Abstract

This article proposes to address the question of embodiment in Ricœur’s philosophical anthropology, choosing to focus its analysis on these two major works, the Philosophy of the Will and Oneself as Another. It argues that Ricœur’s thought on embodiment consists in developing an analysis of the lived body as fragile mediation, striving to articulate two complementary dialectics. A first dialectic of act and power expresses the ontological and operating character of this dynamic process of mediation, while a second dialectic of activity and passivity points to the limits and to the vulnerability of this mediation. The articulation of these two dialectics constituting our experience of embodiment can then ultimately be read as a dialectic of structure and event whose ethical and ontological character is at the heart of Ricœur’s philosophical anthropology.