Ricoeur on moral religion : a hermeneutics of ethical life / James Carter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carter, James, 1984-

Series:

Oxford theology and religion monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ricœur, Paul--Criticism and interpretation.

Ricœur, Paul.

Philosophy and religion.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xiii, 169 pages ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

In Ricoeur on Moral Religion, James Carter argues that Paul Ricoeur's later philosophical writings provide a highly instructive interpretive key with which to assess his philosophical project as a whole. This first systematic study of the 'later Ricoeur' offers a critical yet sympathetic reconstruction of Ricoeur's hermeneutics of ethical life, which demonstrates his significant contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion and moral philosophy. What emerges is a clear and distinctive moral religion that binds humans together universally on the basis of the life they share as capable beings. Carter also uncovers a hitherto unforeseen thread in Ricoeur's writings concerning ethical life, pulled through his own readings of Spinoza, Aristotle, and Kant. Ricoeur's hermeneutics is structured by a Kantian architectonic informed at different levels by these three philosophers, who ground a rich, holistic, and ultimately rationalist account of ethical life and religion that resists the trappings of both positivism and postmodernism. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Ricoeur's Architectonic of Moral Religion 1

1 Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Ethical Life 1

1.1 Opening Remarks 1

1.2 The Aims of the Book 4

1.3 The Claims of the Book 5

2 The Later Ricoeur's 'Religion' of Human Capability 7

2.1 The Later Ricoeur 7

2.2 The Capable Human 9

2.3 Human Capacities 10

2.4 The Ground of Being 10

2.5 Ricoeur's 'philosophical theology' 12

3 Ricoeur's Architectonic 15

3.1 Spinoza, Aristotle, Kant 15

3.2 Hermeneutics of Ethical Life 18

3.3 Moral Religion 19

2 Reading Religion as Metaphysical Life in Spinoza 21

1 Introduction 21

2 Core Concepts for Religion as Metaphysical Life 23

2.1 Substance or God 23

2.2 God or Nature 27

3 Conatus and Ethical Life 30

3.1 Rational Striving 31

3.2 Understanding Life 33

3.3 Ethical Life 35

4 Spinoza in the Later Ricoeur 37

5 Spinoza and Kant 40

5.1 Freedom 40

5.2 The Individual 43

5.3 Ethology 44

6 Coda: Reading Philosophy 46

3 Reading Religion as Anthropological Life in Aristotle 49

1 Aristotle's Anthropology 50

2 The Pursuit of the Good Life in Aristotle 54

2.1 Eudaimonia: The Good Life 54

2.2 Orexis: (Rational) Desire 56

3 The Good Life in Aristotle 57

3.1 The Good Life and Human Capacities 57

3.2 The Fragility of the Good Life and the Vulnerability of Human Capacities 59

4 Friendship in Aristotle and Ricoeur 64

4.1 Friendship, Ethics, and the Good Life 64

4.2 Friendship and the Vulnerable Human in Aristotle and Ricoeur 70

4 Reading Religion as Moral Life in Kant 74

1 The Categorical Imperative 77

2 Radical Evil 80

2.1 The Human Will 80

2.2 The Propensity to Evil 81

3 Kantian Virtue 82

4 Kant's Humanity 86

4.1 The Strenuous Way of Virtue 86

4.2 'Original Innocence' 88

4.3 Kant and Rousseau: Unsociable Sociability 90

5 Kant's Moral Religion 95

5.1 The Moral Law Within 95

5.2 Historical Religions and Moral Religion 95

5.3 Hope in the Common Rational Pursuit of the Good Life 98

6 Kant's Place in Ricoeur's Architectonic 99

6.1 Spinoza and Kant 99

6.2 Aristotle and Kant 101

5 The Reflexive Autonomy of Ricoeur 103

1 Introduction 103

1.1 Reflexive Autonomy: Ricoeur's 'ethical vision of the world' 105

1.2 From Reflexive Philosophy to Moral Religion: A Sketch 107

2 Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Selfhood 109

2.1 The Detour of Reflection by Way of a Hermeneutical Analysis 109

2.2 The Dialectic of idem and ipse 110

2.3 Attesting to Oneself Inasmuch as Other 111

2.4 Capability, Self-Esteem, and Solicitude: A Tripartite Dialectic 113

3 Ricoeur's Post-Hegelian Kantian Hermeneutics 116

3.1 Hermeneutics and Metaphysics 116

3.2 Ricoeur's post-Hegelian Return to Kant 120

3.3 Ricoeur's Hermeneutics: post-Hegelian or post-Kantian? 122

4 Autonomy and the Reflexive Self 126

4.1 Ricoeur's Autonomous Agent 126

4.2 Reflexive Autonomy 128

5 Reflexive Autonomy and Ethical Life 129

5.1 Reflexive Autonomy in Ricoeur's little ethics 129

5.2 Reflexive Autonomy in the Later Ricoeur 131

6 Reflexive Autonomy and Moral Religion 132

6.1 Ethics and Metaphysics 132

6.2 Reflexive Autonomy and Ricoeur's Architectonic of Moral Religion 133

6 A Hermeneutics of Ethical Life 135

1 Opening Remarks: The Aims and Claims of the Book 135

2 The Key Features of Ricoeur's Moral Religion 138

3 Hermeneutics 140

3.1 A Critical Method 140

3.2 A Kantian Structure 142

4 The Ethical Aim of Ricoeur's Moral Religion 144

5 Situating Ricoeur's Moral Religion 145

5.1 Ricoeur Studies 145

5.2 Contemporary Philosophy of Religion 150.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-166) and index.

ISBN:

0198717156

9780198717157

OCLC:

888545074