In Ricœur’s last works, we can find what he calls a poetics of love. Choosing the “dialec tic” path of a comparison between love and justice, Ricœur claims that justice lies in the rule of equivalence (give to each his own); the disorientation of love, instead, suspends the return, the equivalence, the exchange. Love does not say: “do ut des”, but rather (if we can transform the expression) it says “do ut dem”, to offer without expecting anything in return: this is what Ricœur calls a “first gift”. However, it is an expectation that is always open to the possibility of a “surprise”: the surprise of a “second first gift” able to fulfill the gratuity of the original act of donation. This essay questions this possibility of “mutual gift”.
Ricoeur, Gift and Poetics
Annalisa Caputo
2023-01-01
Abstract
In Ricœur’s last works, we can find what he calls a poetics of love. Choosing the “dialec tic” path of a comparison between love and justice, Ricœur claims that justice lies in the rule of equivalence (give to each his own); the disorientation of love, instead, suspends the return, the equivalence, the exchange. Love does not say: “do ut des”, but rather (if we can transform the expression) it says “do ut dem”, to offer without expecting anything in return: this is what Ricœur calls a “first gift”. However, it is an expectation that is always open to the possibility of a “surprise”: the surprise of a “second first gift” able to fulfill the gratuity of the original act of donation. This essay questions this possibility of “mutual gift”.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
