scholarly journals Humanisme Bagi Sesama – Menyingkap Akar Kekerasan Dalam Relasi Antarmanusia Dan Etika Tanggung Jawab Menurut Emmanuel Levinas

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (29) ◽  
pp. 137-157
Author(s):  
Editha Soebagiyo
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Face ◽  
Original Relation ◽  
Ethical Demand

This article contains the most fundamental text of Emmanuel Levinas. His unique contribution is his argument that the morality is not a branch of philosophy, but first philosophy (TI 304). His starting point is the actual concrete encounter, with the “face” of the other, that underlies our sense of self and identity, and this, in turn is the beginning of Levinas’ understanding of what Philosophy is. Philosophy begins with the other and ethics is undertood as a relation of infinite responsibility to the other person. By this, he means that when we face someone, before we decide to respond others (to wish someone “great day”, to give or not to give money to a beggar), we are already put into a relationship with them. This is the reason why he calls that relationship ‘the original relation’. This unconditional responsibility is not something we take on or a rule by which we agree to be bound, it exists before us and we are ‘thrown’ into inexhaustible responsibility for them without any choice.  Although his big idea is not adequate for the solution of all our ethical problems, we find the strength of Levinas’ position in reminding us to the nature of ethical demand, which must be presupposed at the basis of all moral theories.

scholarly journals The Possibility/Impossibility of Ethical Community during the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Philosophical Reflection

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-243
Author(s):  
Shining Star Lyngdoh
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
The Face ◽  
Meaningful Engagement ◽  
Global Concern ◽  
Ethical Demand

AbstractThe outbreak of COVID-19 has raised a global concern and calls for an urgent response. During this perpetual time of epidemic crisis, philosophy has to stand on trial and provide a responsible justification for how it is still relevant and can be of used during this global crisis. In such a time of crisis like that of COVID-19, this paper offers a philosophical reflection from within the possibility/impossibility of community thinking in India, and the demand for an ethical responsivity and response-ability to act ethically towards the Other (autrui) to show that philosophy always already emerges from within the context of crisis. As an alternative outlook to the thinking of totalitarian singularity and individualism, community—in its possible and impossible making—can offer more meaningful engagement with the other human being by being responsible and extending care towards the Other. The thinking of a shared community life is the facticity of one’s own being-together-in-common without the dismissal of individual differences as can be seen in the works of Jean-Luc Nancy, and there is an ethical demand that comes from the face-to-face ethical relationship with the Other as argued by Emmanuel Levinas.

The Problem of Non-Human Animals in Levinasian Ethics and a Possible Corrective

Dialogue ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-791
Author(s):  
BERIL İDEMEN SÖZMEN
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
The Face ◽  
Ethical Demand

Animals in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics can neither respond to the ethical demand, nor can they be the Other from whom the demand emanates. Levinas’ characterisation of the Other as human seems to be incompatible with his description of the Other as infinitely transcendent and of the face as refusing to be contained. A corrective can be found in Martin Buber’s two-dimensional account of the encounter. Buber widens the scope of entities with which morally demanding encounters are possible. Complementing the Levinasian account of the encounter with Buber’s provides a way of recognising non-human animals as the Other in the moral encounter.

Emmanuel Levinas: Um estudo sobre a ética da alteridade

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abimael Francisco do Nascimento
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Philosophical Criticism ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
First Philosophy

The general objective of this study is to analyze the postulate of the ethics of otherness as the first philosophy, presented by Emmanuel Levinas. It is a proposal that runs through Levinas' thinking from his theoretical foundations, to his philosophical criticism. Levinas' thought presents itself as a new thought, as a critique of ontology and transcendental philosophy. For him, the concern with knowledge and with being made the other to be forgotten, placing the other in totality. Levinas proposes the ethics of otherness as sensitivity to the other. The subject says here I am, making myself responsible for the other in an infinite way, in a transcendence without return to myself, becoming hostage to the other, as an irrefutable responsibility. The idea of the infinite, present in the face of the other, points to a responsibility whoever more assumes himself, the more one is responsible, until the substitution by other.

scholarly journals The Law Challenged and the Critique of Identity with Emmanuel Levinas

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Petrilli
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Object Relation ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
New Humanism ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject

AbstractIdentity as traditionally conceived in mainstream Western thought is focused on theory, representation, knowledge, subjectivity and is centrally important in the works of Emmanuel Levinas. His critique of Western culture and corresponding notion of identity at its foundations typically raises the question of the other. Alterity in Levinas indicates existence of something on its own account, in itself independently of the subject’s will or consciousness. The objectivity of alterity tells of the impossible evasion of signs from their destiny, which is the other. The implications involved in reading the signs of the other have contributed to reorienting semiotics in the direction of semioethics. In Levinas, the I-other relation is not reducible to abstract cognitive terms, to intellectual synthesis, to the subject-object relation, but rather tells of involvement among singularities whose distinctive feature is alterity, absolute alterity. Humanism of the other is a pivotal concept in Levinas overturning the sense of Western reason. It asserts human duties over human rights. Humanism of alterity privileges encounter with the other, responsibility for the other, over tendencies of the centripetal and egocentric orders that instead exclude the other. Responsibility allows for neither rest nor peace. The “properly human” is given in the capacity for absolute otherness, unlimited responsibility, dialogical intercorporeity among differences non-indifferent to each other, it tells of the condition of vulnerability before the other, exposition to the other. The State and its laws limit responsibility for the other. Levinas signals an essential contradiction between the primordial ethical orientation and the legal order. Justice involves comparing incomparables, comparison among singularities outside identity. Consequently, justice places limitations on responsibility, on unlimited responsibility which at the same time it presupposes as its very condition of possibility. The present essay is structured around the following themes: (1) Premiss; (2) Justice, uniqueness, and love; (3) Sign and language; (4) Dialogue and alterity; (5) Semiotic materiality; (6) Globalization and the trap of identity; (7) Human rights and rights of the other: for a new humanism; (8) Ethics; (9) The World; (10) Outside the subject; (11) Responsibility and Substitution; (12) The face; (13) Fear of the other; (14) Alterity and justice; (15) Justice and proximity; (16) Literary writing; (17) Unjust justice; (18) Caring for the other.

Encountering Levinas

2019 ◽  
pp. 248-287
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
To Come ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter relates Løgstrup’s work to the ideas of Emmanuel Levinas. It begins by focusing on similarities between them (§9.1), which might then suggest ways in which each can be used to come to the aid of the other on certain shared difficulties (§9.2). But then certain significant divergences are uncovered (§9.3), which also opens up the possibility of a critical dialogue between Løgstrup and Levinas on certain fundamental issues and questions (§9.4). It is argued that at the basis of this divergence is Løgstrup’s natural law approach to the problem of normativity, and thus to the ethical demand, which puts him at odds with Levinas’s suggestion that this normativity arises from the authority of the other as a commander.

Levinas in therapy

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-297
Author(s):  
Bob Plant
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Potential Significance ◽  
Therapeutic Practice ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
The Face ◽  
Short Explanation ◽  
The Way

Emmanuel Levinas’ semi-phenomenological analyses of the “face-to-face” encounter with “the other” are frequently alluded to in the therapeutic literature. Indeed, for some therapists, Levinas provides the conceptual apparatus to reconfigure traditional therapeutic practice. While acknowledging the importance of his work, in this article I raise critical questions about the way Levinas’ ideas are often used by psychotherapists. The discussion is divided into five sections: First, I provide a short explanation of the motivations for writing this paper. Second, I offer an overview of some prominent themes therapists typically draw from Levinas’ writings. Next, I present my own reconstruction of the face-to-face encounter. Then, drawing on the previous reconstruction, I outline the main questions Levinas-inspired therapists need to address. Finally, I reconsider the potential significance of Levinas’ work for therapists.

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.

scholarly journals A critical analysis of ‘face’-managing factors in isiZulu idioms

Literator ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M.R. Masubelele
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Image ◽  
The Face

People have an inherent need to communicate. They communicate out of need as well as for leisure. Human speech abounds with unpleasant and undesirable statements that could embarrass and even humiliate those spoken to or oneself. Brown and Levinson assert that unpleasant and undesirable statements have the potential to threaten the ‘face’ or self-esteem of the other person or persons. They define ‘face’ as the public self-image that every member of society wants to claim for themself. Simply put, ‘facework’ refers to ways people cooperatively attempt to promote both the other’s and their own sense of self-esteem in a conversation. As linguistic speech forms, idioms perform a variety of functions in a language. Not only do they make speech more colourful, but they also perform a communicative function in that they tend to soften the embarrassment and humiliation that often accompanies unpleasant and undesirable statements in speech. IsiZulu idioms will be examined in this article to establish to what extent they could contribute to managing ‘face’ issues. Examples of idioms will be drawn from C.L.S. Nyembezi and O.E.H. Nxumalo’s work Inqolobane Yesizwe. The facework theory as espoused by Brown and Levinson will underpin this discussion on isiZulu idioms.

Passivity and Responsibility in The Comfort of Strangers, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist and Adam Resurrected

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-203
Author(s):  
Edward Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Ian Mcewan

In Otherwise than Being, Emmanuel Levinas talks of ethics state as being ‘a passivity more passive than all passivity’, the idea that we want nothing for ourselves and that this is what enables us to be devoted to the Other. The Paul Schrader films that this chapter analyses – The Comfort of Strangers (1990), adapted from the Ian McEwan novel, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) and Adam Resurrected (2008), from a novel by Yoram Kaniuk – focus on protagonists who are passive in their wants, desires and relationship with life, and my readings of these films will discuss Levinasian passivity and its ethical importance to film. These protagonists are affected by their passivity in different ways: Colin (Rupert Everett) in The Comfort of Strangers comes up against a man who wishes to murder him; Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård) in Dominion faces off against Satan; Adam (Jeff Goldblum) in Adam Resurrected is fighting the trauma of his own persecuted past during the Holocaust and his present-day struggles to control his overactive but fractured sense of self. Schrader shows in these films that ethical engagement has passivity as a necessary component, and that passivity is perhaps the most demanding aspect of Levinas’s ethics.

The Evolution of Household Bargaining

2019 ◽  
pp. 181-193
Author(s):  
Cailin O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Household Bargaining ◽  
Evolutionary Models ◽  
Total Work ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Face ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Traditional Game

This chapter first presents an explicitly evolutionary model of the emergence of coordination in modern households. The chapter shows why certain conditions might favor market labor for one gender and home labor for the other. The goal is to provide a proof of concept for the usefulness of evolutionary models in this domain, as opposed to traditional game theoretic models. The chapter also argues that once these patterns have emerged, they should be relatively stable in the face of changing social conditions. Using these patterns of coordination as a starting point, the chapter then shows why emerging patterns of household bargaining, i.e., over who does more total work, and has more total leisure time, should favor whichever gender tends to be employed in market work.

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