Abstract

This paper tries to answer the question: why did Paul Ricœur keep a nearly total silence after 1963 about Soren Kierkegaard, and was there from the beginning a reticence with regard to Kierkegaard? An answer can be found in the beginning of Ricœur’s work, in his first book written with Mikel Dufrenne on Karl Jaspers et la philosophie de I ’existence. This book that is full of references to Kierkegaard also shows that it was Jaspers’ particular appropriation of the Danish thinker that affected him. But, like Jaspers, Ricœur became too preoccupied with external historical, social and political life to be a true disciple of Kierkegaard.