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)

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)

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)

This interdisciplinary volume connects the philosophy of history to moral philosophy with a unique focus on time. Taking in a range of intellectual traditions, cultural, and geographical contexts, the volume provides a rich tapestry of approaches to time, morality, culture, and history. -/- By extending the philosophical discussion on the ethical importance of temporality, the editors disentangle some of the disciplinary tensions between analytical and hermeneutic philosophy of history, cultural theory, meta-ethical theory, and normative ethics. The ethical and existential character (...) of temporality reveals itself within a collection that resists the methodological underpinnings of any one philosophical school. The book's distinctive cross-cultural approach ensures a wide range of perspectives with contributions on life and death in Japanese philosophy, ethics and time in Maori philosophy, non-traditional temporalities and philosophical anthropology, as well as global approaches to ethics. -/- These new directions of study highlight the importance of the ethical in the temporal, inviting further points of departure in this burgeoning field. (shrink)

The ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas is typically associated with a punishing conception of responsibility rather than freedom. In this chapter, our aim is to explore Levinas’s often overlooked theory of freedom. Specifically, we compare Levinas’s account of freedom to the Kantian (and Fichtean) idea of freedom as autonomy and the Hegelian idea of freedom as relational. Based on these comparisons, we suggest that Levinas offers a distinctive conception of freedom—“finite freedom.” In contrast to Kantian autonomy, finite freedom constitutively involves (...) standing in certain social relations with others. And in contrast to Hegelian relational freedom, the social relations involved in finite freedom are not defined by mutual recognition, but by feelings of separation and even antagonism. Along the way, we promote a reading Levinas’s Totality and Infinity as a Hegel-style story of Bildung (development), and show how, on Levinas’s view, freedom can develop or mature in the life of the individual. (shrink)

Dans ce texte, nous tentons de montrer qu’à partir de son traitement de l’altérité d’autrui, la philosophie de Lévinas peut être présentée comme le dépassement intérieur de la phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty développée dans la Phénoménologie de la perception. Nous commençons par exposer la conception de l’altérité exposée dans la Phénoménologie en éclairant l’intersubjectivité corporelle au fondement de la socialité. Nous tentons ensuite d’en dégager les possibles fondements d’une éthique merleau-pontienne axée sur l’expression-responsive, éthique qui ferait preuve d’une considération importante envers (...) l’altérité d’autrui. Puis, après avoir exploré les limites de cette conception, nous dégageons les concepts de trace et d’an-archie comme les points d’appui autorisant un dépassement intérieur de cette phénoménologie vers ce que Lévinas appelle l’éthique. Enfin, tout en présentant les grandes lignes de celle-ci grâce aux concepts clé de responsabilité et de substitution, nous tentons de mettre en relief un avantage qu’elle comporte eu égard à un problème rencontré par Merleau-Ponty en 1945. (shrink)

In this paper, we criticize the current focus of the bio-based economy (BBE) on efficiency and control and demonstrate the contradictions that this causes. We elucidate these tensions by comparing the BBE to alternative conceptions of economy that emphasise the relevance of both the human condition and unfathomable nature in the macro ecological transition project. From Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy, we take and extrapolate two major concepts—il y a and enjoyment—that help to re-evaluate the status of both nature and the human (...) subject involved in environmental instability. From this analysis, we evaluate current economic practice in close relation to the deteriorating environment to contribute to a conception of an economy that is truly based on principles of the biosphere. We conclude that humankind and nature are notions that must be always considered in this encompassing and topical effort and explain how they have been fundamentally overlooked in current thought on the bio-based and circular economy. (shrink)

One is occasionally reminded of Foucault's proclamation in a 1970 interview that "perhaps, one day this century will be known as Deleuzian." Less often is one compelled to update and restart with a supplementary counter-proclamation of the mathematician, David Lindley: "the twenty-first century would be a Bayesian era..." The verb tenses of both are conspicuous. // To critically attend to what is today often feared and demonized, but also revered, deployed, and commonly referred to as algorithm(s), one cannot avoid the (...) mathematical and philosophical legacies of probability. // But attending to these probabilistic or Bayesian legacies must include an undeniable theological legacy in which they remain entangled. // We are not, today, discovering quirky theological metaphors in contemporary technics. It's the other way around. The technologies are mere metaphors of past theologies. (shrink)

The primary focus of this project is the silent and subvocal speech-recognition interface unveiled in 2018 as an ambulatory device wearable on the neck that detects a myoelectrical signature by electrodes worn on the surface of the face, throat, and neck. These emerge from an alleged “intending to speak” by the wearer silently-saying-something-to-oneself. This inner voice is believed to occur while one reads in silence or mentally talks to oneself. The artifice does not require spoken sounds, opening the mouth, or (...) any explicit or external movement of the lips. The essay then considers such subvocal “speech” as a mode of writing or saying and the interior of the mouth or oral cavity as its writing surface. It briefly revisits discussions of telepathy to recontextualize Heidegger’s warning against enframing language exclusively within calculative technics and physiology, which he suggests is detrimental to Mundarten (mouth-modes of regional dialects). It closes in reconsideration of Husserl’s phenomenology of language and meaning in Ideas as it might apply to subvocal speech-recognition interfaces. It suggests ways by which the electrophysiology that the device detects and deciphers (as an alleged intention of a presumed natural language unspoken vocally or aloud) might supplement Husserl’s insinuation of the Leiblichkeit of language through a self-stamping extraction of an extension of meaning. (shrink)

In the midst of a pandemic, what does it mean to see the Other as Other and not as a carrier of the virus? I argue that in seeking a Levinasian response to the pandemic, we must be mindful of the implications of the mechanisms of surveillance and control that, presented as ways to protect the Other, operate by controlling the Other and rendering our relation to the Other increasingly impersonal. Subjected to these mechanisms, the Other becomes a dangerous entity (...) that must be controlled, and the state that deploys them comes increasingly to mediate the relation between self and Other. The more we rely on such mechanisms for protection, the easier it becomes to regard the Other not as one who summons me to an infinite responsibility but as a vector of disease. Despite all the differences between Levinas’s and Foucault’s approaches, reading them in conversation shows that the control and surveillance of the population functions within a discourse that medicalizes and objectifies the Other in favor of the centralizing power that uses those technologies. In defiance of Levinas’s warning against imposing a narrative on the Other’s suffering, this discourse coopts that suffering as a justification for biopower. (shrink)

Exemplified especially by Heidegger and Levinas, the phenomenology of death expresses first, the impossibility of the death experience, second, the authenticity of Dasein starting from the horizon opened by the possibility of death, and third, the relevance of the death of the other to the discovery of one’s own death. This article tries to take a step further, showing the link between the authenticity of Dasein and the desire for immortality manifested in this authenticity. By overturning Heidegger’s theses and by (...) affirming both the necessity of an authentication of death itself—in accord with Socrates’s death example—and the legitimacy of the meditation on death, this text links the need for immortality, which is phenomenologically visible, with the Christian faith in the resurrection, which is visible only for theology. (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)

Finishing this essay exactly one year after the official arrival of the SARS-COV-2 virus in Belgium and the Netherlands—where the cartographers of this essay are currently located—it is safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted our day-to-day lives. The pandemic has not only forced us to question various taken-for-granted existential certainties and luxuries provided by a capitalist system out to destroy the earth but has also re-spotlighted post-Enlightenment critiques of the human subject. If these pandemic times are (...) indeed more-than-human, then the clock is ticking for the discipline of philosophical anthropology to face these post-anthropological facts and receive what feminist science studies scholar Donna J. Haraway has aptly called a thorough dose of “epistemological electroshock therapy” (1988, p. 578). Taking Haraway’s foregoing call and the idea of thinking-with the (end of the) Anthropocene seriously, we construct a critical cartography of Emmanuel Levinas’ take on philosophical anthropology in dialogue with other major philosophical anthropologists and feminist new materialists while arguing for a post-anthropology for the Chthulucene. (shrink)

Xiaoman Yang and Jean Langlois-Berthelot explore the analysis by Chinese philosophers of Emmanuel Levinas, a 20th century French philosopher whose thinking had close links with the cultural philosophical principles of Confucius and Chan Buddhism. Their article is entitled "Language, Culture and Philosophy-Comparing France and China".

Through a radical new reading of the Theological Political Treatise, Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that the major source of Spinoza’s materialism is the Epicurean tradition that re-emerges in modernity when manuscripts by Epicurus and Lucretius are rediscovered. This reconsideration of Spinoza’s political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism. Central to this new reading of Spinoza are the theory of practical judgment (understood as the calculation of utility) and its implications for a theory (...) of democracy that is resolutely positioned against authority. (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)

An examination of Emmanuel Levinas’ writings on money reveals his distance from—and indebtedness to—a philosophical predecessor, Georg Simmel. Levinas and Simmel share a phenomenological approach to analyses of the proximity of the stranger, the importance of the face, and the interruption of the dyadic relationship by the third. Money is closely linked to the conception of totality because money is the medium that compares heterogeneous values. Levinas goes beyond Simmel in positing an ethical relation to money permitting transcendence.

This paper focuses on Levinas’ concept of ipseity and on its change between the 1960’s and the 1970’s, arguing that this change implies the undoing of the subject. In Totality and Infinity (1961), ipseity is considered as the deep core of the I, whereas, in Otherwise Than Being (1974), it is the other person inside the self. Levinas also theorizes another kind of other-in-the-same, which is illeity, the trace of God inside the human soul. It is shown that illeity is (...) not problematic for the subject, since it does not cause its undoing. Furthermore, it is argued that ipseity, in Otherwise Than Being, is not a mere opening to alterity, but a source of alienation. Finally, it is shown that Levinas starts to change his mind on ipseity in 1968 (“Substitution”), however this modification becomes clear only in 1970 (“No Identity”). (shrink)

At the heart of Levinas’s work is the apparently simple idea that through the encounter with another person, we are forced to give up our self-concern and take heed of the ethical relation between us. But, while simple on the surface, when one tries to characterize it in more detail, it can be hard to fit together the various ways in which Levinas talks about this relation and to identify precisely what he took its normative structure to be, as this (...) is described in a number of apparently different ways, that are not obviously compatible or equivalent, such as “command,” “call,” “summons,” “demand,” and so on. In this chapter, we intend to focus on these different characterizations and show what makes them different while also endeavoring to find a way in which Levinas’s conception may nonetheless be fitted together into a coherent account of the face-to-face encounter that is at the heart of his ethics. We will begin by considering the different normative terms used to characterize the encounter in that text and show how they are conceptually distinct from one another; we will then offer a way to read Levinas’s position to nonetheless show how these different normative relations can be fitted together into a stable position. (shrink)

In recent decades, Western philosophy, including personalism, has had to face the question of how to respect the otherness of the personal Other, a challenge issued most famously by Emmanuel Levinas. In his Totality and Infinity, Levinas's conclusions about alterity are stark. The Other is beyond all conceptualization and precedes my activity as a subject. It is the Other who founds my own independent subjectivity as an "I."1 These are indeed radical conclusions, but they raise the question, Does the very (...) term Other itself fully capture the alterity Levinas wishes to do justice to? The term Other (autrui) has a certain unavoidable generality and abstractness to it. Any person who is not myself, the world's population minus one, can be referred to by this term. Yet the Other is always richly distinguished in each case, for each Other is unique. I will argue that the personalist philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand reveals that the alterity of the Other rests on the more fundamental uniqueness of the content of our personhood. This content, which is a value, is disclosed in love, and it is indicated in the personal name. It is the name that, better than the term Other, captures the alterity of the personal Other. (shrink)

Since 2001, Continental philosophical studies of evil suggest that we are forced to rethink the category of evil as we face acts of terrorism on a global scale. In light of this suggestion, this article traces the idea of the “inscrutability of evil” as a common lens through which we associate the category of evil with the phenomena we identify as evil. This idea finds its first modern formulation in Kant’s theory of radical evil. I argue that Hannah Arendt and (...) Emmanuel Levinas follow Kant in identifying evil as an inscrutable phenomenon. While they all agree that evil cannot be rationalized, integrated into reason, or understood within the framework of theodicy, for Kant, evil is inscrutable because it is grounded in freedom; for Arendt, evil is inscrutable because it is “banal;” and for Levinas, evil is inscrutable because it is “excessive” and “useless.” My analysis demonstrates that inscrutability is an essential marker of the concept of evil since it is found in all three accounts as a feature of evil, even though in each account a different type of evil is at stake (moral, political, and existential). (shrink)

Based on the reception of Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) philosophy in the English-speaking world, the paper highlights some tendencies in reading and commenting on classical philosophical works that have been the focus of attention for a long time. The author makes a suggestion that we can find persistent but nonetheless dynamic, patterns of commenting and interpreting. The first wave of Levinas studies was apologetic and laudatory. Its main task was to introduce new concepts, i.e. to paraphrase. The second wave was much (...) more appropriative and critical. In this period, the scholars tried to apply the philosophy of the Other to existing problems or they tried to resolve the paradoxes that were the products of apologetic readings. The today’s third wave recreates and readjusts interpretive strategies inherent to the first and second wave. To explain this dynamics of reading, the paper introduces a normative scheme that consists of three regulative principles – “faithfully”, “truthfully”, and “ethically”. Due to this tripartite opposition, in which “faithfully” refers to fidelity to an original, “truthfully” refers to the search for universal truth, and “ethically” refers to the inaccessibility for an ego to grab hold of a text of another person, commenting grows intensive. In addition, the opposition of “faithfully” and “truthfully” demonstrates some liberty in such, to some extent, involuntary practice as commenting. This reflexion helps identify the current phase of commenting on classical texts and the intentions of readers and commentators. What is more, it provides justifications for innovative readings of Levinas’ oeuvre as well as the texts of other great philosophers. (shrink)

On 26 July 2016, Satoshi Uematsu murdered 19 and injured 26 at a caregiving facility in Sagamihara, Japan, making it the country’s worst mass killing since WWII. In this article, I offer an analysis of the Sagamihara 19 massacre. I draw on the work of Julia Kristeva and Emmanuel Levinas to argue that claims about disability experience are insufficient to justify normative projects. In short, disability is normatively ambiguous.

As boundaries between domesticity and the undomesticated increasingly blur for cohabitants of Vancouver Island, home to North America’s densest cougar population, predatorial problems become more and more pressing. Rosemary-Claire Collard responds on a pragmatic plane, arguing that the encounter between human and cougar is only ever destructive, that contact results in death and almost always for the cougar. Advocating for vigilance in policing boundaries separating cougar from civilization, therefore, she looks to Foucault’s analysis of modern biopower in the first volume (...) of his History of Sexuality for support in favor of a more contemporary notion of biosecurity. In response to Collard’s arguments, concerned with ethical conclusions drawn on the basis of her policy-based proposal, I challenge the prohibition she places on encounter. In the first section, “Becoming Killable,” I address her use of Donna Haraway’s phraseology, and in the second section, “Biological Dangers,” I scrutinize her reading of Foucault, arguing that the appeals she makes distort the mode of argumentation at work for each thinker. The final section, “Facing Cougar, Facing Death,” advocates further ethical possibilities generated on the basis of Foucault’s correlation between overcoming the fear of death and resisting abuses of power with respect to others. My contention is that our transgressing boundaries constructed to separate humanity from the inhumane curtails tendencies toward the marginalization and subjugation of those animal others whose very existence brings us face to face with the fact of our own mortality. (shrink)

In a recent article appearing in this journal, Theresa Scavenius compellingly argues that the traditional “rational-individualistic” conception of responsibility is ill-suited to accounting for the sense in which moral agents share in responsibility for both contributing to the causes and, proactively, working towards solutions for climate change. Lacking an effective moral framework through which to make sense of individual moral responsibility for climate change, many who have good intentions and the means to contribute to solutions for climate change tend to (...) dismiss or put off addressing the root causes. With this tendency arises the practical problem that climate change calls for urgent global collective action, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation, in order to prevent global temperature rise from exceeding 2C and avoid worst case climate scenarios. In this paper, I develop a phenomenological theory of ecological responsibility which addresses the conceptual problem Scavenius brings out and contributes to clarifying the sense in which moral agents share responsibility for both the causes and solutions for climate change. To develop this theory, I draw from, combine, and transform insights from the late work of Husserl on open horizons, transcendental intersubjectivity, and genetic phenomenology with breakthroughs from Emmanuel Levinas in articulating an original, asymmetrical theory of unlimited, diachronic responsibility. In drawing from Husserl, I show how what Levinas describes as the source of a demand for unlimited, diachronic responsibility can be phenomenologically reinterpreted in terms of a horizon of indeterminacy. I then show how horizons of indeterminacy arise in phenomenological descriptions of both human and nonhuman entities in such a way that discloses the demand for responsibility as a broad-ranging demand for unlimited, diachronic ecological responsibility. An important implication of this phenomenological theory of ecological responsibility is that it contributes to clarifying the sense in which individual moral agents share in responsibility for long range collective moral problems such as climate change. (shrink)

Derrida’s thought on “trace,” “différance,” “writing,” and “supplement” is always thought the breaking of logocentrism, the essence, the positive meaning, and the closure of the metaphysics of presence; this thinking is accordingly regarded the thinking with the fundamental structure of difference and openness. By tracking back to Saussure, Husserl and Levinas, this fundamental difference breaks the myth of ideal meaning as well as the illusion of the absolute open; its lack of ideality and absoluteness contains the fundamental difference within itself (...) and thus has the structure of open. However, from a broader perspective, I will re-ask the question “Whether or not Derrida’s ‘trace,’ ‘différance,’ ‘writing,’ and ‘supplement’ have a structure of open.” When the web of differences encompasses everything even its own “exit,” this “open” thus conceals and denies other modes of thinking. With the impossibility of going out of this mode of thinking, the structure of différance is closed. (shrink)

The development of nuclear energy technologies in the second half of the 20th century came with great hopes of rebuilding nations recovering from the devasta-tion of the Second World War or recently released from colonial rule. In coun-tries like France, India, the USA, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom, nuclear energy became the symbol of development towards a modern and technologically advanced future. However, after more than six decades of experi-ence with nuclear energy production, and in the aftermath of the (...) Fukushima nuclear disaster, it is safe to say that nuclear energy production is not without its problems.Some of these problems have their origins in the very materiality of the technolo-gies involved. For example, not only does the use of highly radioactive materials give rise to risks for the current generation (e.g., in the potential for disaster when reactors melt down) but high-level radioactive waste from nuclear energy production presents a serious intergenerational problem for which an acceptable final solution or its implementation remains elusive. Moreover, nuclear energy technologies have specific social and political consequences. For example, they have been said to be authoritarian technologies (Winner, 1980), requiring cen-tralized authority, secrecy, and technocratic decision-making. While some of these problems could have been foreseen before nuclear energy technologies were introduced, others only arose after these technologies were already integrated into the social and infrastructural fabric of our lives. Addition-ally, new technologies (e.g., Generation III, III+ and IV reactors) are still being developed, bringing with them new and uncertain hazards and risks. Ignorance and uncertainty about the possible deleterious effects of introducing a new technology are inevitable, especially if the technology is complex, large time-scales are involved, or risks depend on social or political factors unforeseen in the design stage. However, this should not deter us from developing and intro-ducing new technologies. Rather, it should motivate us to organize these ‘exper-iments’ with new technologies in society in such a way that we can learn about their possible hazards and risks as effectively and responsibly as possible (van de Poel, 2011, 2015). In this way, it is possible to minimize risks and avoid unwant-ed moral, social or political developments. However, organizing such experi-ments responsibly also means that one could come to the conclusion that continuing an experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. Should we be prepared for such a scenario, and if so, how could we do that? One possible strategy to tackle this issue is that the technology and its introduction should be reversible. The aim of this thesis is to further explore this strategy by answering the following main research question (RQ) and accompanying subquestions (SQ):RQ: What are the implications of reversibility for the responsible develop-ment and implementation of nuclear energy technologies?SQ1: Under what conditions can nuclear energy technologies be considered reversible?SQ2: Why should nuclear energy technologies be reversible?SQ3: If so, how could the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies be achieved?After the introductory chapter 1, the chapters that form the main body of this dissertation each provide a distinct contribution to answering the three subques-tions and, by extension, the main research question. Guided by three historical case studies of nuclear energy technology development (i.e., India, France and the USA), chapter 2 answers the first subquestion by formulating the two condi-tions under which it can be considered reversible, i.e., 1) the ability to stop the further development and deployment of a that technology in society, and 2) the ability to undo the undesirable outcomes (material, institutional or symbolic) of the development and deployment of the technology. Chapter 3 subsequently tackles the second subquestion by establishing the general desirability of technological reversibility by virtue of its relation to responsibility in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. It argues that technology development is a legitimate response to responsibility but inevitably falls short of the responsibility that inspires it, incessantly calling for technological and political change in the process. Having thus argued that nuclear energy technologies should ideally be reversible, chap-ters 4 and 5 work towards specific strategies to achieve technological reversibil-ity. Chapter 4 first investigates the processes that make it difficult to stop the further development and implementation of a nuclear energy technology in society, thus provid-ing input on how to fulfill the first condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies. To do so, it presents a phenomenological perspective on technology and its adoption based on the work of Alfred Schutz. It also explores different ways in which technology adoption drives the processes of path depend-ence towards technological lock-in. Chapter 5 examines the history of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the USA. It identifies a number of concrete policy pitfalls that could lead to lock-in and that should consequently be avoided. It also presents a number of general design strategies that could facilitate the undoing of undesirable consequences of a technology, thus providing input on how to fulfill the second condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technol-ogies.Chapter 6 summarizes the central findings of the thesis and explains how these help to answer the research questions. On top of this, it reflects on a number of complications connected to reversibility considerations. Based on this, it is concluded that the question of irreversibility and reversibility is context- and technology-specific and a matter of degree. The chapter concludes with a reflec-tion on generalizations and limitations of the results. Finally, chapter 7 discusses the implications of this dissertation’s results for responsibly experimenting with nuclear energy technologies in society. (shrink)

The problem of forgiveness may rightly be regarded as a perennial philosophical problem. But of what sort? Introducing his 1973 contribution to the discussion, entitled simply "Forgiveness"—an essay that remains the standard reference for contemporary discussions of the problem, especially in the Anglo-American philosophical community—Aurel Kolnai writes that while the ethical nature of the problem is indisputable, he intends his argument "to be chiefly logical in nature: the central question I wish to discuss is … whether, and if so in (...) what manner, [forgiveness] is logically possible at all."1 The problem, as Kolnai develops it in the first two sections of his essay, is that forgiveness seems to be either... (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that if we understand Levinas’s Desire of the Other as gift, we can understand it as joyful—that is, as celebratory. After presenting Levinas’s conception of Desire, I consider his claim, found in Otherwise than Being, that the self is a hostage to the Other, and I contend that, paradoxical as it may seem, being a hostage to the Other is actually liberating. Then, drawing on insights Richard Kearney offers in Reimagining the Sacred, I argue for (...) understanding Desire as a gift that is the condition of possibility for joy. If I offer hospitality to the Other, I thereby accept the gift that makes joy possible, and this joy is not egoistic but is the proper response to the gift. Finally, I ask whether Desire can be joyful in practice, given that the pure gift is an originary condition and never a historical one, and I conclude that imperfect joy remains possible. Moreover, this imperfect joy is better than any solitary enjoyment I might experience in the total absence of the Other. (shrink)

This article takes as its subject matter the juridico-political space of the prisoner of war (POW) camp. It sets out to determine the nature of this space by looking at the experience of war captivity by Jewish members of the Western forces in World War II, focusing on the experience of Emmanuel Levinas, who spent 5 years in German war captivity. On the basis of a historical analysis of the conditions in which Levinas spent his time in captivity, it argues (...) that the POW camp was a space of indifference that was determined by the legal exclusion of prisoners from both war and persecution. Held behind the stage of world events, prisoners were neither able to exercise their legal agency nor released from law into a realm of extra-legal violence. Through a close reading of Levinas’s early concept of the ‘there is’ [il y a], the article seeks to establish the impact on prisoners of prolonged confinement in such a space. It sets out how prisoners’ subjectivity dissolved in the absence of meaningful relations with others and identifies the POW camp as a space in which existence was reduced to indeterminate, impersonal being. (shrink)

In this work, I have compared the views of Hans Georg Gadamer and Emmanuel Levinas on various concepts of culture and understanding of the ‘man’ within the framework of Western civilization with the help of three of their essays. In two lectures of Gadamer—‘Culture and Peace’, delivered at Salzburg in 1980, and ‘Man and His Hand in Modern Civilization’, delivered in Munich in 1978—and several essays by Emmanuel Levinas such as ‘The Philosophical Determination of the Idea of Culture’ (1983). If (...) both authors are critical of the rational based on the technique and calculation of the concept of culture inherited from the Enlightenment, and further, if this concept is embodied in the bourgeois and later in industrial societies, as retraced in the first chapter, the authors differently see the way out of the dehumanizing crisis of the modern era. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to develop a system of corporate ethics based on an understanding and interpretation of the ethical demand of human beings who are in relation with each other according to Emmanuel Levinas' teachings and the responsibility the human being has to and for herself and others whom she encounters based on Paul Ricoeur's teachings on human action, text and hermeneutics. While the philosophies to which we will be referring may not overtly present a normative ethic, (...) we shall convey them in such a way that is reasonably germane to the development of our system of corporate ethics that would, indeed, demonstrate why (and, perhaps, how in some instances) the human being must act in response to the demand of the other whom she encounters. -/- We must not abandon the discussion as it relates to the economy but rather include it in a broader and more comprehensive dialogue about working to promote, support and protect the human dignity of all people using the advancements of technology to improve the human condition. The broader discussion must include but not be limited to developing a working definition of corporate ethics. To engage in discussions about the economy as an indicator for human success, we must speak openly and honestly about all stakeholders that participate and are affected by the economy. Without forsaking other stakeholders, we find the corporation - the entity whose actions have the farthest reaching and, in some cases, longer lasting impact on the human condition - to be an appropriate point of departure for this endeavor. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the philosophical meaning of pregnancy and maternity in the writ-ings of R. Soloveitchik and Emmanuel Lévinas. They both make a phenomenological enquiry into these phenomena, by looking on the biological aspect and the emotional aspects. R. Solove-itchik suggests a spiritual interpretation concerning the meaning of pregnancy, which is both biological and spiritual. He attempts to differentiate between the natural parenthood and the spiritual parenthood. Lévinas gives us the philosophical observation through the phenomenolog-ical research of pregnancy, (...) motherhood and parenthood. For him, this inquiry may be revealed as an ethical occurrence that demand responsibility. Perhaps this is one of the unique dimensions of modern Jewish philosophy, looking towards the religious texts with modern philosophical method and modern philosophy theories. Reading carefully the biblical story of Genesis on the notion of birth and maternity, raises textual questions and cultural questions. For Lévinas and R. Soloveitchik these questions can open the door to new philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Drawing upon the practice of caregiving and the insights of feminist care ethics, I offer a phenomenology of caregiving through the work of Eva Feder Kittay and Emmanuel Lévinas. I argue that caregiving is a material dialectic of embodied response involving moments of leveling, attention, and interruption. In this light, the Levinasian opposition between responding to another's singularity and leveling it via parity-based principles is belied in the experience of care. Contra much of response ethics’ and care ethics’ respective literatures, (...) this dialectic suggests that they are complementary in ways that productively illuminate themes of each. I conclude by suggesting that when response and care ethics are thought together through the experience of caregiving, such labors produce finite responsibility with infinite hope. (shrink)

Totalidad e Infinito (TI) resulta ser una obra compleja. Ante el estilo de Levinas para la exposición de sus ideas, resulta oportuno contar con un apoyo para los nuevos lectores, con el objetivo de poder indagar en aspectos que podrían pasar desapercibidos. El trabajo desarrollado por James R. Mensch, profesor de Filosofía de la Charles University en República Checa y de Saint Francis Xavier University en Canadá, le permite incorporarse dentro de la lista de comentadores destacados de Levinas. El acercamiento (...) a TI desde la analítica existencial posibilita un panorama al lector de la obra a partir de la confrontación con un interlocutor ineludible: Martin Heidegger. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se intenta poner de relieve cómo la comp- rensión levinasiana del tiempo contribuye a la recuperación del valor y del sentido del instante presente, el cual ha sido menospreciado hasta nuestros días en gran parte de la tradición filosófica en tanto concebido a partir del tiempo, pensado este último como duración. Se trata así pues de pensar el sentido propio del instante en sí mismo, en cuanto momento presente, independientemente del sentido fun- cional que se le (...) asigna como parte de un conjunto –la duración– que lo abarca y en el que se absorbe. Se tratará por lo tanto de imaginar otras metáforas para explicar el acaecer temporal, distintas de la del punto, de la línea o de la del flujo del devenir; metáforas a partir de las cuales el tiempo ha sido siempre comprendido como un continuo homogéneo. Estas representaciones abstractas del tiempo presentan un orden que reúne los instantes, pero carecen de la noción de un instante central: ese instante por excelencia que es el presente. (shrink)

This article covers the different stages of the constitution of the person that goes beyond selfishness and self-affirmation and is formed as the inseparable unity of the metaphysical subject that is expressed in the "Other-in-the same" and "Being-for-the-other". This leads one to say that the person is intrinsically relation and exteriority that is realized in the language that transcends the inner self. This relationship, considered internally as a footprint, and in the exterior as visage, invokes a third party that establishes (...) and holds it. The person is shown as an asymmetrical relationship that I call triadic. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es indagar acerca de la noción de “pasividad” que caracteriza al sujeto en el proyecto ético de Emmanuel Levinas. Un sujeto que es y está entregado al Otro, más allá de toda decisión voluntaria y de cualquier relación fáctica. La “pasividad” es la noción que permite comprender la contextura de la subjetividad levinasiana, su modo de constituirse, de “realizarse”, así como algo que denominaremos su “condición segunda”. La pasividad aparece en el pensamiento de Levinas como (...) la noción que le permite articular su ética, en tanto que ésta se funda en una responsabilidad que acontece en el extremo abandono de las certidumbres del “si mismo”, del “yo”. (shrink)

El artículo presenta un estudio de la visión antropológica de Martin Buber (1878-1965) y Emmanuel Levinas(1906-1995), la postura de ambos procura un “volver al ser humano”, el primero desde la óptica del pensamiento dialógico y el segundo a partir del planteamiento de alteridad. Los autores describen un itinerario antropológico con una innegable influencia de la tradición judía, (hasidista y mesiánica),en contraposición a las posturas totalizantesde la filosofía moderna(Hegel, Heidegger), es por esta razón que se considera oportuno establecer un paralelismo entre (...) ambos para desvelar las desavenencias, pero enfocando las concomitancias en torno a la pregunta ¿Qué es el hombre?El artículo asume como objetivo reconocer las “cercanías” y “lejanías” entre los autores, a partir de nociones clave como: “Yo-Tú” buberiano y “Visage” levinasiano, la búsqueda del sentido de lo humano desde la intersubjetividad y reciprocidad frente a la extrañeza y radical alteridad. El artículo concluye exponiendo un pensamiento que responde a la vida, donde la ética se manifiesta como filosofía primera. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Waldenfels' German essay: Equality and inequality are basic elements of law, justice and politics. Equality integrates each of us into a common sphere by distributing rights, duties and chances among us. Equality turns into mere indifference as far as we get overintegrated into social orders. When differences are fading away experience loses its relief and individuals lose their face. Our critical reflections start from the inevitable paradox of making equal what is not equal. In (...) various ways they refer to Nietzsche’s concept of order, to Marx’s analysis of money, to Lévinas’s ethics of the Other, and to novelists like Dostoevsky and Musil. Our critique turns against two extremes, on the one hand against any sort of normalism fixed on functioning orders, on the other hand against any sort of anomalism dreaming of mere events and permanent ruptures. Responsive phenomenology shows how we are confronted with extraordinary events. Those deviate from the ordinary and transgress its borders, without leaving the normality of our everyday world behind. The process of equalizing moves between the ordinary and the extraordinary. What makes the difference and resists mere indifference are creative responses which are to be invented again and again. (shrink)

The first part of this chapter defends the claim that the over-incarceration of disadvantaged social groups is unjust. Many arguments for penal reform are based on the unequal distribution of punishment, most notably disproportionate punishment of the poor and people of color. However, some philosophers use a noncomparative conception of desert to argue that the justice of punishment is independent of its distribution. On this view, which has significant influence in 14th Amendment jurisprudence, unequal punishment is not unjust. After detailing (...) the “noncomparativist challenge,” this chapter argues that Levinasian conceptions of desert enable a theory of penal justice according to which comparative considerations are essential. In so doing, it shows that the noncomparativist challenge can be met. The chapter concludes by considering whether Levinasian conceptions of desert and responsibility show members of socially advantaged groups to be more blameworthy for their wrongdoing than members of disadvantaged groups. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a concept of stakeholder dialogue in responsible innovation (RI) processes. The problem with most concepts of communication is that they rely on ideals of openness, alignment and harmony, even while these ideals are rarely realized in practice. Based on the work of Burke, Habermas, Deetz and Levinas, we develop a concept of stakeholder dialogue that is able to deal with fundamentally different interests and value frames of actors involved in RI processes. We distinguish four main (...) characteristics of stakeholder dialogue. Dialogical responsiveness (1) enhances self-criticism, (2) is characterized by the constitution and the destruction of the self or identity of the actors involved, (3) consists only in the actual enactment of the dialogue and (4) is primarily responsive to the grand challenges of our time. Based on our findings, we provide a novel conceptualization of the central notion of responsiveness in the RI literature. (shrink)

Lévinas is the philosopher of the absolutely Other, the thinker of the primacy of the ethical relation, the poet of the face. Against the formalism of Kantian subjectivity, the totality of the Hegelian system, the monism of Husserlian phenomenology and the instrumentalism of Heideggerian ontology, Lévinas develops a phenomenological account of the ethical relation grounded in the idea of infinity, an idea which is concretely produced in the experience with the absolutely other, particularly, in their face. The face of the (...) other, irreducible to any ontological structure of being or any epistemological intentionality of representation, reaches out from on high across the abyss of the isolated ego, commanding respect all the while granting the possibility of murder. This experience overflows the subjective capacity of the separated ego, forcing it “beyond being.” This anarchic relation with the Other is the groundless condition of possibility for ethical life, that is, truly human life. The structure of the ethical relation can then be determined in hindsight as the ground of meaning for what it is to be an I at all. -/- This is a pretty uncontroversial reading of Lévinas' work, especially Totality and Infinity. And yet, there is one small problem. If this is what Lévinas is doing, then why does the largest section of Totality and Infinity – section II, “Interiority and Economy” – have nothing to do with ethics, the other, or the face at all? Why is it devoted to an arduous analysis of what he calls separation, egoism, economy, enjoyment, labour, and possession? In other words, why does Lévinas spend so much energy on writing about the egoist at the heart of his magnum opus, which is supposedly a text devoted to the Other? And furthermore, why is this section one of the least discussed in the secondary literature on Lévinas? -/- These questions motivate the present inquiry, which modestly seeks to understand what Lévinas is up to in this section. Once laying out the basic story, I will focus on the concepts of labour and possession, for I think these are the unrecognized pivots upon which the transition from ego to Other turns. I will also make some slight attempts to interpret Lévinas' direct or indirect comments on Plato, Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. For although he distances himself from these giants, he stands on their shoulders as well. (shrink)

Raccolta di saggi dedicata al Prof. Fabio Rossi.

In one of the sections of Of God Who Comes to Mind, Levinas expressly mentions the need to go “beyond intentionality” as far as the description of the ethical rapport goes. Such language on the part of Levinas has compelled certain commentators to maintain that Levinas “has gone beyond the notion of intentionality.” This abandonment of phenomenological description brings to the fore, however, a number of problems. Indeed, if the other does not allow herself to be reduced to a phenomenological (...) description, how then are we to account for that other? This essay will attempt to respond to these questions and show that, while Levinas does rework phenomenological conceptuality, he does not abandon phenomenological discourse in his descriptions of the ethical encounter. Our demonstration will focus more precisely on the concept of intentionality which, we shall show, is never abandoned by Levinas. Rather, it is reworked by Levinas in order to account for the other in a way that respects her alterity, thereby allowing for an ethical Sinngebung to take place. (shrink)