리쾨르의 난민 철학을 위한 시론 = An Essay on Ricoeur's Philosophy of Refugees

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Although Paul Ricoeur never systematically developed a philosophy of refugees, his 1996 and 1997 writings on foreigners provide significant philosophical resources for constructing one. Drawing on his experience mediating for undocumented African workers in Paris, Ricoeur proposed a “phenomenology of belonging” that distinguishes three categories of foreigners-visitors, immigrant workers, and refugees each requiring a different level of hospitality. He critically observed an asymmetry in how citizens take their own nationality for granted while reflexively excluding others. Moving beyond this descriptive stage, Ricoeur grounded his approach in three key strategies for destabilizing settled identity: symbolic memory of our own former strangerhood, imagination of ourselves as the other, and the trial of translation between languages. These strategies reveal the inherent vulnerability and contingency of personal and national identity from within, thereby opening interior space for welcoming the stranger. Unlike Arendt, who sought expanded political communities, or Derrida, who championed unconditional hospitality, Ricoeur pursued a distinctive path, eroding the self-sufficiency of identity from the inside to create room for the other. Ultimately, he proposed the concept of “similitude” (resemblance) as a middle ground between rigid identity and absolute difference (or other), advocating an ethics of hospitality rooted in the recognition that the other is “l’autre mon semblable” (my fellow human), thereby envisioning “habiter ensemble” (cohabitation) beyond the binary of citizen and foreigner.