Being as Act and Potency in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

At three important stages in his philosophy, Paul Ricoeur has argued for a conception of being as both actuality and potentiality. This ontological stance enables Ricoeur to preserve the bond uniting freedom and nature, to account for the power of the poetic word to recreate the world in which we live and move and have our being, and finally to restore the rootedness of the subject in a world that does not care for human care, Ricoeur maintains that before it is essence, being is act, and before it is inert presence, it is the dynamism of effort and desire.