Evil and Death in Narrative Identity
Keys to Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Anthropology
Abstract
This article explores Paul Ricoeur’s reflection on death and evil within the framework of the phenomenological hermeneutics of the person, situating them in his notion of narrative identity. Drawing on the anthropology of fallibility, it shows how finitude and disproportion constitute the structural condition of the human being, whose life story is marked by vulnerability, suffering, and guilt. Death appears as the ultimate limit of narration, while evil emerges as a fracture that challenges the coherence of the story, one that cannot be justified or closed. Ricoeur’s proposal is a narrative hermeneutics capable of integrating the wound without neutralizing it, of remembering the other as an act of justice, and of resisting oblivion through living memory. Thus, narrative identity is revealed as a fragile yet fruitful space of reconciliation, where finitude becomes the very condition of hope.
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