Free Will, Practical Reason and Recognition in Hegel and Ricoeur

Abstract

This article is about some intersecting points between Ricoeur’s and Hegel’s thought around issues related to free will, practical reason and recognition. After an initial stage of reluctance to deal with the philosophy of Hegel, it becomes for Ricoeur, in the mid-60s, an essential reference in his confrontation with Freud, feeling his influence as a temptation, which he wants to avoid, especially in his reflection about tragedy and history in the 80s. But this influence appears again notoriously, in the last decade of the 20thcentury, culminating with the theory of recognition, to which Hegel constitutes a major source, but not an exclusive one.