Abstract

Enhancing further the Socratic dictum, Paul Ricoeur maintains that “an examined life is a life recounted”—a principle that interprets the human being with a detour to the text, narrative, work of art, and discourse. Ricoeur believes that any philosophical understanding of the self presupposes a “text.” Ricoeur’s notion of the capable human being, therefore, precisely took shape from this hermeneutical approach to philosophical anthropology. This paper aims to inquire into the complex itinerary of Ricoeurean “hermeneutical- philosophical anthropology.” By hermeneutical-philosophical anthropology, we come to a full understanding of the philosophy of the human person by a textual or discursive interpretation . The affirmation of the human person is reliant on how he understands himself through the works of literature and acts of language. Further, this paper attempts to elucidate Ricoeur’s emphasis on the important role of the self, specifically the personalities of those who participate both in written literature and acts of verbal language, e.g., the author, the reader, the speaker, human reference, etc