It has long been accepted that one of Levinas’ major concerns is to establish an ethics of responsibility for the ‘other.’ Yet it has been deemed for decades, even by Levinasians, that his approach to that concern is ‘unsystematic’ and ‘not consistent.’ That situation arose because Levinas’ four terms for ‘other’ are difficult to translate, so his terms were first addressed by adopting English conventions. Such conventions have furthered Levinas scholarship, but our aim is to consider Levinas’ consistency: Hence we (...) undertake the first English-language assessment of the rigour of Levinas’ approach in 1961 to the ‘other’ by means of all four terms. To do so, we follow a ‘formal structure’ that Levinas develops from the tradition of phenomenological logic—mostly Husserl’s. We hope the result will palliate worries about Levinas’ rigor, and allow new ways to engage with his work. (shrink)

In this essay, which is a response to five papers on Heidegger and education but can also be read independently, I argue that it is only when we introduce the German distinction between ‘Bildung’ and ‘Erziehung’ that it becomes possible to discuss in sufficient detail the possibilities and limitations of a Heideggerian account of and engagement with ‘education’. Central to my argument is the suggestion that whereas Heidegger provides a radical critique of the humanistic foundations of ‘Bildung’, he nonetheless remains (...) caught in the ‘logic’ of ‘Bildung’ by assuming that education ultimately has to do with the becoming of the self. The difference Heidegger seeks to make is that this becoming of the self does not take place through an engagement with the world of beings—the world of things about which we can have positive knowledge—but rather takes place in the encounter with the Being of beings—an encounter in which Being shows itself to us, and we are receivers and custodians of Being. Against this background I show that what is absent in this configuration is an altogether different possibility, not one where we are listening, but one where we are being addressed or, in other educational terms, where we are being taught. Whereas several authors of the papers under discussion seem to have a certain fear of teaching on the assumption that teaching can only appear as an act of power that limits rather than that it enhances freedom, I explore the opposite option—one where the act of teaching and the experience of being taught are precisely aimed at my freedom, albeit that this freedom is not understood as sovereignty but in terms of authority, that is, in relation to working through the difficult challenge as to what legitimately should have power over me. This altogether different educational possibility brings us from the logic of ‘Bildung’ to the logic of ‘Erziehung’. Whereas Heidegger and some of the authors of the papers under discussion did try to ‘move’ education understood as ‘Bildung’ from beings to Being, the shift from ‘Bildung’ to ‘Erziehung’ seems not to have been considered explicitly, although it is addressed and in a sense enacted by some of the essays. I conclude by arguing that it is only when we are able to overcome our fear of teaching that the humanism that troubles ‘Bildung’ can really be addressed. (shrink)

Abordamos la primera configuración de la tesis del trabajo de duelo (travail du deuil) en la filosofía de Jacques Derrida, desarrollada en el texto Glas de 1974, en directa relación con la filosofía de Hegel. Dicha tesis es central para la deconstrucción y alude a un esquema especulativo que puede relacionarse tanto con las tempranas propuestas sobre la auto-afección como proceso de constitución del sí mismo, como también con la operación de consumación idealizante que está a la base de las (...) teorías sobre el origen del sentido en la tradición filosófica occidental. En ambos casos, se trata de configurar una tesis deconstructiva sobre la relación con la alteridad en general, cuestión que constituye para Derrida el núcleo del problema epistemológico de la historicidad del sentido. Sostenemos que la configuración del trabajo de duelo es el resultado de una serie de decisiones teóricas en relación con la filosofía de Hegel, que implican considerar el lugar de la vida y la muerte en sistema, así como también una relación incorporativa entre una y otra, mediada por la dinámica de la Aufhebung. (shrink)

Based on archival research, this article analyses the pedagogical gestures in Derrida's (largely unpublished) lectures on hospitality (1995/96), with particular attention to the enactment of hospitality in these gestures. The motivation for this analysis is twofold. First, since the large-group university lecture has been widely critiqued as a pedagogical model, the article seeks to retrieve what may be of worth in the form of the lecture. Second, it is relevant to analyse the pedagogy of lectures that address the topic of (...) hospitality, as there would be a performative contradiction in teaching inhospitably about hospitality. (shrink)

Despite the declarations about the possibility of rationalities that are alternative to Western European, despite the reasoning about philosophical multipolarity, the multiplicity of ways of thinking, etc., nowadays, the Western European paradigm of rationality (and concepts that corresponds to it), which is derived from Hellenic thought, continues to claim the status of ideological neutrality and transcend any intercivilizational differences. The Western European rationality in all its diversity is now acting as rationality as such. The indispensability of the reference to the (...) Greek conceptual apparatus in contemporary philosophizing manifests itself most openly in the form of comparativism. Thus, there is the focus on carrying out explicit parallels between, on the one hand, the studied non-European intellectual phenomena and, on the other hand, their supposed European counterparts. An example of the cross-cultural and methodologically sound research of the problems of rationality is an analysis of the Dao through the prism of the Logos. The statement of the uniqueness of the Greek Logos does not imply the prohibition of the existence of its original counterparts in the so-called “non-Western” civilizations with an ancient and distinctive culture. The assumption of the existence of their own analogues of the Logos and rationality in various non-European civilizations presumes the most interesting question about the pluralism of rationalities – the question about the existence of rationalities in the past that could be considered as an alternative to the now prevailing Western European standard of rationality. (shrink)

This essay attempts to answer three types of question concerning the images of violence found in deconstructive discourse. First, there is the question of confusion between real violence and transcendental violence. Second, there is the question of a lack of vigilance in regard to real violence. And finally, third, there is the question of the need for a moral principle of non-violence. The response to the first type of question lies in the recognition that the violence Derrida attributes to the (...) transcendental level of experience lies in the openness of experience. This openness amounts only to the potential for real or factual violence. The response to the second type of question lies in the recognition that more vigilance is needed since the transcendental level cannot be characterized in mundane terms, and that resistance to the mundane means no images of factual violence. Finally, the response to the third and most difficult question lies in an examination of Derrida’s statement that “tout autre est tout autre.” Through this statement we approach something like a principle, even a moral principle. The statement presents us with an imperative to respect every single other as if he, she, or it were absolutely other. (shrink)

Based on the reception of Emmanuel Levinas 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)

L’un des traits saillants du caractère philosophique de Claude Romano est sans doute d’aimer penser là où on ne l’attend pas. Depuis la publication, à la fin des années 1990, de ses deux livres majeurs consacrés à l’événement, l’on croyait légitime de le tenir pour ce phénoménologue de l’événementialité destiné à en exploiter le filon jusqu’à la dernière pépite. En 2010 pourtant, Au cœur de la raison, la phénoménologie , exprime clairement le besoin de parler d’autre chose et, en nouant (...) notamment avec la philosophie d’inspiration analytique un dialogue inattendu, d’en parler autrement. Aussi ce livre, créant paradoxalement l’événement du fait de ne plus en parler, sembla témoigner d’un changement de cap — malgré, il est vrai, la publication concomitante de L’Aventure temporelle , qu’il était néanmoins possible de lire comme l’ultime mise au point sur une période désormais révolue. Les indices, du reste, ne manquaient pas, et les quelques autocritiques qui s’y trouvaient formulées, nous y reviendrons, renforcèrent l’idée d’un certain « tournant réaliste » dans l’œuvre. (shrink)