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Paul Ricœur

French philosopher (1913-2005) · France · Academics · Died at 92

Paul Ricœur is read about 527 times a day, in 48 languages.

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He made the interpretation of texts a philosophical method - reading myths, scripture, Freud, and stories not as static meanings but as living acts of understanding that remake both reader and world.

A life in dates

2005Died20 May 20052003Paul VI PrizeAward2000Kyoto Prize in Arts and PhilosophyAwardOskar Pfister AwardAward1999Balzan PrizeAwardGordon J. Laing AwardAward1996Honorary Doctorate of the University of Santiago de CompostelaAward1993Honorary Doctor of the University of Madrid ComplutenseAward1991Grand prix de philosophieAward1989Dr. Leopold Lucas PrizeAwardKarl Jaspers PrizeAward1985Gordon J. Laing AwardAwardHegel PrizeAward1975“People do things, and then they imagine what they are doing in a kind of cloudy realm.”In their wordsp. 5

1913Born27 February 1913

Also in Deutsch

Photos 2

In their own words 2

,
Paul Ricœur
,
2 statements, newest first
  1. People do things, and then they imagine what they are doing in a kind of cloudy realm.

    1975, p. 5, Own words

  2. I dislike those who present myself as a Protestant philosopher; I am a philosopher and a Protestant.

    Je suis irrité lorsqu’on me présente comme philosophe protestant, je suis philosophe et protestant., Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Paul VI Prize2003
Oskar Pfister Award2000
Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy2000
Balzan Prize1999
Gordon J. Laing Award1999
Honorary Doctorate of the University of Santiago de Compostela1996
Honorary Doctor of the University of Madrid Complutense1993
Grand prix de philosophie1991
Karl Jaspers Prize1989
Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize1989
Gordon J. Laing Award1985
Hegel Prize1985
Honorary doctor of the Catholic University of Louvain
Honorary Doctor of the University of Padua
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Honorary doctor of the University of Ottawa
Honorary Doctor of the University of Chicago
Commander of the French Order of Academic Palms

About this person

Jean Paul Gustave Ricœur was born on 27 February 1913 in France and trained in a philosophical lineage that included Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Gabriel Marcel. He fused phenomenology - the close study of lived experience - with hermeneutics, the art of interpretation, and turned that hybrid toward places philosophy rarely went: mythology, biblical exegesis, psychoanalysis, metaphor, narrative. The method didn't just analyze texts; it treated interpretation itself as a creative, transformative act. In 2000 the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy recognized him for having "revolutionized the methods of hermeneutic phenomenology," pulling textual theory into domains both broad and concrete. He died on 20 May 2005, leaving a body of work that reframed how we think about meaning, story, and the self.

Country
France
Category
Academics
Type
Academic
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1913 to 2005 · aged 92

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