Communication, Translation and the Global Community of Persons

Abstract

Paul Ricœur shared Emmanuel Mounier’s personalist and communitarian ideal of a universal community, which ensures that every human being has access to the conditions for self-development as a person. Whereas Mounier talks about communication as the structure of personhood that summons us towards the gradual enlargement of the community, Ricœur’s reflections on translation provide a missing link by referring, not just to the human capacity to communicate, but more specifically, to our capacity to translate and the implied ethics of linguistic hospitality. This allowed him to show that what enables us to enlarge the circle of brotherhood is the capacity to gradually settle in the world of the other and to welcome the other into one’s own world.

Keywords

• Ricœur, Mounier, Translation, Ethics, Community