Book Review: Peter KEMP (2010) Sagesse pratique de Paul Ricoeur. Huit etudes [Paul Ricoeur's Practical Wisdom. Eight Studies]

Peter Kemp – a member of the Institute of Philosophy and Education of the new Danish University of Education and director of the Copenhagen Centre for Ethics and Law – is one of the most important pupils of Paul Ricœur (1913–2005). In this book he brings together essays published between 1986 and 2006 that are linked by a common motif, one no doubt of Aristotelian origin: that of practical wisdom, which the author considers lies at the heart of Ricœurian hermeneutics, to the extent of constituting a fundamental characteristic of it. The book adds a significant contribution to the interpretive debate around the work of Ricœur. It engages the task of the reconstruction and critical analysis of his thought, notably in relation to the essential concepts of his narrative hermeneutics and practical philosophy (as laid out in the three works of Ricœur’s maturity to which Kemp gives particular weight: Temps et Récit (1983–85) [trans. Time and Narrative (1984–88)], Soi-même comme un autre (1990) [trans. Oneself as Another (1992)] and Parcours de la Reconnaissance (2004) [trans. The Course of Recognition (2005)]. We are thus presented with a work of critical analysis in the form of a dialogue, revealing on the one hand the recognition by the pupil of what he owed to his master, and on the other the ambition to pursue his own personal path of scholarly research.