Abstract

Ricoeur’s reading of analytic philosophy is part of a philosophical plan that focuses on deepening his inquiry into various thematics, some theoretical in nature, others concerned with the history of philosophy. On the theoretical plane, Ricoeur’s interest in the analytic tradition is rooted in the problem of the relationship between language and the world; as regards the history of philosophy, he is interested in the shift from a transcendental philosophy to a contemporary philosophy that is concerned with the world of experience and the actions of a fallible and capable human being. From this perspective, a possible way into a Ricœurian reading of analytic philosophy is through two authors: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Nelson Goodman. In both cases, Ricoeur does not so much oppose the approaches and results of an "analytic philosophy" to those of a "continental philosophy" as seek to renew his reflection on language, imagination, and reference. We can account for this evolution in two stages: first, we will focus on the comparison that Ricoeur makes between the philosophy of the later Husserl and the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein; second, we will reexamine Ricoeur’s reading of Goodman’s general theory of reference.