Paul Ricoeur on Hope: Expecting the Good

In order to examine fully the nature of human beings, Paul Ricoeur crossed disciplinary boundaries in his work, moving from phenomenology to social and political thought, hermeneutics, and ethics. Running throughout Ricoeur’s work – particularly Fallible Man, Time and Narrative, Oneself as Another, and his shorter pieces on hermeneutics, ethics, and religion – is a theme of the human capacity for hope. According to Ricoeur, hope is a capacity of expectation, oriented toward some future acti...