Ricoeur introduces as the bridge between these two poles. We understand our lives by "emplatting" them—weaving the disparate, sometimes discordant events of our history into a coherent story. This allows the self to maintain a sense of continuity ( idem ) while acknowledging the fluid, evolving nature of personhood ( ipse ). The Ethical Aim
(selfhood), proposing narrative identity as the mediator between the two. The work further outlines an ethics of "the good life" with others and establishes that the self is fundamentally constituted through attestation and otherness. For a detailed review and analysis, visit David Vessey David Vessey Ricoeur Oneself as Another - David Vessey paul ricoeur oneself as another pdf
The book is structured as ten "studies" that move from linguistic analysis to ethics and ontology. Idem vs. Ipse Identity : Ricoeur distinguishes between two types of identity: Idem (Sameness) Ricoeur introduces as the bridge between these two poles
Ricoeur argues that true selfhood ( ipse ) actually requires a degree of otherness. If a person never changed, never learned, and never adapted, they would be a static object, not a living, responsible self. The Ethical Aim (selfhood), proposing narrative identity as
Ricoeur moves from solitary action to intersubjectivity. He critiques Husserl’s Cartesianism and Emmanuel Levinas’s radical ethics of the Other. For Ricoeur, the other is not a threat to the self (“the face that commands,” as in Levinas) but a condition for selfhood. The self cannot constitute itself alone; it requires the other as a mediator. The phrase "oneself as another" means that otherness is not external to selfhood but internal to it.
The PDF explores how these capacities are constituted through recognition by the other.