Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur on the Aporias of Forgiveness: Impossible or Difficult?

In the final phase of their careers, Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur engaged in a debate over the nature of forgiveness. Derrida claimed that forgiveness is impossible whereas Ricoeur claimed that it is not impossible but difficult.  I examine what leads Derrida and Ricoeur to these differing claims. I argue that the difference comes down to differing conceptions regarding selfhood on the one hand, and the relationship between the unconditional and the conditional elements at play in forgiveness on the other. I pay particular attention to Derrida’s critique of ipseity which has eluded commentators more focused on the related issue of Derrida’s critique of sovereignty and leads to his rejection of a human capacity for forgiveness. In contrast, I examine Ricoeur’s affirmation of an ontology of action and human capacity which leads to his affirmation of a difficult forgiveness. Moreover, I highlight the difference between Derrida’s strict deconstruction of conditional accounts of forgiveness and Ricoeur’s more hermeneutical approach to the relation between the unconditional and conditional elements of forgiveness. I argue that Ricoeur’s account has advantages in making sense of forgiveness as it seems to take place in the world.

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