Paul Ricoeur’s Renewal of Philosophical Anthropology: Vulnerability, Capability, Justice

In Paul Ricoeur’s Renewal of Philosophical Anthropology: Vulnerability, Capability, Justice, Marc de Leeuw contextualizes Ricoeur’s work in the largely forgotten tradition of philosophical anthropology. In the book, de Leeuw shows how the original diagnosis of the human as suffering from a primordial deficiency, lack, or wounded cogito becomes the main motivation for Ricoeur’s phenomenological and hermeneutic renewal of this tradition. Ricoeur thereby connects the human ability for self-expression with our capability to speak, act, narrate, remember, and be held accountable. De Leeuw argues that through the poetic and ethical reconfiguration of our experiences a reflexive selfhood emerges, one able to attest to whom it stands for, thereby replacing the traditional anthropological question what is the human? with who is the human?

In times of climate change, viral emergency, and democratic crisis, the question of the human is more important than ever. How does our philosophical self-understanding match the urgent need to re-evaluate our relation to the planet, nature, and each other? Paul Ricoeur’s complex exploration of the vulnerable but capable human helps us formulate an answer. Paul Ricoeur’s Renewal of Philosophical Anthropology shows that Ricoeur’s affirmative anthropology not only renews the tradition of philosophical anthropology but also reveals its ongoing relevance for our human self-understanding.