Volume 39, Issue 1/3, Spring/Summer/Fall 2009
Farhang Erfani
Pages 115-123
We Are Not Saints, But We Have Kept Our Appointment
Ricoeur and Beckett on Recognition
In this essay, I closely read one of the last major works of the late Paul Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, along with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for
Godot. Ricoeur argues that recognition has not received sufficient attention in the philosophical tradition. Those who have approached the question come mainly
from a Hegelian perspective, which posits recognition in terms of struggle. Against this model, Ricoeur argues that we ought to make room for mutual recognition, not grounded in violence and reciprocity but in mutuality. While Beckett illustrates Ricoeur’s point, especially at the affective level—one of Ricoeur’s possible “states of peace”—I argue that Beckett pays greater attention to friendship in comparison to Ricoeur.