This article offers a reading of the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Theravada Buddhism across and through their differences in order to rethink an education that is committed to ‘negative capability’ and the sensibility to uncertainty that this entails. In fleshing this out, I first explore Buddhist ideas of impermanence, suffering and non-self, known as the three marks of existence, from the perspective of Theravada Buddhism. I explore in particular vipassana meditation's insistence on openness to the transient nature of experience (...) and self, and the notion of ‘encounter’ that is implied therein. I then interweave this with Levinas's notion of an ethics of alterity. I argue that taken in tandem, both provide the condition through which another kind of ethical sensibility can be developed—that is, one that is attuned to our encounters with the world. In conclusion, the article reflects on how this sensibility as ‘negative capability’ can re-inform an ethics of educational practices, which are by nature themselves necessarily involved with change and uncertainty. (shrink)

In ‘Levinas: Ethics or Mystification?’ (Miller, 2017), Alistair Miller presents a searing indictment of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and a dismissal of claims for its importance for education. He provides a summary account of Levinas's philosophy and, in relation to this, refers briefly to a number of authors who have related Levinas's work to education. This account is at fault, however, in fundamental ways, and this leads to errors in the conclusions that he draws. The present short paper does (...) not attempt to address these problems in the round but rather focuses on a particular aspect of his phrasing in constructing the account, taking this as a significant pointer to the nature of the misinterpretation as a whole. (shrink)

The metaphysical ethics of Levinas appeals to many philosophers of education because it seems to promise ethics and social justice without recourse to moral norms, ‘totalising’ political systems or religious belief. However, the notion that the subject can be detached from its worldly being—that one can posit a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal self which stands in ethical relation to a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal Other—is highly questionable. From an empirical perspective, our experience of the world and of ourselves can only (...) be conceived in social, cultural and linguistic terms; the self-referential lexicon Levinas employs to depict the relation between the transcendental subject and the Other ‘in his alterity’ renders his metaphysical assertions impossible to evaluate or give determinate form. From a transcendental perspective, Levinas's metaphysical abstractions simply do not have the power to motivate people to behave ethically. Instead of contributing toward the transformation of education and society envisaged by many philosophers of education, the ‘ethics of the Other’ merely generates an esoteric discourse. (shrink)

The metaphysical ethics of Levinas appeals to many philosophers of education because it seems to promise ethics and social justice without recourse to moral norms, ‘totalising’ political systems or religious belief. However, the notion that the subject can be detached from its worldly being—that one can posit a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal self which stands in ethical relation to a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal Other—is highly questionable. From an empirical perspective, our experience of the world and of ourselves can only (...) be conceived in social, cultural and linguistic terms; the self-referential lexicon Levinas employs to depict the relation between the transcendental subject and the Other ‘in his alterity’ renders his metaphysical assertions impossible to evaluate or give determinate form. From a transcendental perspective, Levinas's metaphysical abstractions simply do not have the power to motivate people to behave ethically. Instead of contributing toward the transformation of education and society envisaged by many philosophers of education, the ‘ethics of the Other’ merely generates an esoteric discourse. (shrink)