Watch Soap2day. Paul Ricœur (1913 - 2005) is one of the great french philosophers of the 20th century. He is a rare example of those intellectuals who try to respond to reality as thinkers and not as masters of thought. Paul Ricœur is at the crossroads of three major traditions: French reflexive philosophy, German hermeneutics and Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy, and proposes an ethic engaged to history.