Suggests an open system of psychological exploration to cut through accepted norms of morality, language, and politics.

This work is an exceptionally rich account both of the connections and divergences between Levinas and Derrida as ethical thinkers. Against the backdrop of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy and phenomenology, Srajek draws on Hermann Cohen's ethics of correlation so as to demonstrate how far it is possible to read Levinas and Derrida as constructing similar approaches to ethics.

A sequel to Levinas's Totality and Infinity, this work is generally considered Levinas's most important contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding the closure of metaphysical discourse, much commented upon by Jacques Derrida. This work contains a fundamentally original theory of the ethical relationship and describes the face-to-face relationship, sensibility, responsibility and speech. Renowned Levinas scholar Richard A. Cohen has contributed a new foreword to this edition of Otherwise than Being, which is also the first time the work is available in (...) an affordable paperback edition. This foreword, along with Alphonso Lingis's extensive introduction to the work, is a valuable tool for researchers and students of Levinas's philosophy. (shrink)

Education has long been charged with the taskof forming and shaping subjectivity andidentity. However, the prevailing view ofeducation as a project of producing rationalautonomous subjects has been challenged bypostmodern and poststructuralist critiques ofsubstantial subjectivity. In a similar vein,Emmanuel Levinas inverts the traditionalconception of subjectivity, claiming that weare constituted as subjects only in respondingto the other. In other words, subjectivity isderivative of an existentially priorresponsibility to and for the other. Hisconception of ethical responsibility is thusalso a radical departure from the prevailingview (...) of what it means to be a responsible moralagent. In this paper, I use jazz improvisationas a metaphor to focus on three interrelatedaspects of ethical responsibility on Levinas'saccount: passivity, heteronomy, andinescapability. I then point toward some waysin which reframing responsibility andsubjectivity along this line might offer newpossibilities for conceiving subjectivity andmoral agency in education. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the question of how toapproach the writings of Emmanuel Levinas fromthe point of view of education. I argue thatLevinas has challenged the modern conception ofsubjectivity which underpins modern education.Instead of providing a new conception ofsubjectivity, his work should be understood asan attempt to account for the awakening of theuniqueness of the subject in ethical terms. Thecentral idea is that we come into presencethrough responding, through taking up – or notdenying – the undeniable responsibility whichprecedes our (...) subjectivity. Levinas not onlyprovides us with a new way to `understand'subjectivity. `Responding' also suggests a wayto approach Levinas's writings that goes beyondthe simple application of his `truths' toeducational practice. Levinas's writingschallenge their reader to articulate a unique,unprecedented response. It is argued that thepapers to which this paper is a response alldisplay this approach to Levinas's writings. Itis further argued that `responding' is not onlya way to read Levinas, but ultimately a way tothink about education itself. To learn (fromLevinas) is to respond (to Levinas). (shrink)

While it is impossible to transfigurephilosophical and Judaic thought of EmmanuelLevinas into a moral agenda for education orthe programmatic regularities of a pedagogicalmethodology, this paper argues for theimportance of his work for re-openingeducational questions. These questions engagethe problem of what it could mean to livehistorically, to live within an uprightattentiveness to traces of those who haveinhabited times and places other than one'sown. In this sense, I address the problem ofremembrance as a question of and for history,as a force of inhabitation, (...) as an inheritance weare obligated to live within, that intertwineswith our sense of limits and possibilities,hopes and fears, identities and distinctions.Substantively, this problem is manifest in howone attends to the experiences of others: howone reads, how one views, and how one listens,always historically specific normalizedpractices that in any given epoch are ingrainedin what it means to live in consort withothers, to live as though the lives of otherpeople mattered. The paper seeks to display thefecundity of the thought of Levinas forre-thinking such issues. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss some conditions forunderstanding teaching as an act ofresponsibility towards an other, rather than asan instrumental act identified throughepistemology. I first put the latter intocontext through a critical reading of teachingas it is inscribed in humanistic discourses oneducation. Within these discourses, I explorehow students are treated as objects ofknowledge that reinforce the teacher's ego. Icontend that the taking up of this positionmakes not only an ethical relation to thestudent impossible, but also disqualifies anytype of meaningful social (...) relation. Therefore Iargue that teachers have to give up theirposition on the safe side of knowledge andparticipate in the time of risk when meetingthe other means to take responsibility for thatother from a position of vulnerability.Moreover, it is precisely because of this riskthat teaching as an ethical relation becomespossible and where it begins to resound withpoetry. (shrink)

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's often (...) incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries. (shrink)

Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion Jeffrey L. Kosky Reveals the interplay of phenomenology and religion in Levinas’s thought. "Kosky examines Levinas’s thought from the perspective of the philosophy of religion and he does so in a way that is attentive to the philosophical nuances of Levinas’s argument.... an insightful, well written, and carefully documented study... that uniquely illuminates Levinas’s work." —John D. Caputo For readers who suspect there is no place for religion and morality in postmodern philosophy, Jeffrey L. (...) Kosky suggests otherwise in this skillful interpretation of the ethical and religious dimensions of Emmanuel Levinas’s thought. Placing Levinas in relation to Hegel and Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, Derrida and Marion, Kosky develops religious themes found in Levinas’s work and offers a way to think and speak about ethics and morality within the horizons of contemporary philosophy of religion. Kosky embraces the entire scope of Levinas’s writings, from Totality and Infinity to Otherwise than Being, contrasting Levinas’s early religious and moral thought with that of his later works while exploring the nature of phenomenological reduction, the relation of religion and philosophy, the question of whether Levinas can be considered a Jewish thinker, and the religious and theological import of Levinas’s phenomenology. Kosky stresses that Levinas is first and foremost a phenomenologist and that the relationship between religion and philosophy in his ethics should cast doubt on the assumption that a natural or inevitable link exists between deconstruction and atheism. Jeffrey L. Kosky is translator of On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought by Jean-Luc Marion. He has taught at Williams College. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion—Merold Westphal, general editor May 2001 272 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index, append. cloth 0-253-33925-1 $39.95 s / £30.50. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the nature of mystical knowledge in the higher stages of mystical realization, with particular reference to the teachings of St John of the Cross. Correspondences and parallels with the writings of other mystics may be noticed, but it is not the purpose of this discussion to elucidate these in detail.

Reality and its shadow -- Freedom and command -- The ego and the totality -- Philosophy and the idea of infinity -- Phenomenon and enigma -- Meaning and sense -- Language and proximity -- Humanism and an-archy -- No identity -- God and philosophy -- Transcendence and evil.

A masterful series of interviews with Levinas, conducted by French philosopher Philippe Nemo, which provides a succinct presentation of Levinas's philosophy.

This volume offers essays on the nature of God and the fundamental tasks of philosophy and theology written by internationally recognized thinkers in the ...

A sequel to Levinas' Totality and Infinity.