paul ricoeur, solicitude, love, and the giftthe cordon of philosophy. It is in Memory, History, Forgetting that there
is a subtle change. Here Ricoeur waxes lyrical about the “free gift” (le
don sans retour)^49 of love, which also features as a central element in his
reflections on memory and justice and their connection with pardon.^50
This notion of the gift, given without any expectation of return, here
rescues human interactions from the required reciprocity that governs
the protocol of giving in most exchanges. It is a free gift in that it
surpasses all calculations of return or reward. It also has definite re-
sonances with Ricoeur’s understanding of recognition.^51 For Ricoeur,
the well-spring of this gift of love has a suprahuman dimension in that
it goes beyond what can be normally expected from a human being’s
own resources. Yet, as a philosopher, Ricoeur still remains hesitant to
acknowledge a supernatural source. Nevertheless, in admitting: “Love,
for example, it belongs to a poetics of the will,”^52 Ricoeur allows that
love is thus intimately related to the realm of religion, which he has
identified as having a distinct affinity with poetics. Love is thus one of
the principal exemplars of the intersection of the word and worlds of
philosophy and religion. In an interview with Yvanka Raynova, he
refers to his article on “Love and Justice” (1996), where he demonstrates
just such an interaction between love and justice.
What I wrote on the relation between love and justice... [is that] love
has a religious source, in the widest sense; it is the sacred of the human
person and it speaks poetically. But it acts on justice by asking it to be
more just, more respectful to persons. In this way justice, which is a
fundamental philosophical subject since Socrates, Plato and Aristotle,
right up to Kant and Hegel, is always under the eye, the pressure and
inspiration of love.^53It is then fascinating to follow Ricoeur as he explores the similarities
and differences involved in this overlap of love and justice, with specific
reference to his earlier depiction of recognition. It is the good as an
- Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 480.
- Ibid., 481–6. Ibid., 481–6.
- Ricoeur, Course of Recognition, 219–46.
- Ricoeur in Reagan, Paul Ricoeur: His Life and Work, 120.
- Ricoeur in Raynova, “All that Give Us to Think,” 683–4. Ricoeur in Raynova, “All that Give Us to Think,” 683–4.