This work elucidates the theological and philosophical backgrounds of the ethics of solidarity
in official Catholic social thinking with a focus on John Paul II's social encyclicals. His
concept of solidarity springs from a complex combination of history tradition and philosophy.
This study not only illustrates these backgrounds but also the basic hermeneutical conditions
for a reappraisal of the concept of solidarity in Christian social ethics and in contemporary
debates. While recognising the fluidity which characterises the articulation of this concept
it underscores an orientation to a particular version of personalism as being central to the
pope's understanding of solidarity. With insights from Liberation theology other thinkers like
Enrique Dussel and Paul Ricoeur and the social history of Africa this work attempts to
criticise and enrich the personalist approach of John Paul II with a more structural
methodology. It argues for an appropriation of Paul Ricoeur's notion of creative tension
between person and social structures for a balanced understanding of solidarity and social
change.
