Habit as a way of freedom in the light of Ricoeur

Abstract

Habit is one of the philosophical crossroads in which the dilemma between Nature and Freedom appears clearly. This article exposes Paul Ricoeur’s description of this notion in Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950) and argues that habit constitutes a genuine way of freedom, since it is done through and as a result of necessity. Ricoeur’s difficult starting point, which on the one hand rejects what he calls the St. Thoma’s cosmological explanation, and on the other hand welcomes the novelty of the Cartesian cogito, while being aware of its dualistic limitations, is taken into account. Inspired by Ravaisson, Ricoeur rejects a mechanical explanation of habit and gets closer to the classical conception of it as a second nature. The article shows the problems of Ricoeur in the employment of this term and notes the limits of the author’s proposal, for whom, at the end there is no system of nature and freedom.