The Reflexive Detour in the Issue of God within Paul Ricoeur’s Memoirs of Youth

Abstract

During the 90s of the twentieth century, Paul Ricoeur designated his view concerning the metaphysical issue of God as philosophical agnosticism. He thought that feature to be the hallmark of his entire work. However, in his Memoirs of Youth [Méthode réflexive appliquée au problème de Dieu chez Lachelier et Lagneau], which he wrote during his twenties, Ricouer developed a philosophy that named God and that made it a metaphysical issue. This memoir remained unpublished until 2017. Faced with his self-proclaimed philosophical agnosticism, this work raises some questions. If the early Ricoeur was interested in applying the method of reflexive philosophy to the issue of God, why this early work remained unpublished? Was it published just because it contradicts the hallmark of his entire work? The purpose of the article is to shed light on the origin of this memoir, which seems strange due to his own description of his philosophical work. Therefore, it addresses three issues within the memoir: the philosophical ideas established in the beginning, the decisions he took during its development, and the structure of an impossible conclusion which ends it.