Paul Ricœur was born on 27 February 1913 in Valence, France. A philosopher, he is best known for his ideas on the function of narrative in religious discourse. Drafted in 1939, he spent his time as POW teaching classes that were accredited by the French State. Lecturer at the University of Strasbourg from 1948 to 1956, he became Professor of General Philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1956. In 1965, Ricœur joined the newly founded University of Nanterre, taught briefly at the Université catholique de Louvain, and retired as John Nuveen Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago in 1985.
Awarded the Balzan Prize for Philosophy in 1999, his book entitled Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies (1998), co-authored with A. LaCocque, was awarded the Gordon J. Laing Award. Ricœur was awarded the John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences in 2004. Writing on philosophy, theology, hermeneutics and phenomenology, notable works include Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950), Symbolism of Evil (1960), Time and Narrative, (1984), and Memory, History, Forgetting (2004).