morny joyof natality as an affirmation of life in this world. He described his
initial positive reaction to this term as being one of “a certain
amazement.”^10
In his later work, from Oneself as Another (1992) onwards, he struggl-
ed to express ways of alleviating the continuing suffering of humanity.
He pondered about this form of evil as a “primordial suffering which
appears to be inseparable from the human condition.”^11 His response
was a preoccupation with ethics and with the associated issues of rec-
ognition and pardon, as part of a marked commitment to justice. He
acknowledged this change in a phenomenological study he undertook
of both the suffering and acting aspects of human exi stence — the phe-
nomenon of human capability, or what he termed homo capax:
I would like... to underscore my emphasis, since Oneself as Another,
on the importance of the idea of homo capax as integrating a wide
conceptual field. With this theme I have tried to bring together those
diverse capacities and incapacities that make human beings acting and
suffering human beings. If the notions of poiesis and praxis were given
ample development in my earlier work, those of being acted upon and
suffering were less so.^12It was in the final years of his life, without abandoning completely his
division between philosophy and religion, that Ricoeur became
fascinated with exploring the way the languages of each of these two
areas could overlap, and he wondered how and if they could inform
one another in a productive way, most particularly in the relation of
the phenomenon of the love to justice.
As a result, Ricoeur’s work offers many rich and wise observations
that are of relevance for this conference and that merit being explored
in more depth. I cannot but scratch the surface in this presentation of
the valuable contribution that he could make to further deliberations
on the nature of the relationship between phenomenology and
religion. I have thus chosen a number of specific topics as illustrative
- Ricoeur in Azouvi and de Launay, Critique and Conviction, 157.
- Ricoeur in Hahn, Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, 49.
- Ricoeur, “A Response by Paul Ricoeur,” in Paul Ricoeur and Narrative: Context
and Contestation, ed. M. Joy, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1997, xxiv.