Abstract

This paper focuses on Ricoeur’s conception of the capable human being; a conception that interprets personal identity as constituted through a hermeneutical process which is simultaneously a vertical dialectic of self-emancipation and a horizontal dialectic of recognition. Ricoeur’s speculative investigations around the human being progresses in parallel with the evolution of his hermeneutical conception, from the paradigm of an interpretation of symbols and myths to the analysis of text and narration, thence to phenomenological hermeneutics of the self, and finally to the hermeneutics of translation and recognition. It is in particular the latter movement that allows a productive dialogue with Levinas and Ricoeur on vulnerability and intersubjectivity.