This introductory guide: * details Ricoeur's most significant contributions to contemporary critical thought * provides an intellectual context to his key ideas * explores the debate around his work on good and evil, psychoanalysis, metaphor, narrative, politics and justice * suggests the continuing relevance of Ricoeur's thought and examines the increasing interest in his work across a range of disciplines. Karl Simms also provides a guide to further reading, which offers advice on Ricoeur's publications and relevant secondary texts. Refreshingly clear and impressively comprehensive, Paul Ricoeur is the essential guide to an essential theorist.