O difícil e o im-possível: o perdão segundo Ricoeur e Derrida

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this text I present the last debate strived between Paul Ricoeur and Jacques Derrida, in which they deal with the question of forgiveness. This practice of regligious origins, from abrahamic religions, is discussed by these philosophers as of the attempts to institutionalize it in secular sphere, highlighting the impasses and paradoxes that it entails. In the first section of this article, I present Ricoeur’s considerations, according to which the forgiveness is not nor easy, nor impossible, but difficult, and adresses itself to the depths of culpability; so, in the second section, I juxtapose Derrida’s considerations to whom there is only forgiveness of the unforgiving, and the forgiveness is of im-possible’s realm. Such debate is not only a mere philosophic quarell, but involves politicals, diplomatics, and institutionals’s questions once it highlights the ethical problem of the demand of forgiveness. I do not propose to reconcile their standing points, but to present them by emphasizing their approaches and distances.  

Key-words: Ricoeur, Derrida, Forgiveness, Difficult, Impossible.