scholarly journals The “refugee crisis” in Europe – between totality and the infinite

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Moisés de Lemos Martins
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Relationship

The self and the other. Totality and the infinite. In other words, totality as the discourse of the self which erases the other; and the infinite as the discourse of the other, which constrains and imposes reservations on the discourse of totality. I encounter the other in a face-to-face relationship, who thereby starts to exist within me, becomes part of me, constitutes me. This is the path whereby we fall in love, and can also be the path of compassion and solidarity. But the relationship with the other is not exhausted in the encounter. The encounter with the other is often followed by erasure, assimilation, and even domination of the other. Strictly speaking, we can say that the other can never be reduced to the self, i.e. may never be erased within me. And if the issue at stake is to ignore the other, or segregate, discriminate and dominate him, this implies exerting a form of violence over him. This is my starting point and my focus on discussing the “refugee crisis” in Europe.

The Tolstoy Connection in Bakhtin

PMLA ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caryl Emerson
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Reader ◽  
Death In Literature ◽  
Binary Model ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Good Starting Point ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Mikhail Bakhtin's work on Dostoevsky is well known. Less familiar, perhaps, is Bakhtin's attitude toward the other great Russian nineteenth-century novelist, Leo Tolstoy. This essay explores that “Tolstoy connection,” both as a means for interrogating Bakhtin's analytic categories and as a focus for evaluating the larger tradition of “Tolstoy versus Dostoevsky.” Bakhtin is not a particularly good reader of Tolstoy. But he does make provocative use of the familiar binary model to pursue his most insistent concerns: monologism versus dialogism, the relationship of authors to their characters, the role of death in literature and life, and the concept of the self. Bakhtin's comments on these two novelists serve as a good starting point for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the Bakhtinian model in general and suggest ways one might recast the dialogue between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky on somewhat different, more productive ground.

Levinas, Emmanuel (1906–95)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bernasconi
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Face

In the 1930s Levinas helped to introduce the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger to the French. Subsequently his work attained classic status in its own right for his attempt to explore the meaning of ethics from a phenomenological starting-point. In Totalité et infini (1961) (Totality and Infinity, 1969) Levinas locates the basis of ethics in the face-to-face relation where the Other puts me in question. My obligations to the Other are not contracted by me. They not only precede any debts I incur, but also go beyond anything I could possibly satisfy. In later works, most notably Autrement qu’être (1974) (Otherwise than Being, 1981) Levinas explores further the preconditions of this account, most especially by investigating the I that was said to be put in question in the encounter with the Other. In analyses that stretch phenomenology to its limits and beyond, Levinas finds alterity within the self.

Levinas on God and the Trace of the Other

2018 ◽  
pp. 320-342
Author(s):  
Michael L. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Normative Force ◽  
Interpersonal Experience ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
The Face ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Levinas takes the face-to-face relationship between each subject and every other particular person to be a relationship of the self with transcendence. He believes this dimension of our interpersonal experience is represented in traditional religious and theological texts by the relationship with the divine or God. This paper explores how Levinas’s appropriation of the Cartesian expression “the idea of infinity” introduces this divine character of the face-to-face and how Levinas goes on to develop and enrich this association of the face-to-face, its ethical character, and divine transcendence. Levinas takes the divinity of the face-to-face to refer to the universality, objectivity, normative force, and motivational attraction of the sense of responsibility he believes is foundational for human experience. In short, for Levinas, the divinity associated with morality in traditional religious texts refers to the normative weight and psychological appeal of ethics itself.

From Container to Claustrum: Projective Identification in Couples

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Projective Identification ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intimate Partners ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
As If

This paper is a contribution to the growing literature on the role of projective identification in understanding couples' dynamics. Projective identification as a defence is well suited to couples, as intimate partners provide an ideal location to deposit unwanted parts of the self. This paper illustrates how projective identification functions differently depending on the psychological health of the couple. It elucidates how healthier couples use projective identification more as a form of communication, whereas disturbed couples are inclined to employ it to invade and control the other, as captured by Meltzer's concept of "intrusive identification". These different uses of projective identification affect couples' capacities to provide what Bion called "containment". In disturbed couples, partners serve as what Meltzer termed "claustrums" whereby projections are not contained, but imprisoned or entombed in the other. Applying the concept of claustrum helps illuminate common feelings these couples express, such as feeling suffocated, stifled, trapped, held hostage, or feeling as if the relationship is killing them. Finally, this paper presents treatment challenges in working with more disturbed couples.

Tactile Vision and Enworlded Being

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cleo Hanaway-Oakley
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Phenomenal Field ◽  
The Relationship

Stephen’s musings on the pre-cinematic ‘stereoscope’ are discussed in relation to Bloom’s contemplation of parallax and his mention of the ‘Mutoscope’. The three-dimensionality, tangibility, and tactility of stereoscopic perception is analysed alongside Bloom’s and Gerty’s encounter in ‘Nausicaa’ and the Merleau-Pontian concepts of ‘flesh’ and ‘intercorporeity’. The bodily effects of projected cinema—achieved through virtual film worlds, virtual film bodies, and the intercorporeity of film and spectator—are discussed through reference to panorama, phantom ride, and crash films. The dizzying effects of some of these films are compared to the vertiginous nature of the ‘Wandering Rocks’ episode of Ulysses; these cinematic and literary vestibular disturbances are elucidated through gestalt theory and the phenomenological concepts of ‘intention’, ‘attention’, and the ‘phenomenal field’. Finally, the relationship between the self and the other is considered, through a discussion of cinematic mirroring in Ulysses and in Mitchell and Kenyon’s fin de siècle Living Dublin films.

Ontology and Perception

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Galko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
The One ◽  
Bodies Of Water ◽  
The Relationship

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities.

scholarly journals Violence in social memory intimate beliefs regarding operation storm in the Croatian and Serbian publics

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
Gordana Djeric
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Silence Suppression ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The One ◽  
Performance Character ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Manipulation Strategy

This text is part of a research conducted under the working title "What do we talk about when we are silent and what are we silent about when we are talking? - premises for the anthropology of silence about the nearest past." In the first part the author investigates the meaning of silence in the Croatian and Serbian press right before and during Croatia's Operation Storm. The ratio between silence, suppression of information and forgetting, on the one hand, and social memory, on the other, has been elaborated in the final part of the text by following reports about the anniversaries of Operation Storm in both Croatian and Serbian publics. The starting point lies in the belief that the phenomenon of silence (and suppression of information), being an immanent part of each discourse, represents an important factor in the creation of social relationships and system of value models, that it has important communication and cognitive functions and that the performance character lies in its essence. In short, silence makes it possible to form the prevailing image about this event, even if it does not construct it indirectly - through speech. The author has elaborated on the meaning of silence in the context of Operation Storm partly because studies about the breakup of Yugoslavia frequently mention silence as a manipulation strategy employed by some of the sides in the conflict (or analysts dealing with Yugoslav topics), while not a single study systematically investigates the semantic of silence and suppression of information in these conflicts. Most importantly, taking into account the frequency of direct silence in the newspaper discourse and rhetoric strategies that point at silence indirectly from the context and discourse, the author focuses on the relationship between the event (situation) and silence. In order to shed light on the way in which Operation Storm is remembered, i.e. forgotten, in the stakeholders' publics and political imageries, she follows the dailies - Vecernje Novosti Politika, Danas (Belgrade) - Vecernji List, Jutarnji List, Magazin supplement of the Jutarnji List (Zagreb), as well as texts about Operation Storm in weeklies such as the NIN and Vreme of Belgrade or Globus of Zagreb in the period between August 2, 1995 and mid-August 2006.

scholarly journals Toleranse og anerkjenning eller: Kva vil det seia å verdsetja mangfald?

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Marius Hansteen
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
Struggle For Recognition ◽  
The Relationship

Even though “toleration” and “recognition” designate opposing attitudes (to tolerate something, implies a negative stance towards it, whereas recognition seems to imply a positive one), the concepts do not constitute mutually exclusive alternatives. However, “toleration” is often associated with liberal universalism, focusing on individual rights, whereas “recognition” often connotes communitarian perspectives, focusing on relations and identity. This paper argues that toleration may be founded on recognition, and that recognition may imply toleration. In outlining a differentiated understanding of the relationship between toleration and recognition, it seems apt to avoid an all-to-general dichotomy between universalism and particularism or, in other words, to reach beyond the debate between liberalism and communitarianism in political philosophy.The paper takes as its starting point the view that the discussion on toleration and diversity in intercultural communication is one of the contexts where it seems important to get beyond the liberal/communitarian dichotomy. Some basic features of Rainer Forst’s theory of toleration and Axel Honneth’s theory of the struggle for recognition are presented, in order to develop a more substantial understanding of the relationship between the concepts of toleration and recognition. One lesson from Forst is that toleration is a normatively dependent concept, i.e., that it is impossible to deduce principles for toleration and its limits from a theory of toleration as such. A central lesson from Honneth is that recognition – understood as a basic human need – is always conflictual and therefore dynamic.Accordingly, a main point in the paper is that the theory of struggles for and about recognition (where struggles for designates struggles within an established order of recognition, and struggles about designates struggles that challenge established orders of recognition) may clarify what is at stake in conflicts concerning toleration and its limits. At the same time, Honneth’s theory of the need for recognition seems to be a source for the kind of argumentative justifications that a just toleration are dependent on, according to Forst.Another important point in the paper is that toleration (pace Forst) is a practice or attitude that implies taking a stance, but in a differentiated way, and that this presuppose a reflective distance towards one’s own positions. To be tolerant means saying “yes” to something (the beliefs and practices that one endorses), saying “no” to something (the intolerable), but also being able to say “no, but…” to something (that which is tolerated). Intolerance means saying “no” without justifiable reasons, whereas misguided tolerance means accepting something without justifiable reasons – both attitudes may be taken to indicate that one lacks proper understanding of the reasons for holding the viewpoints that one actively endorses.In discussing of Honneth’s theory of recognition, I argue that an ability to take a stance in a differentiated way is seminal, if struggles for and about recognition are to unfold productively. In all spheres of mutual recognition (primary, secondary and tertial groups), the potential for conflicts seems to rely on an unavoidable tension between identification with the other and identification of the other as another. This is the reason why recognition – in Honneth’s sense – seems to imply toleration, or at least is reliant on the same kind of self-reflective distance and ability to differentiate that is constitutive of toleration according to Forst.Finally, I argue that the concept of “communal values” that Honneth refers to in the context of “solidarity” cannot be taken to designate a set of substantial values that are constitutive of community, but rather that important forms of recognition take place in a social space and shape cultural codes that are both the results of and the subjects of conflict. Thus while “culture” is conflictual and complex, “value pluralism” – including diversity of beliefs and practices – may be productive. In this context, toleration is not about avoiding or resolving conflict, but about establishing the conditions for productive conflicts, enabling an ongoing creation and reappraisal of values.

Levinas and the Responsibility to Provide in Southeast Asia

2019 ◽  
pp. 153-178
Author(s):  
See Seng Tan
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Force ◽  
Communitarian Ethics ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Asian Context ◽  
The Relationship

Firstly, this chapter introducesLevinas’ ‘responsibility for the other’ notion as an alternative to the liberal and communitarian conceptions of responsibility and sovereignty. Both liberal and communitarian ethics are problematic because of theirshared assumption that responsibility is first and foremost to the self. The chapter introduces key features of Levinas’ ethics – the place and role of hospitality, reciprocity and justice in the responsibility for the other. It also examines how friendly critiques by interlocutors(Derrida, Ricoeur, Caputo, etc.) help moderate Levinas’ idealism without necessarily taking things in overly pragmatic or realist directions or, worse, blunting its moral force. Secondly, the chapter assesses the relevance of Levinas’ ethics to the questions of responsible sovereignty and the R2Provide in Southeast Asia. With reference to the regional conduct described in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, it is argued that Levinas’ ideas redefine the terms of the relationship between responsible providers and their recipients in three key ways: one, our assumptions and expectations over one’s extension of hospitality to one’s neighbours; two, the rethinking of mutuality and reciprocity between providers and recipients; and three, the ways in which the considerations for justice play out within the Southeast Asian context are concerned.

scholarly journals The face-to-face encounter in indigenous health care: a perspective in Lévinas

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (suppl 6) ◽  
pp. 2848-2853
Author(s):  
Diomedia Zacarias Teixeira ◽  
Nelson dos Santos Nunes ◽  
Rose Mary Costa Rosa Andrade Silva ◽  
Eliane Ramos Pereira ◽  
Vilza Handan
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Health ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Radical Alterity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
Reflective Study ◽  
Outpatient Settings

ABSTRACT Objective: To reflect on the sensitive behaviors of indigenous healthcare professionals based on the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas, to ratify completeness, equity, and humanity. Method: reflective study. Reflection: Studies have identified inadequacies in meeting the indigenous singularities. In the hospital and outpatient settings, they are diluted in the search for care. The difficulty of the professionals to admit them generates conflicts and non-adherence of indigenous individuals to treatments that disregard their care practices. In Lévinas, consciousness requires, "a priori," sensitivity to access the Infinity on the Face of the Other, which in the face-to-face encounters is presented to the Self as radical Alterity, proposing an Ethical relationship through transcendence. The freedom of the Self as to the Other is finite, as the Self cannot possess the Other, and infinite for its responsibility for the Other. Final considerations: The Self builds essence and existence in responsibility. In the Ethics of Alterity, in Lévinas, reflections are proposed that influence sensitive behaviors.

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