scholarly journals Haunted by the Other: Levinas, Derrida and the Persecutory Phantom

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-385
Author(s):  
Michael Burke
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Symbolic Understanding ◽  
Gore Verbinski

In this article, I explore what I call the persecutory trope – which underscores the alterity of the phantom and its relentless haunting and spectral oppression of the protagonists – in recent American ghost films, connecting it to the ethical thought of the continental philosophers, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Films like The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002), The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, 2004), It Follows (Robert Mitchell, 2014), and Sinister (Scott Derrickson, 2012) depict terrifying spectral antagonists whose relentless persecution of the protagonists often defies comprehension and narrative closure. I suggest that these films comprise a specific supernatural subgenre due to the particular way in which their specters haunt the victims. The relentlessness of the spectral assailant, and the foreclosure of actions by which the specter is either expelled from or reintegrated into symbolic understanding of its victim, can be construed in terms of the ethical relationship between the other and the self in the work of Levinas and Derrida. Their focus on the moral agent's responsibility to an other, an obligation that the agent does not undertake voluntarily, entails the spectralization of ethical responsibility insofar as it does not rest on solid, evidential grounds. This article shows how the spectralization of the ethical resonates in recent American ghost films through the disruptive effects of the specter's haunting and responsive mourning enacted by protagonists.

How might Levinas' concept of the other's priority and Derrida's unconditional hospitality contribute to the philosophy of the modern hospice movement?

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciro Augusto Floriani ◽  
Fermin Roland Schramm
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Latin Word ◽  
Phenomenological Experience ◽  
Hospice Movement

AbstractHospitality is commonly referred as one of the meanings of hospes, the Latin word which is also the root of hospice. This article explores the semantics of the word hospice - the seal of identity of modern hospice movement - and attempts to integrate the meaning of hospitality into the modern hospice movement, understood as unconditional reception. Therefore, the article analyzes the concept of unconditional hospitality, developed by Jacques Derrida and that of ethical responsibility proposed by Emmanuel Levinas based on the phenomenological experience of the other. From this point of view, these two concepts tie in with the meaning of hospice, bringing substantial grounding elements to the hospice movement for the construction of a protective ethos.

scholarly journals Justiça porvir e o tempo do outro: derrida leitor de Levinas [Justice to come and the time of the other: Derrida reading Levinas]

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Manoel Uchoa ◽  
José Tadeu Batista De Souza
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
To Come

Discorrer sobre a proximidade entre os trabalhos de Jacques Derrida e Emmanuel Lévinas perpassa pela amizade e a interlocução que mantiveram durante toda a vida. Como um referencial caro a Derrida, a ética levinasiana surgiu como uma alternativa a tradição fi losófi ca do Ocidente. Assim, nos caminhos heterogêneos que suas obras traçaram, pode-se marcar uma profunda intercessão: a alteridade é constitutiva no pensamento. Logo, o último moralista de nossa época tem uma contribuição pertinente ao pensador da desconstrução. Pretende-se nesse artigo analisar a relação do pensamento desses fi lósofos em relação à categoria de Justiça a partir da alteridade.

scholarly journals The Stranger as Friend: The Poetics of Friendship in Homer, Dante, and Boccaccio

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franco Masciandaro
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Natural Extension ◽  
Divine Comedy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Maurice Blanchot ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
The Divine Comedy ◽  
The One ◽  
The Stranger

The principal aim of this study is to participate in the current renewed discourse on the meaning of friendship, initiated in 1994 by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida with his Politics of Friendship, by combining the philosophical method of inquiry with the hermeneutical approach to poetic representations of friendship in the Iliad, the Divine Comedy, and the Decameron. It examines friendship not only as the unique love between two persons based on familiarity and proximity, but as the love for the one who is far away, the stranger, for this is a natural extension of the implicit love of the distant other, of the other-as-stranger – what Emmanuel Levinas has called "the infinity of the Other" – which is concealed in our friend, and which, in the words of Maurice Blanchot, puts us "authentically in relation" with him or her.

scholarly journals The Immense House of Postcards

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-71
Author(s):  
Hanoch Ben-Pazi
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Textual Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Way Of Thinking

The subject of tradition engaged both Emmanuel Lévinas and Jacques Derrida in many of their writings, which explore both the philosophical and cultural significance of tradition and the particular significance of the latter in a specifically Jewish context. Lévinas devoted a few of his Talmudic essays to the subject, and Derrida addressed the issue from the perspective of different philosophical and religious traditions. This article uses the writings of these two thinkers to propose a new way of thinking about the idea of tradition. At the core of its inquiry lie the paradigm of the letter and the use of this metaphor as a means of describing the concept of tradition. Using the phenomenon of the letter as a vantage point for considering tradition raises important points of discussion, due to both the letter’s nature as a text that is sent and the manifest and hidden elements it contains. The focus of this essay is the phenomenon of textual tradition, which encompasses different traditions of reading and interpreting texts and a grasp of the horizon of understanding opened up in relation to the text through its many different interpretations. The attention paid here to the actions of individuals serves to highlight the importance of the interpersonal realm and of ethical thought.

The Violence of the Neutral in Interfaith Relations

2012 ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
Meir Sendor
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Real Relationship ◽  
Interfaith Relations ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
Authentic Relationship ◽  
The Common

This chapter analyses the common and unfortunate trend in interfaith dialogue of ‘neutralizing’ the Other. In an attempt to find commonality, neutralization introduces syncretism and relativism into interfaith discourse. Worse still, it does violence to the unique character of each religion and its practitioners who participate in the dialogue. According to Emmanuel Levinas, to proceed in this way is to doom the possibility of real relationship from the start and to fall prey to the most insidious and destructive habit of Western thought: the deception of the Neutral that derives from the tyranny of the Same. Meanwhile, Jacques Derrida repeatedly explored the nature of hospitality at length, employing it as a paradigm for the dynamics of interfaith relations. Finally, Paul Ricoeur's notion of the conscience, of the reciprocity of Otherness, of the response within responsibility, contributes an essential element to the groundwork for an authentic relationship outlined by Levinas and Derrida.

scholarly journals The identity/alterity nexus in international relations: two cases of encounter with difference

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-247
Author(s):  
Erica Resende
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Different Levels

The aim of this article is to survey the implications of the identity/alterity nexus in international relations (IR) as related to processes of othering for understanding conflict and violence in global politics. I will offer what I could call an ontology of difference in global politics, where I stress the reliance of understanding othering practices in global politics, as I explore two cases from which I ask the following questions: How do identity and identity formation processes occur and develop at different levels, times and dimensions? How do discourses of differentiation and identification help construct state identities and interests? Following Emmanuel Lévinas, I will argue that by seeking ways to reach out towards the Other, we free ourselves from the restraints of selfishness, from indifference and isolation. Finding and coming to terms with a composition of the Self that also includes the Other enables us to take responsibility for him/her inasmuch it prevents the conditions for violence and conflict.

Tracing Sexual Difference

1998 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Pamela Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Difference

A reading of Luce Irigaray suggests the possibility of tracing sexual difference in philosophical accounts of personal identity. In particular, I argue that Irigaray raises the possibility of moving beyond the aporia of the other which lies at the heart of Paul Ricoeur's account of self-identity. My contention is that the self conceived in Ricoeur's Oneself as Another is male insofar as it is dependent upon the patriarchal monotheism which has shaped Western culture both socially and economically. Nevertheless there remains the possibility of developing Ricoeur's reference to 'the trace of the Other' in order to give a non-essential meaning to sexual difference. Such meaning will emerge when (i) both men and women have identities as subjects, and (ii) the difference between them can be expressed. I aim to elucidate both conditions by appropriating Irigaray's 'Questions to Emmanuel Levinas: On the Divinity of Love.'

“I” and the “Other”

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petrus Van Ewijk
Keyword(s):  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Language Game ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
I And Thou ◽  
To Come

In David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, the presence of Alcoholics Anonymous can be considered as an attempt to come up with a solution for both the addiction and the solipsism of the characters. AA tries to accomplish this by reconnecting the addict with the “Other”. The assimilation of the “Other” by the totalizing tendency of the self is dropped in favor of an earnest connection. This article focuses on the similarities between AA’s methods, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of the language-game, Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics of the “Other” and Martin Buber’s I and Thou. It illustrates how, in light of this knowledge, a reader might be able to uncover moments of earnestness in Infinite Jest, as well as pick up on the rules necessary to counter contemporary American solitude.

Feeding the Hungry Other: Levinas, Breastfeeding, and the Politics of Hunger

Hypatia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Moral Concern ◽  
Ethical Obligation ◽  
Breastfeeding Promotion ◽  
Quality Food ◽  
Public Health Promotion

Breastfeeding has become a subject of moral concern as its benefits have become well known. Encouraging mothers to breastfeed has been the goal of extensive public health promotion efforts. Emmanuel Levinas makes absolute responsibility to the Other central to his ethics, with giving food to the Other the paradigmatic ethical act. However, Levinas also provides an important critique of the autonomous individual who is taken for granted by breastfeeding promotion efforts. I argue that the ethical obligation to feed the hungry child must be recognized as coextensive with meeting the needs of women, especially given the current absence of important social and economic supports for breastfeeding. Under a Levinasian framework, each of us is ethically responsible for feeding children; this responsibility is not limited to mothers. This ethical responsibility needs to be expressed through improving social and economic supports necessary for those individuals who wish to breastfeed, instead of attempting to convince women to breastfeed. This ethical responsibility must also be understood in a broader context of a politics of hunger, which provides access to quality food for all, and goes beyond mere nutrition to include the importance of culture, touch, and intimacy in the enjoyment of food—what Levinas calls “good soup.”

scholarly journals Etikken i den maskerede by. Om Baumans etiske afvisning af den postmoderne bys æstetisering

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-23
Author(s):  
Lasse Suonperä Liebst
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Urban Sociology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Stranger ◽  
The City ◽  
Ethical Demand

Artiklen problematiserer Zygmunt Baumans argument om, at æstetiseringen i den postmoderne by er uforenelig med en virksom etisk ansvarlighed for den fremmede i byen. Denne forståelse er kraftigt inspireret af Emmanuel Lévinas’ fænomenologiske nærhedsetik, der forstår æstetik og etik som antagonistiske fænomener. Med afsæt i denne forståelse anser Bauman æstetiseringen af den Anden, som en maskering af det nøgne ansigt, der ifølge Lévinas er den etiske fordrings kilde. Hermed mødes den Anden ikke som et unikt menneske, men snarere som et overfladisk objekt, der nydes uden etisk ansvar. Artiklen peger på, at Knud E. Løgstrups fænomenologiske nærhedsetik – som Bauman fejlagtigt jævnfører med Levinas’ – tilbyder en interessant alternativ forståelse af forholdet imellem æstetik og etik: Ifølge Løgstrup har æstetikken nemlig forrang for etikken. Artiklens afgørende argument bliver i lyset heraf, at den etiske fordring som den Anden stiller, forudsætter at jeg er i kontakt med dennes liv, hvilket netop sker i den æstetiske sansning. Den æstetiske maskering af den Anden kan således ikke per se afskrives som en uetisk objektificering, men rummer snarere potentialet til, at jeg på sanselig-æstetisk vis kommer i stemt nærvær med det liv, der fordrer mig etisk. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Lasse Suonperä Liebst: Ethics in the Masked City The article questions Zygmunt Bauman’s argument that the aesthetization of the postmodern city is incompatible with the existence of an ethical responsibility towards the stranger in the city. This argument stems from Emmanuel Lévinas’ phenomenological ethics of proximity according to which aesthetical and ethical phenomena are antagonistic. Bauman’s lévinasian argument is based on the assumption that the aesthetization of The Other in the city veils the naked face which, according to Lévinas, is ethically demanding. This way, The Other is not faced as a unique human being, but rather as a masked and fungible object, which can be enjoyed without any responsibility. In this article it is argued that Knud E. Løgstrup’s phenomenological ethics of proximity, which Bauman sees as nearly equivalent to Lévinas’ ethics, offers an alternative theoretical concep-tualization. According to Løgstrup, the aesthetics has primacy over the ethical: The ethical demand of The Other presupposes that I am in contact with the life of The Other which takes place in a sensuous-aesthetic way. The aesthetical masking of The Other, thus, is not per se an unethical objectification, but rather a sensuous way to become ethical demanded by the Other. Key words: Zygmunt Bauman, Knud E. Løgstrup, Emmanuel Lévinas, urban sociology, aesthetization, ethics of proximity.

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