A Companion to Ricoeur's Freedom and Nature

(Hardback)

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Paul Ricoeurs first book, Freedom and Nature, introduces many themes that resurface in various ways throughout his later work, but its significance has been mostly overlooked in the field of Ricoeur studies. Gathering together an international group of scholars, The Companion to Freedom and Nature is the first book-length study to focus exclusively on Freedom and Nature. It helps readers to understand this complex work by providing careful textual analysis of specific arguments in the book and by situating them in relation to Ricoeurs early influences, including Merleau-Ponty, Nabert, and Ravaisson. But most importantly, this book demonstrates that Freedom and Nature remains a compelling and vital resource for readers today, precisely because it resonates with recent developments in the areas of embodied cognition, philosophical psychology, and philosophy of the will. Freedom and Nature is fundamentally a book about embodiment, and it situates the human body at the crossroads of activity and passivity, motivation and causation, the voluntary and the involuntary. This conception of the body informs Ricoeurs unique treatment of topics such as effort, habit, and attention that are of much interest to scholars today. Together the chapters of this book provide a renewed appreciation of this important and innovative work.

Reviews

With his usual, gifted editorial acumen, Scott Davidson has drawn together an impressive international group of Ricoeur scholars to help demonstrate the continuing vitality of Ricoeurs book Freedom and Nature for the 21st century. The present volume is to be commended for its elucidation and deepening of Ricoeurs themes in Freedom and Nature on their own terms, in relation to Ricoeurs subsequent corpus, and in dialogue with contemporary scholarly debates. -- George H. Taylor, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh
This companion to one of Ricoeurs earliest and perhaps least accessible works brings together an impressive group of commentators who ably demonstrate the originality and significance of Ricoeur's thought as it bears on traditional and current debates inphenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and ethics. The companionis not only a guide to an essential and often overlooked text, but it also re-interprets Ricoeurs philosophical foundations in view of his overall project and how it bears on keyconvergences in todays post-continental-analytic milieu. -- Todd Mei, University of Kent

Author Bio

Scott Davidson is professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.