Presentation of the envisioned space
The Fonds Ricoeur development project has entailed building a floor above the library of the “Bibliothèque de
This documentary space is unique in the world, and few philosophers’ work is presented in such a way for other readers. It takes as its theme the successive ‘reading circles’ that correspond to the way in which Ricoeur himself worked. Ricoeur wrote: ‘All the books are open on my table; none of them are older than any other. A dialogue by Plato is here for me now [...] I believe in this space that creates a strange contemporaneity, a sort of dialogue with the dead, but conducted by the living.’ The layout will help young researchers, too often bombarded by the mass of virtual information, to capture the circle that develops around a line of questioning and determines the choice of horizon.
The layout will be at the same time discrete and private. The care accorded to the quality of its installation will create a privileged place for research, corresponding to the originality of the Ricoeur Collection. It does not aim to be a purely archival Collection, nor an “association of friends”, but a place for intellectual consultation, personal reading, the exchange of reflections, and international research, enlivened by shared concern for the world.
A “Paul Ricoeur” room
The Paul Ricoeur room will house the oeuvre of the philosopher, his books and articles, a copy of all his writings, organized year by year, with a computer to connect to the library and the Internet. These three libraries will be displayed in the form of three arcs. The main works will be accessible in French as well as in other languages, with the relevant secondary literature (translations, commentaries, biographies, and eventually copies of dissertations, etc.) There will also be a display cabinet for archives and an indicative display of readings to support one of his major works.
This room will also contain cupboards for conserving the manuscripts and other precious documents (their administration is the responsibility of the editorial committee to whom the philosopher entrusted the care of the papers and the editorial administration of his texts).
This room will serve as the administrative space for the work on the Collection, and for receiving researchers. It will accommodate a dozen researchers around a large central table, with an acoustic screen.
Ricoeur’s libraries
In the other part of the Paul Ricoeur room, the reader will have direct access to the working library of Paul Ricoeur, divided around the following themes selected by Ricoeur himself :
A chronological collection of the history of philosophy:
- Classic philosophy from Homer to
- Classical French philosophy
- German philosophy (Kant and later thinkers)
- Anglo-Saxon Philosophy
- Phenomenology and hermeneutics
A collection at the interface between philosophy and Human Sciences :
- concerning On Interpretation. Essay on Freud
- concerning The Rule of Metaphor
- concerning Time and Narrative
- concerning Oneself As Another
- concerning Memory, History, Forgetting
A collection concerning contemporary moral and political philosophy:
- Moral philosophy
- Political philosophy
- Philosophy of law
The installation will comprise work spaces for 6 researchers with individual tables, small cupboards for materials, a work table for four and two workstations with access to the online catalogue and Internet.