Emmanuel Levinas

If for Caputo the universality of desire as self-appropriation and the singularity of the gift as desire-beyond-desire depend on and interweave with each other, they nevertheless do so as the communication between discrete and separable moments, that of the `sensible, rational circle of time' and the `exceeding and surpassing of ourselves'. The subject for Caputo seems to function as the temporary self-identity of construct. It is the "desire for restitution, fulfillment, reappropriation, well being". This agent-subject "always intends to act for (...) its own good". He says without this willing well-being "the subject/agent would never do a thing, nothing would happen or eventuate". Caputo's equating of the subject with a moment of re-appropriation ( he says `making an exhibit of ourselves', but can we make an exhibit of ourselves without unintentionally exiting from ourselves?) exemplifies the attempt to retain a remnant of a structuralist center as only the instant of contingency itself. In so doing, Caputo reifies what Derrida puts into question. (shrink)

A prevalent interpretation of Heidegger today is what I will call for the sake of convenience, the Levinasian reading. According to this perspective, Heidegger's Being as Ontological Difference grapples with the contradiction between the subjectivism of representationality and the absolute other to representation. But the concept of Being as Ontological difference risks risks being mistaken for a Kantian unconditioned ground of possibility. Derrida argues that the Levinas reading mistakes the ontic for the ontological. Being is not a concept, the ontological (...) difference is not the difference between the subjective and the empirical, but difference WITHIN the subjective and the empirical. (shrink)

The theory of technological mediation aims to take technological artifacts seriously, recognizing the constitutive role they play in how we experience the world, act in it, and how we are constituted as subjects. Its quest for a compatible ethics has led it to Foucault’s “care of the self,” i.e., a transformation of the self by oneself through self-discipline. In this regard, technologies have been interpreted as power structures to which one can relate through Foucaultian “technologies of the self” or ascetic (...) practices. However, this leaves unexplored how concrete technologies can actually support the process of self-care. This paper explores this possibility by examining one such technology: a gamified To-Do list app. Doing so, it first shows that despite the apparent straightforwardness of gamification, confrontation and shame play an important role in how the app motivates me to do better. Second, inspired by Ihde’s schema of human-technology relations, it presents different ways in which the app may confront me with myself. Subsequently, it accounts for the motivation and shame that this technologically mediated confrontation with myself invokes through a Levinasian account of ethical subjectivity. In so doing, it also shows how Levinas’ phenomenology implies a responsibility for self-care and how nonhuman, technological others may still call me to responsibility. It concludes with a reflection on the role of gamification in technologically mediated subjectivation and some implications for design. (shrink)

Au point de départ de l'entreprise philosophique de Lévinas, il y a cette ambition et ce projet, repris de Heidegger, de distinguer une différence qui s'affirmerait en tant que différence ontologique. Si les premières œuvres réalisent un tel programme, il demeure qu'elles témoignent aussi d'une insatisfaction et de la nécessité de dégager une intrigue différentielle orientée et déployée autrement: le domaine ontologique se montrerait, en toute manière, affecté d'une limitation, un affranchissement serait alors requis — mais la possibilité de thématiser (...) le dépassement qui s'impose semblerait cependant gravement compromise. Nous nous proposons ici d'analyser le principe de cette résistance à l'ontologie qui se signifie intimement et radicalement chez Lévinas dans le contexte des œuvres du début; il s'agit, plus précisément, d'établir la genèse d'une insuffisance déclarée, de fixer la logique de cette impuissance qui entrave et définit la pensée lévinassienne de l'être, logique où un certain usage du négatif intervient d'une façon, croyons-nous, déterminante. L'examen d'une détermination décisive, qui pèse initialement et qui ne cessera de peser sur la philosophie de Lévinas, permet de découvrir le lien structural profond qui rattache une économie de l'être entravée au principe salvateur que l'œuvre de la maturité aura la charge d'établir: le recours à la notion libératrice d'une transcendance révélée se pose chez Lévinas dans la stricte conséquence d'un emploi contrarié de la négation au sein du propos ontologique. (shrink)

Jean Mair, au début du XVIe siècle, entreprend de montrer que linfini existe en acte. Son traité De l'Infini prolonge les débats du XIVe siècle sur l'infini et le continu. Le problème de l' infini y est traité d'une manière principalement logique. L'infini est un terme qui a plusieurs sens selon son usage dans des propositions. La distinction centrale est celle de l'infini au sens catègorématique et de l'infini au sens synatégorématique. Mais si les auteurs du XIVe siècle admettent tous (...) l'infini au sens syncatêgorématique, la plupar récusent l'être en acte de l' infini au sens catègorématique. C'est à ce dernier point que Jean Mair consacre l'essentiel de sa réflexion. A l'intérieur d'un cadre qui reste aristotélicien par sa problématique d'ensemble et la formulation des questions, il renverse, grâce aux outils conceptuels de la logique terministe, une thèse centrale dans l'aristotélisme. Son traité contribue ainsi à développer l'idée que l'infini peut exister dans la nature. At the beginning of the 16th Century, Jean Mair set out to prove that the infinite exists Hot just potentially but actually. His treatise Propositum de infinito prolonged the 14th Century debates over the infinite and continuity, and it dealt logically with the problem of the infinite. The infinite is a term that has several meanings, depending upon its usage in propositions. The distinction between the categorematic and syncategorematic infinites is the central one in the treatise. If 14th Century authors by and large accepted the syncategorematic infinite, the majority challenged the existence of an actual infinite in the case of the categorematic infinite. Jean Mair devoted the bulk of his reflections to the latter situation. Within a framework that remained thoroughly Aristotelian, both in his overall problematic, as well as in the way he formulated questions, Mair overturned a central Aristotelian thesis, with the aid of conceptual tools from terminist logic. In this way his treatise contributed to the development of the idea that the infinite can exist in nature. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d'interroger la notion d'ipséité chez Lévinas et M. Henry, dans la mesure où ces pensées ont en commun de rechercher l'ipséité en deçà de l'intentionnalité, dans l'expérience du se sentir, que M. Henry nomme « affectivité ». Il s'agit de montrer dans un premier temps, en nous appuyant principalement sur De l'existence à l'existant, que la pensée de Lévinas, souvent comprise comme une pensée de la transcendance soi-disant opposée à l'immanence henrienne, comporte un moment d'immanence, plus (...) précisément, qu'elle découvre cette transcendance dans l'immanence du se sentir. Mais, tandis que M. Henry oppose l'affectivité à la sensibilité, Lévinas montre que l'auto-affection est en même temps une hétéro-affection. Ainsi, d'accord avec M. Henry pour affirmer qu'être soi c'est se sentir, Lévinas affirme dans le même temps qu'un tel se sentir est impossible! Mais ce qui vient ainsi menacer la certitude de soi-même n'est-il pas aussi un moyen d'échapper à une autre forme de perte de soi, qui viendrait de l'accablement du moi par la pesanteur ou la « matérialité » de l'existence? C'est pour répondre à cette question que la seconde partie de ce travail demande si l'affectivité — envisagée sur le plan de la temporalité, du langage et de la relation à autrui — doit être pensée comme immanence ou comme transcendance. This article sets out to question the notion of selfhood in Lévinas and M. Henry's thoughts, insofar as they both contend that selfhood rests on the experience of self-feeling, what M. Henry calls « affectivity ». First, I try to show that Lévinas's philosophy — especially in De l'existence à l'existant —, although often understood as one of transcendence supposedly opposed to Henry's immanence, in reality finds this transcendence in the immanence of self-feeling. But, while M. Henry opposes affectivity to sensibility, Lévinas shows that auto-affection is at the same time hetero-affection. Thus, Lévinas agrees with M. Henry in asserting that selfhood is self-feeling, but, at the same time, thinks that such self-feeling is impossible! But, isn't what thus comes to menace the certitude of oneself also a means of avoiding another kind of loss of individuality, that comes from being weighed down by the burden or the « materiality » of the existence? It is to answer this question that the second part of this article explores whether affectivity must be thought of as immanence or transcendence. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the ethical concept of responsibility as presented by Emmanuel Levinas and Karol Wojtyła, first presenting the views of each thinker in turn. In so doing, I focus throughout on questions pertaining to the theme of identity and its relation to alterity, as well as on that of heteronomy versus autonomy, which means looking at the contrary roles each of them gives to selfhood and freedom when it comes to accounting for, or grounding, our sense of (...) obligation and responsibility toward others and toward ourselves. Afterwards, Levinas’ phenomenological account of responsibility is put into dialogue with Wojtyła’s personalist account thereof in an examination of the question of animal ethics. Specifically, I there discuss to what extent, if any, their ideas on our responsibilities toward others can be extended to the domain of non-human animals, which will hint at a curious convergence between both thinkers. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present what I take to be a standard view of morality, and I argue that this view amounts to a paradox: the moral event or moral concern, the source of morality, ultimately leads, through moral theory, to a denial of itself. I will show how Badiou and Levinas take a way out of this and in doing so deny the possibility of anticipating the moral. Furthermore, I claim that this anticipatory moment can be introduced back (...) by means of the concept of “practical wisdom” as used in analytical virtue ethics. Finally, I argue that the Kantian notion of the sublime is structurally the same as the moral event in Badiou and Levinas, and that our view of the sublime can benefit from both Levinas’ view and the concept of “practical wisdom” as well. (shrink)

By prioritizing the ethical encounter with the Other over politics, Levinas appears to relegate political concerns to a secondary status. Not only does politics appear to be less important than the face-to-face, it even appears to be morally compromised. Nevertheless, Levinas insists that politics are necessary for a moral society. This paper attempts to navigate this tension between morality and politics by exploring Levinas’s account of original peace as opposed to competing accounts of original violence in Hobbes and Derrida. This (...) original peace not only serves as a foundation of the political order, but also provides the context in which to understand Levinas’s famous account of the third. The introduction of the third party appears to problematize the self-other account and opens an aporia in the ethical relation. Far from being a necessary evil, politics instead appears as a necessary good to both remain true to the ethical imperative of the face-to-face and solve the problem introduced by the third party. It is by recognizing that the political is already implicated in the face-to-face relation that Levinas seeks to bridge the gap between peace with the Other and peace within a political society. (shrink)

Phenomenology and ancient Greek philosophy. The title of this book, indicating these topics as its two main subjects, could give the impression that the subjects are held together by a circumstantial “and.” The title would then indicate a connection between phenomenology and a topic, ancient Greek philosophy, the way titles such as Art and Phenomenology, Phenomenology and Psychological Research, Phenomenology and Virtue Ethics do. This impression would be wrong. First, ancient Greek philosophers take pride of place in the dialogues initiated (...) by many phenomenologists with various figures from the history of philosophy. Second, this is not just because phenomenological philosophers have tended to regard ancient Greek philosophy as the revered beginning of Western thought, reflection upon which may help illuminate any topic modern human beings wish to inquire into or give it a kind of historical dignity. It is first and foremost because ancient Greek philosophy, understood as the scientific attempt to understand the world, ourselves, and our place in the world, in the phenomenological tradition is regarded as one important origin of contemporary Western philosophy and science, even if contemporary philosophy and science is also determined by a new ideal of philosophy that emerges in early modernity. Indeed, for most phenomenologists, Greek philosophy can be regarded as the roots supporting this new ideal—even if these roots are sometimes hidden from sight or forgotten. The main rationale for confronting ancient Greek philosophy phenomenologically is accordingly the attempt to bring to light in its full radicality the phenomenon “philosophy.” Unearthing philosophy as it was originally understood by Greek thinkers may, according to many phenomenologists at least, help us understand what philosophy in the full sense of the word was, has been, and may be again, but also what it has become or even degenerated into in modern times, for instance positivism. It is this way of approaching ancient Greek philosophy that we wish to concentrate on in this book, in the hope that the volume will prove instructive both to people who have an interest in ancient Greek philosophy and wish to know more about the phenomenological approach to it and to people who work within phenomenology and wish to know more about the various approaches to ancient Greek philosophy characterizing the phenomenological movement. We have therefore sought to make the introduction and the individual chapters accessible to non-experts, for instance by transliterating all Greek text, and confining quotes in other languages than English to footnotes and glosses. (shrink)

Alison Assiter has put together a work that has the potential to create an exciting and stimulating debate in Kierkegaard circles. Mostly because she portrays Kierkegaard as an idealist ontologist, that is, a philosopher of not just human nature (i.e. subjectivity), but also nature in its cosmic totality. Thus, what I find most admirable is that with Assiter we have a thinker who has the philosophical courage to suggest that the purported relationship between Schelling and Kierkegaard leads necessarily to bold (...) philosophical consequences. Since Günther Figal’s 1980 article, Schelling und Kierkegaards Freiheitsbegriff, which gave us the first clue of the Kierkegaardian connection to Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift, scholars have primarily focused on reemphasizing the actual possibility of (the early) Schellingean heritage in Kierkegaard, meanwhile forgetting to ask themselves what consequences this connection might have on our interpretation of Kierkegaard’s corpus. Assiter’s book is an attempt to draw such a long needed consequence. (shrink)

Dans sa Visitation de Carmignano (1528), Pontormo met en scène quatre visages de telle manière qu'ils développent le thème de la Visitation - Marie rend visite à Élisabeth, Jean-Baptiste tressaille in utero à la présence du Christ, l'ère de la Grâce remplace celle de la Loi, etc. Ce thème est intimement lié par le peintre à un dispositif formel de peinture qui met en œuvre le vis-à-vis du tableau et du spectateur, en même temps que l'appel du fidèle à la (...) caritas. Ainsi le tableau religieux relie le spectateur et l'œuvre dans une relation presque indissociablement éthique et esthétique. La part prise ici par les visages, le thème même de la Visitation, l'appel à la responsabilité mis en œuvre dans ce tableau ancien incitent à proposer quelques axes possibles pour une relecture des thèses de Lévinas : sur l'œuvre, par exemple, mais aussi sur son malentendu possible avec l'art et sur le fondement esthétique oblitéré de son éthique. In his Carmignano Visitation (1528), Pontormo uses four faces to develop the themes of the Visitation - Mary meets Elizabeth, the Baptist starts in utero in the presence of Jesus, Grace supersedes the Law, etc. He intimately links these themes to a formal pictorial arrangement meant to engage the beholder in a face to face relationship with the painting, that functions as a call for the faithful's caritas. Thus does the religious painting establish a relationship between the beholder and the work that is almost indissociably ethical and oesthetic. The role of faces, the very theme of the Visitation and the call for responsibility one discovers in this painting lead to possible re-readings of Lévinas's theses - on the Work, for instance, but also about his possible misunderstanding with art and the obliterated oesthetic foundation of his ethics. (shrink)

Argues for the role of personal acquaintance in both love and concern for individuals, as such. The challenge is to say what personal acquaintance is and why it matters in the way it does. These questions are addressed through the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Topics include: the ethics of aggregation, the basis of moral standing, and the value of human life.

“The gift of bread from my mouth” serves as a byword for “Levinasian ethics,” the precise meaning of which is often taken for granted. It is not at all clear that a prescriptive ethics could ever be derived from these passages; it is also a hyperbole for responsibility. Discussion of this figure almost universally ignores the parallel, and explicitly ethical, discussion of Isaiah 58, where the breaking of bread represents the perplexity of hunger, the rejection of oppression, and the proximity (...) of God. The breaking of bread is not a self-standing account of ethics but is paralleled by the ethics of the broken fast. The “gift of bread from my mouth” helps to explain the repeated references to fasting throughout Levinas’s authorship. The varying figures of the broken bread frame an ontological drama: sensibility, separation, proximity, and diachrony—and presses the sense that possession and the ego are ethically futile, as the alterity of hunger is proximal or “at the core” of the subject. (shrink)

Levinas never engaged closely with Fichte’s work, but there are two places in the chapter “Substitution,” in Otherwise than Being (1974), where he mentions Fichte by name. The point that Levinas underscores in both of these passages is that the other’s encounter with the subject is not the outcome of the subject’s freedom; it is not posited by the subject, as Fichte has it, but is prior to any free activity. The aim of this paper is to deepen the comparison (...) between Levinas and Fichte, giving special attention to Fichte's own novel theory of intersubjectivity and the summons. One result that emerges from this treatment is that both Levinas and Fichte view the second person in a way that has no equivalent in the current philosophical landscape. On this reading, each thinker views responsibility to the other, not only as an immediate and particular obligation, but also as an asymmetrical relation that gives the other moral priority. (shrink)

The article seeks to reclaim a type of fear lost in silent omission in education, yet central to the development of an ethical subject. It distinguishes the fear described by Martin Heidegger through the concept of befindlichkeit and fear for the other as an essential moment for ethics articulated by Emmanuel Levinas. It argues that the latter conception of fear has inverted the traditional assumption of the ideal ethical subject as fearless. It then examines how Levinas’s interpretation of fear might (...) contribute to the discussion on fear and responsibility in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It concludes that fear for the other reveals our tremendous capacity to suffer for the other, which is an aspect of the emotional life that has not been identified in the general educational discourse. This inattention manifests itself as a categorical omission in which the existence of fear for the other is not recognized and impedes the ability of educators to address ethics as it is deeply lived. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive critique of the Heidegger problem and while putting forward a critique of Heidegger; it establishes the sanctity of Levinas. In the process of doing so; the reviewer touches on the problems of not considering Edith Stein in a book of this sort. When I got my tenure in India, one wisecrack on the board of interviewers asked me how Kit Marole influenced Shakespeare. I knew that he was just quoting Wayne C Booth's stuff on Macbeth. John (...) E Drabinski and Eric S Nelson are not those wisecrack sorts. They are serious scholars and this review gives them their due. They have shown the Janus nature of the Nazi, Heidegger who was instrumental in gassing Edith Stein, who needs to be known more throughout the academy, which COVID 19 has successfully destroyed. And we need Levinas and Stein to rebuild a world which will be mediated soon by drones and inane webinars and contactless nonsense. This reviewer suggests that we read this book with great care. And not participate in meaningless online events. (shrink)

Recent political critiques and appropriations of Emmanuel Levinas’ work demonstrate the need to fundamentally re-evaluate the meaning and status of his philosophy. Both the Marxist critiques and ‘third wave’ applications interpret Levinas’ singular and unique relation to others—a bond which prohibits even the slightest trace of historical, hermeneutic, or political context—as the greatest obstacle to a Levinasian politics. From this standpoint, Levinas offers little more than a hyperbolic ethics that, at best, ignores, and, at worst, provides philosophical cover for, the (...) political status quo. To counter this established link between Levinas’ philosophy and his potential for political thought, this article reexamines the significance of the decontextualized social relation. I argue that such interpretations misapprehend the intended analytical depth of Levinas’ thought, which, in turn, misconstrue the relationship between Levinas and more traditional social ontologies. As a consequence, Levinas’ valuable normative import for political theory is obscured. By shifting our perspective, we can understand Levinas as articulating a philosophy of political utopianism well-suited to the challenges we face in our present conjuncture. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI extract a problematic from Levinas’ shifting attitude towards the idea of recognition. An underappreciated aspect of Levinas’ work is that at an early stage he appeals to a recognition-based model of intersubjectivity, which characteristically plots a relation of mutual affirmation between individuals. However, he later explicitly rejects this paradigm in favour of an intensified heterological orientation which invests in otherness as a value in itself. Levinas’ rejection of recognition raises the question of how we are to interpret the relation (...) between the latter and heterology as rival models for reading into intersubjectivity an immanent and dynamic source of normativity. (shrink)

This article analyzes the way the films of Belgian writer-directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne portray characters taking responsibility for children and children allowing others to take responsibility for them. Though the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas provides a starting point, this article focuses primarily on a close reading of the Dardennes' films themselves. It argues that these films illuminate the nature of parenthood and suggest a unified definition of parenthood that encompasses both biological parenthood and adoption. In both cases a parent (...) is one who has acquired a unique responsibility toward a child grounded in the vulnerability of the child. (shrink)

Summary A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book sets up a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and “inhuman” material others such as environments and animals; the bonds (...) and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)