Citation

Faessler M. Laval Theologique et Philosophique 2009; 65(3): 431-450.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009)

DOI

10.7202/039043ar

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Ever since his first writings in which he elaborated a phenomenology of the will, until his last unfinished work on death, Paul Ricœur kept meditating on the problem of evil. But he was hit to the core in the midst of his life by a terrible drama : the suicide of one of his sons. This article tries to evaluate in what way Ricœur's thoughts on evil were modified and deepened by this tragedy. It notices several displacements. As Jean Nabert's heir, Ricœur goes beyond the category of the unjustifiable toward that of the unbearable. As a critical friend of Emmanuel Lévinas, he affirms the necessity not to dispossess the subject hit by the "non-integrable" in evil, of its initiative and its ability to pay witness to itself. Finally, as an admirer of Kant and a reader of the Psalms, he rediscovers in the ultimate foundation of all necessary self-esteem, the limiting concept of a radical goodness of the created and the category of a hope "in spite of" the inscrutable when confronted to it.

Language: fr