Hermeneutics of Action: On Ricoeur's Philosophy of Action

The theme of action has to do with issues related to the dynamic of potential acts, human action, agency and so on. It has a long history in philosophy, running through Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, David Hume, Johann G. Fichte, Max Weber, John Searle, to mention some famous thinkers on this topic from ancient times to the contemporary epoch. Philosophy of action has had and still has three major speculative interests: (1) the study of human action in connection to general theoretical or speculative themes, like speech acts, causal theories of action, bodily movement and so on; (2) the study of human action in relation to specific themes and issues such as intention, cause/motivation, mental acts, agency, patency, etc.; and (3) the study of human action in relation to disciplinary domains and thematic issues (e.g. theory of historical knowledge, sociology and ethics). However, there is a different tradition, within the Francophone world, which has been characterised as s philosophy of action. It has been characterised in this way in relation to a specific spiritual and existential tradition. Today, this philosophy of action is less recognised, but it is nevertheless equally important for the history of contemporary philosophy. It certainly has found its way into the major contemporary spiritual philosophical traditions thanks to Maurice Blondel’s work. Paul Ricoeur’s research is partially connected to this tradition, as well as the research approach of analytical philosophy. In fact, his phenomenological hermeneutic research on action is placed between analytical tradition and existentialism. In this paper we will mainly be interested in deepening this aspect in order to clarify both the originality of Ricoeur’s philosophy of action and its connection to contemporary philosophy.