ricoetit
sees an analogy between the tole of this contract 0!l the level of Institutions
and the place of ~utoMmy on the level of morality: "a freedom sufficiently
disengaged from the gangue of intlirtatiorts provides a law for itself which is
the very law of freedom" (229}. At this point, lZieoetit rums to a long
analysis of Rawls's attempt to establish the prinCiples of justice thtoogh a
theoretiCal and hypothetical gambit known as the "veil of ignoraace/' Rawls
asks, what would be the principles of justice itt a community if the members
of the community could write those nules llot knowing what their actUal lot
woUld bel His idea of justiCe as "faitness" leads, through this thought~e'llperi
ment, to two general principles of justice: First, equal freedoms of citizenship,
such as freedom of e:xpressi0n, etc.; second, a prinCiple cl difference that tells
us under whiCh dtcumstances inequalities are acceptable.
Ricoeur claims that what .!Zawls hM dofie. is to formaliz<! a sense of justice
that is alteady presupposed. Rawls himself agrees that he is not f)Stablishing
a completely independertt meaning of justice, that he relies oh our
precomptehension of what is just and unjust. What he does claim is that
there is a "reflected equilibrium" between his theory and out "considered
convictions." We do irtdeed have ceftaitl conviCtions abt>ut justice and injustice (e.g., religlotis irttoleratlte1 torture) that seem certain, while. others
such as the distribution of wefllth ot power S<lem Ie!s sure. !taw!$~ arguments
are of the same type .rn those of !<ant when he tti<!s to prove the tlecessity
for universalization of maxims. "The whole system ohttgumenmtion can
thetefbre be seen as a progressive ratiooalizatlon of these cdnvictlonu, when
they are affected by prejudices ot weakened by doubts. !his rationalization
consists in a cdmplex process of mutual adjustmertt between conviction and
theory'' (237).
At the ertd of his analysis df Rawls's attempt to esrabHsh a contractual
basis fot institutional justice, RicOE:ur says that we can draw two concltiSions:

20

22

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

(1) We can see how the attempt to give a purely procedural foundation for

strict and easy: Only that which serves the city is good, that whic.h harl!l,S
it is evil. But Antigone is driven by the conviction that she is obliged, by

institutional justice takes to the maximum the ambition to free the

deontological point of view of morality from the teleological perspective of
ethics. (2) Yet we also see that this attempt clearly shows the limits of this
ambition. In short, formalism has tried to banish inclinations from the sphere
of rational will, the treatment of others as means in the interpersonal realm,
and utilitarianism in the sphere of institutions. Instead, the deontological
point of view insists on "autonomy in the first sphere, the person as end in
himself in the second, and the social contract in the third" (238). The social
contract plays the same role on the level of institutions as autonomy on the
level of morality. Bur the social contract is a fiction, a "founding fiction, to
be sure, but a fiction nonetheless" (239). Ricoeur criticizes social contract
theories on the grounds that they are plausible only because we have forgotten our fundamental desire to live together. The foundation of deontology,
in other words is, Ricoeur claims, found in "the desire to live well with and for
others in just institutions" (239).
The third part of Ricoeur's reflections on ethics is to show .how a morality
of deontological norms must return to the fundamental insight of a teleological ethics in order to resolve the aporias arising in the application of the
universal norms to difficult practical cases. His guiding thesis is that an ethics
of obligation "produces conllictual situations where practical wisdom has no
_recourse, in our opinion, other than to return to the initial intuition of
ethics, in the framework of moral judgment in situation; that is, to the vision
or aim of the 'good life' with and for others in just institutions" (240). There
are two possible misinterpretations to avoid here: First, we do not need to
resort to any kind of Hegelian Sittlichkeit, or superior moment, which sure
passes. both the morality of obligation and the ethical goal of the good life.
Second, the return from a morality of obligation to ethics should not be
taken as a rejection of the morality of obligation. What Ricoeur is looking
for, in other words, is a "practical wisdom" that allows us to decide in difficult
particular cases without falling into a kind of arbitrary situationism.
At this point, Ricoeur resorts to a very unusual variation of style, reminiscent of Nietzsche, by inserting a nine-page "Interlude called "Tragic Action." It is dedicated to his late son, Olivier, who died at the age of thirty-nine,
only days after Ricoeur finished the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh. Ricoeur
takes as a case of "the tragedy of action," the moral conflict at the heart of
Sophocles' Antigone. Antigone follows the "unwritten law" to bury her brother;
Polynices, who was killed in an uprising against Thebes. She disobeys the
direct order of the king, Creon, who .has commande.d that Polynices not be
buried because he was a traitor to the city. For Creon, the moral rules are

unwritten laws, to provide a decent burial for her brother. Ricoeur says; "But

in invoking them [the unwritten laws] to found her intimate conviction, she
posited the limit that points up to human, all too human, character of every
institution" (245). It is just such a limit thatleads to ethics being instrUcted
by tragedy. Once again, Ricoeur's thesis is that the dialectic of ethics. and
morality is played out in the moral judgment in particular situations.
Moral formalism, in Kant's sense, is forced .to rely. on the intuition of
ethics in three areas already discussed: the universal self, the plurality of
persons, and the institutional environment. Ricoeur now takes these three
areas up again in reverse order, beginning with institutions. In the preceding
chapter, he had already shown the possibility of conflict inherent in the idea
of justice as a "just distribution.'! In short, it_is the diversity o contributions,
whether individual or collective, that raises the problem of a just distribution
of rights, roles, responsibilities, and goods. This problem had led Aristotle to
his idea of "proportional justice." The importance of Institutions for this
solution is clear: Referring to his seventh study, Ricoeur says, "We then
admitted that it was only in a specific institutional milieu that the capacities
and predispositions that distinguish human action can blossom;. the individual, we said then, becomes human only under the condition of certain
institutions; and we added: if this is so, the obligation to serve these institutions is itself a condition for the human agent to continue to develop"
(254--255). Now, the political state is the set of practices organized around
the distribution of power and domination. "Democracy," says Ricoeur, (jis not
a political system without conllicts but a system in which conflicts are open
and negotiable in accordance with recognized rules of arbitration" (258}. In
response to the "crisis of legitimacy" of certain political institutions, he calls
for the public recognition of traditions that .make a place for tolerance and
pluralism, "not out of concessions to extern~l- pressures, but out of inner
conviction, even if this is late in coming'' (261).
Ricoeur next considers the possibility of conflicts imbedded in the very
nature of the second version of Kant's categorical imperative~ the universfd~

ity of humanity and the individuality of each person as an "end-in-himself."

The conflict can atlse between "respect for the law," which reflects universality, and "respect for persons:' which reflects "the solicitude that is addressed to persons in. their irreplaceable singularity" (262). Ricoeur holds
that Kant does not see this possibility of conflict because he sees only the
subsumption of the maxim under a rule, But it is when we consider the.
opposite direction, the application of the .rule in concr.ete situations, where

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAl IDENTITY

individuals demand to be recognized as ends-in-themselves, that we recog-

In order to argue for this thesis, Ricoeur says that we must first make an
extended revision to Kantian formalism that will clearly show the universalist claim and will shatpen as much as possible its conflict with contextualism.
He will make this revision in three steps: {l) Question the priority Kant
gives to the principle of autonomy with respect to the plurality of individuals
and the principle of justice as applied to institutions. Ricoeur thinks that the
principle of autonomy should be at the end of the series, not at the beginning. (2) Question the restrictive use Kant makes of the criterion of univer
salization. According to Ricoeur, this criterion is very impoverished since it
is limited to noncontradiction and ignores the idea of the coherence of a
moral system. Such a coherence shows that such a formalism is not vacuous,
in the sense that a. whole series of moral obligations or rules can be derived
from the single principle requiring respect for others; furthermore, these
moral obligations are mutually coherent and not conlltcrual among them
selves. Finally, these rules are such that inferior rules are coherent with
superior rules. (3) Finally, Kant's formalism lies on the retrospective path of
just(fication, while the real conflicts atise in the prospective direction of deriving
judgments from rules and rules from prirtciples, that is, in the application of
universal principles to concrete cases. In sum, Ricoeur's goal is to show both
the credibility of the demand fur universalization and the contextual chat
acter of the application of moral rules.
It is, he says, the job of political practice to deal with this conflict and
these perplexities. He seeks moreover to underline the importance of the
hisr:midty of these political choices.
Next, if we move from the political level t<l the level of interpersonal
relations, a new dichotomy or conflict arises: the otherness (altbiti) of individuals is opposed to the unitary aspect of the concept of humanity. There
is a schism, between respect for the law and respect for persons. In short,
there is again a conflict between urtiversalism and contexrualism.(if we have
a concept of justice that is purely procedural, an e_i.~Q[!!t~ can
resolve the conflicts:)ut is the situation the same with the ptinciple of
respect for persons? Is resorting to developmental biology to decide whether
the fetus is a person, a thing, or something intermediary not similar to
looking for the best arguments in a debate ovet the righrs of the fetus? Ricoeur
accepts this thesis, but only t<l a certain point. He is in favor of contextualist
explanatinns but objects strenuously to uan apology of difference for the sake
of difference which, finally,. makes all differences i11different,. to the extent
that lt makes all discussiort useless" (286). In other words, what Ricoeur
rejects in an ethic& of atgumentation {representing the demand for universalization) is not the taking into account of circumstances in consttttcting the
best argument, but its attempt at purificatiDn. Kant wanted to purify all moral

24

nize the place of conflict. In the application of rules to patticular sitUations,

the rule is subject to the test of circumstances and consequences.
At this point, Ricoeur gives a summary analysis of promise making and
the obligation to keep promises. He says that it is the "you can count on me"
of the promise that ties selfhood with the reciprocity fot the other founded
in solicitUde. "Not keeping one's promise is betraying both the other's expectation and the institution that mediates the mutual ttttst of speaking subjects" (268). What Kant failed to see is the possibility of conflict between
respect for the law and respect for persons. To illustrate the ki11d of conflict
that is possible, Ricoeur takes cases from the "ertd of life'' and the "beginning
of life." For the first, he takes the case of the obligation t<l tell the truth to
dying persons. This obligation is tempered by compassiort for certain patients
who are .too weak to stand the truth or thOlle for whom the dirtlcal truth
would become simply a death sentence.
For the second kind of case, Rlcoeur takes the question of abortion. While
admitting that on the basis of biological criteria, the embf\10 is a biological
individual from the moment of conception, Ricoeor asks "whether practical
wisdom, without entirely losing this biologic criterion from sight, must rtot
take into account the phenometta of thresholds and stages that put into ques,
tion the simple alternative between 'person' artd 'thing"' (270. Ricoeur thinks
that the dialectic between sameness and selfbood leads us away from any
simplistic substarttialist ontology operative here. An opposite kind of thesis is
that personhood is established only by weil-developed caflildties, such that
only well-educated and autonomous adults would qualify fot the status of
personhood. We could decide to protect lesser being\!, as we prot<Xt animal& or
nature, bur they would have no right to be resp<Xted, Rk<Jeut rejects this view
as well because it is an "all-ot-nothil1g" position that does nat admit degrees
or stages of development. He argues for a progression of qua:litatively different
rights tied to a progressiort of biologi<l!l thresholds. What is called fot in these
kinds of cases is "criti<lll solidtude," where out moral judgmertts ate the result
of the good counsel of wise and competent men and women.
Ricoeur continues his atgumenr that thete ate conflicts in the very heart
of the claims of morality that call for a return to the most basic insight of
ethics. In particular, there is the continual possibility--and reality"'"'-Of conflict
between the universalist claims of the rules derived from moral prinCiples
and the "recognition of positive values belonging to the historlat and
communitatlan ccmtexts of the realiz~tion of these same rules" (274). Ricoeur's
claim is that there would not be a place for the tragedy of actiort nnless there
were a place for both the uniVersalist thesis and the cortrextualist thesis
mediated by "the practical wisdom of moral judgment in situation" (274).

26

27

CHARLES E. REAGAN

PERSONAL IDENTITY

arguments from any kind of inclination, desire, pleasure, happiness, etc., and

of selfbood by its contrast with sameness; and a second determination of

selfbood through its dialectic with otherness. He calls the result of this
progressive study a henneneutics of the self through a triple mediation. In
the previous studies the guiding principle has been the polysemy of the .ques.
tion "who?": who speaks, who acts, who tells a story~ who is responsJble? But,
beneath the structure organized around the .question "who?" is the substructure organi"d around the three problematics described above. The first four
studies responded to reflection through analysis; the fifth and sixth dealt with
the contrast between selfbood and sameness; and the seventh, eighth, and
ninth chapters focused on the dialectic between selfbood and the other.
Above all, Ricoeur wants to warn us again against any attempt to establish an epistemological-or ontological-foundation in the manner of
Descartes or Husser!. Instead of any claim to absolute truth, he reminds us
that attestation is a level of belief and confidence based on "testimony." It
is not an attempt to create an auto-foundational certitude of a Cartesian
cogito, and so it escapes the "humiliation of the cogito reduced to sheer
illusion following the Nietzschean critique" (299). Analysis, in the sense
used by analytic philosophy, attests, in Ricoeur's sense, to the ontological
import of the self when, with Strawson, the basic individuals are bodies and
persons, and, with Davidson, acts are construed as kinds of events. In these
analyses, the self is that which is talked about. But hermeneutics renders a
reciprocal service to analytical philosophy by showing that the self is not the

today Haberro.as directs his purification to anything conventional, in order to

free moral arguments from anything having to do with tradition and authority.
Ricoeur, on the contrary, suggests a reformulation of the ethics Of argu~

mentation that integrates the objections of contextualism with. the demands

of universalization. He wants to call into question the conflict between argumentation and convention and substitute a dialectic between argumentation and conviction. He says, "what do we discuss, if not the best way for each
party in the great debate to aim, beyond institutional mediations, at a complete life lived with and for others in just institutions? The articulations that
we never cease to reinforce between deontology and teleology finds its highest-and most fragile--expression in the reflective equilibrium between the ethics of argumentation and considered convictions" (238-289}. One aspect of
practical wisdom is the "art of conversation, in which the ethics of argumen-tation is put to the test in the conflict of convictions" (290}.
What is most important about Ricoeur's moral theory is that he doesnot
accept the classical. conflict between a teleological ethics and a nomological
morality-to use his conventions-as an antinomy. He argues that they are

poles in a dialectical relationship, each calling on the other to complete its

vision of a moral universe. A teleological view of the goa! of ethic.s needs
universal moral rules as a necessary means; on -the other hand, the applica..-

tion of these rules to difficult particular cases calls for an appeal to the
ultimate telos of morality.
The dialectic between ethics as the teleological goal of "a good life lived
with others in just institutions" and a morality of universal rules finds its
mediation in "practical wisdom." This wisdom is precisely the application of
moral rules to particular cases where a "conflict of convictionsn is tempered
by an ethics of argumentation. In his moral theory, Ricoeur replaces the
"conflict of interpretations" of his hermeneutics with a conflict of convic. .

tions. In both cases, it is the task of reflective philosophy to adjudicate

among the conflicting claims--each of which asserts that it is absolute.

ONTOLOGY OF THE SELF

Ricoeuts henneneutics of the self and its relation to the other actually ends
with the ninth study. Ricoeur asks, however, "What kind of being is the self?"
He says that his ontology of the self will be tentative and exploratory. He
reminds us that the henneneutics of the self was based on three successive
problematics: reflection by the indirect route of analysis; the detennination

result of some "linguistic mistake" or even more importantly, insisting on a

referential aspect of language as a cortective for those philosophies such as

French structuralism which refuse to "go outside" of language and mistrust
any extralinguistic reality. Ricoeur says, "I find here again the sort of ontological vehemence whose advocate I have been elsewhere in the name of the
conviction that-even in the uses of language that appear to be the least
referential, as is the case with metaphor and narrative fiction-language
expresses being, even if this ontological aim is as though postponed, deferred
by the prior denial of the literal referentiality of ordinary language" (301}.
An important difference between the being-true of attestation of Ricoeur
and that of Aristotle is that the contrary of attestation is suspicion, while the
contrary of being-true for Aristotle is being false. "Suspicion is also the path
toward and crossing within attestation. It haunts attestation, as false testimony
haunts true testimony. This adherence, this inherence of suspicion with respect to attestation, has marked the entire course of these studies (302). To
press on farther into the ontology of the. self, Ricoeur says he must be mote
precise about selfbood, both in its difference from sameness and its relation
to otherness.

28

CHARLES E. REAGAN

The dialectic between selfhood and otherness is more fundamental tban

the relation betll'een reflection and analysis and even the contrast between
selfuood and sameness. Otherness does not come from outside selfhood, but
is part of the meaning and the ontological constitution of selfbood. He says
that the phenomenological response to the metacategory of otherness is "the
variety of experiences of passivity, intertwined in multiple ways in human
action" (}lS). The main point of this dialectic is ro prevent the self from
pretet1ding to occupy the place of a foundation. Otherness is joined to selfbood.
The passivity at the core of otherness is manifested in three ways: "First,
there is the paSSivity represented by the experience of one's own body-or
better, as we sba!! say later, of the tlesh-as mediator between the self and
a world.... Next, we find the passivity implied by the relation of the self to
the foreign, in the precise sense of the other (than) self ... Finally, we have
the most deeply hidden passivity, that of the relation of the self to itself, which
is canscience" (318). All three of these manifestations exhibit the complexity
and densiry of the concept of otherness.
If, to use Sttawson's terms, persons are also bodies, it is to the extent that
each person is for himself his own body. The double belonging of the lived
body to the order of things as well as to the self is echoed in Davidson's
account of action as also an event. Ricoeur certainly includes suffering in the
passivity of the body. He says, "With the variety of these degrees of passivity,
one's own body is revealed to be the mediator between the intimacy of
the self and the externality of the world" (322). The "tlesh" is the place
of the experience of passiviry. Selfhood implies a "lived" otherness, of
which the tlesh is the foundation. In a powerful analogy, Ricoeur says,
The problem we called the reinscription of phenomenological
time in cosmological time in Tmte and Narrative Jinds a series of
equivalences here: just as it was necessary to invent the calendar
to correlate the lived now with the anonymous instant and to
draw up the geographic map to correlate the charnel here with
an indifferent place, and thereby to inscribe the proper namemy name-in the civil register, it is necessary, as Husser! himself
states, to mal<e the tlesh part of the world (morulaneiser) if it is to
appear as a body amot1g bodies. (326)
Ricoeur goes on to speak of an otherness constitutive of the self and says that
it gives full force to the paradoxical expression "oneself as another" (327).
The second category of the experience of the passivity of the self is in the
"otherness" of other people. Ricoeur introduces the idea of a dialectic between self-esteem and friendship. He says that justice is generally considered
in the sense of distributive justice in exchanges, but it could be rewritten in

PERSONAL IDENTITY

29

tenus ofa.dialectic of action .and affection. In the dialec.tic between the self
and the .ather, ;itis thefaee ofthe0thenthat.appears to me .and says, "Thou
shalt ,not kill." Jt js .the . ather wh<> ce<>nstitutes me as re~onsible, !hat !is,
[email protected] answei.ing. ''In :tliisway, the w<>td-.of :the other .comes to .be:p!aced
at .the "!gin .oLmy ,ac.ti" (336). :Sq, ~elf,de;sjgnadon :which imputes :moral
.respomibiliey ,fur mY :acts to ;me thas its oiigin :outside .of :the self.
The next;pl!)les are:a l:lebate:.hetw.een'Kant:anl:ll.evinas. ''Kant :pursre$p.ect
for -the :law .Rbove tegpectfor :otherpersons; ltevinassays ;that :the .face .<lf:the
other singlilarize :the .commandment. To .he ;effective, !however, &he veice.of
.the other:must'.become;nty\Vdice;fuis .oommandmUMibecomemy:c.mn~iction.
This l:lialeellic :between ;the ..elf ;and ,the :other :was :lllready anticipated -in
Ricoeur's ,discussion .of promising: "'!.If . another 'W.ete :not counmng .on me,
would I .be .capable '"fikeef)ing .my word, df :maintaining myself?" ;(34lj.
Ricoeur says that amongihe most suwect iiaeas are ihose ,_Of, the "!bad" :or
'rgood" :consCience. A -,discussion ,of :c0nsdie:nc~ -will ;giv 1'him, lhe ~-sa)% --a
perfect opportunity cto put :to :the ctest Jiis thesis :that ':attestation of S<!llhood
is inseparable ifrom.an .exercise ofsuspiciioti" .(341.').liv.en if .we .overcome :.the
distinction ;between "\good" .and '!bad" c<Jns.Cienae, .WI'! must still :ileal .with
phenomena Hf it)junaiion .1ll1il .debt . whiCh . are ingniined .in >.the .idea .of .conscience. There.are three . challenges .to .overcome in:order :to rescue ,the .concept .of consCience :from :NietzSri:he's :attaCk.
Hrst;cluillenge. 1'he i.conscienceiscfhe ,place where illusions ~boutoneselfare
mixed with the :ttuth,of attestation. Afrer.an.<>xtended :discussi<mofil\liet2S<Ohes
analyses . ofthe concept.ofcenscienc.e, Ricoeur '5ll)'S :that.the furce ofl\lierzsche's
method . of suspicion:is .that, all conscience is ':bad .conscience." The trap, says
Ricoeur, is.the.danger ofa;newdogmatism.Jn.order'to return to the id.ea of

conscience) we- musnibandan ,fue -.ideas Of'~-good" -and-'\bad" ._consCience and .go
back to a kind of nonmoral suspicion ,which .is the;or.h.edace oaf attestation.
Second challenge. "What 'happens .when We '~de-moralize" .tbe conscience?
How do we keep .from falling back into the ;trap of good" and "bad" consdence?Ricoeursays, "A,;emark.made.earlier.withrespect to.the.metaphor of
the court.puts US\On the rjght;path. :Is it.,not 'because the stage ofmorality has
been dissociated from the .tiiad .ethics-moralityconviction, .then hypostasized
because ,of this .dissociation, that ;the phenomenon of c<>nscience 'has been
correlativelyimpoverished and the revealing metaphor of.the voice has been
eclipsed by the stitling metaphor ofthe court:r' (351>). Ricoeur says that the
first injliD.ction is a call tolivewell with and for others in justinstitutions. It
is because violence can spoil all of our interpersonal relationships that we have
the law or interdiction "Thou shalt not kill." Violence causes a short circuit
and the voice of conscience becomes the verdict of a court. We need to take
the reverse path, from interdiction-verdict to the injunction to live well.

CHARLES E. REAGAN
TJ~ir;d chalierl!le The otherness of the conscience can be fout1d in the

Freo.diim superego, the internalization of the ancestral voice. The otherness in .

the heart ofthe conscience is a fOrm of the passivity of the self. The question
is, if there is a trace of the other in conscience, is that other ancestral; or God,
of ltah empty place"? Ricoeur's ontological essay concludes, 11With this aporia
of the other, philosophical discourse comes to an end" (355).
But, of course, philosophical discourse does not come to an end, neither
for Paul Ricoeur nor for us. We have taken but the first step in a careful
reading of the text, lent a sympathetic ear to the arguments, reached a
thorough understanding of the issues and the debates. Now, it is our time to
respond, to critiCize, to propose, to argue, and, finally, to advance our philosophical understanding of "oneself as another."
We can take Oneself as Another, the last, the most carefully constructed, and
most tightly argued of Rlcoeur's books, as the very model of his philosophical
style. After a lifetime as a professor of philosophy, he always gives credit to
other authors, and honors them by a careful and sympathetic reading of their
arguments. He rejects completely any kind of fout~dationalism, such as those
of Descartes or Husser!; but he equally rejects the nihilism and skepticism of
Nietzsche. Where others see only dichotomies, Ricoeur sees dialectics. But, his
dialectics never result in a "lazy edectidsm," or mere combination of elements
ftom both poles, but rather in a "reading through" ftom one pole to the other
in order to show their interdependence. His dialectical analyses do not result
in a Hegelian "third term" that surpasses the dialectical poles and renders them
useless. His "third term," such as "practical wisdom," can only be understood
at the very heart of the dialectic and as completely implying both poles of the
dialectic. This is a constant and essential element in his philosophical method.
Oneself as Another is not only an excellent example of Ricoeur's philosophical style, but it clearly exemplifies and continues his lifelong interest in
human action and suffering. He himself has characterized his work as a
"philosophical anthropology." His work is at the crossroads between "words
and deeds,'r or a Hsemantics of action and desire." It is in this sense that his
last book recapitulates and refines his central philosophical concerns.

NOTES
I.
2.
3.
page

Paul Ricoeur, TN, 1, 2, 3. Translation of TR, I, II, Ill.

Paul Ricoeur, TA. Translation of Dta.
Paul Ricoeur, OA. Translation of Sa. Numbers in parentheses refer to
numbers in OA.

PERSONAL IDENTITY

31

4. Paul Ricoeur, Lmv. Translated as RM.

5. Paul Ricoeur, FP, 43.
6. Paul Ricoeur, "The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered
as a Text," Sociol Research 38, no. 3 (Fall1971): 529-562. HHS, 197-221.
7. Ibid., 215.
8. P. R Strawson, lrulividuals (London: Methuen, 1959).
9. See R. S. Peters, The Concept of Motivation (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1958).
10. Paul Ricoeur, FN, 355-373. Translation of LV.
11. Paul Ricoeur, FM, 77-98. Translation of Lf.