Paul Ricoeur between criticism and conviction

Moving from the hermeneutic assumption of Ricoeurian philosophy, this essay investigates how thinking in medias res "and never at the beginning or at the end" allows for carrying out a reflection which stems from the manifold modalities of being in the world, and also allows for its transformation into word by that man capable of talking, acting, narrating himself, feeling responsible, whom Ricoeur is endlessly outlining in his work. This provides for the philosophy of deviations and crossings, which regulates thinking in view of the confrontation and dialogue with all positions - including those more distant from Ricoeur. From this perspective, despite the impossibility of reconciling philosophical and theological-religious thinking, Ricoeur acknowledges the existence of "intersections" and exchanges, whereas the latter may give the former "to think". So it is for the meditation on Jesus' passion, death and resurrection in an anti-sacrificial perspective. In this case, Ricoeur encounters the Johannine interpretation proposed by Xavier Leon-Dufour, whose essence is briefly resumed here. The philosophical proposal originating from it becomes ethical in Ricoeur, himself presenting it as a "positive ethics of detachment": the detachment from all post-mortem concerns for better focussing on the opportunity which Jesus' death and resurrection offer, in the first place, to human action in the "communitarian diakonia"; in the second place, to the recovery of sense through looking "at the essence".