French philosopher Paul Ricoeur dies at 92

PARIS, May 21 (AFP) – French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, a greatly influential thinker on both sides of the Atlantic, has died at the age of 92, his friend and fellow philosopher Olivier Abel said on Saturday.

Intellectuals and politicians paid tribute to the philosopher, who died Friday after a months-long illness, many remembering his opposition to war, from the French war in Algeria in the 1950s to the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict.

“In the face of the tragedies of our era, Paul Ricoeur never stopped proclaiming with determination the need for dialogue and the respect of others,” French President Jacques Chirac said in a statement.

His early life was marked by the death of his father in World War I and during World War II he was drafted into the French army, later to be captured and held as a prisoner of war in Germany for five years.

He held positions at the Sorbonne University in Paris and during the 1960s at the newly-founded University of Nanterre, where he was criticized as an ally of the government during the student protests of that decade.

In 1967, he left France for the United States where he would teach at the University of Chicago for 15 years, as well as at Yale and Columbia.

Ricoeur also taught in Geneva, Belgium’s Louvain University and Montreal. His cross-cultural career led to two of his most enduring works “The Rule of Metaphor” and the three volume “Time and Narrative.”

Ricoeur is also known for his two volumes on the philosophy of the will entitled “Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary.”

Born in 1913 in Valence to a devout Protestant family, he was a member of a religious minority in predominantly Roman Catholic France. A widower, he leaves behind five children.

Subject: French News