scholarly journals Traducir el rostro del otro: encuentros culturales entre Judith Butler y Emmanuel Levinas

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-295
Author(s):  
Pablo Pérez Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
The Face ◽  
Responsibility Ethics

Judith Butler draws on Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics in order to question processes of humanization and dehumanization taking place through various practices of representation of the face of the other. This is a singular reading leading Levinas’ work to the field of media representations conceived as an agonistic social landscape where the demand of the face is offered or, on the contrary, hidden from us. In that sense, Butler’s cultural transposition of Levinasian ethics entails a politicization of ethics which is indistinguishable, at the end, from an ethic assault to the politics of representation. In this cultural bond among ethics and politics arise fundamental questions on responsibility linking it to the practice of cultural translation while offering alternatives to some common universalist shortcuts of contemporary ethical reflection.Keywords: Cultural translation, ethical responsibility, ethics of alterity.

scholarly journals Borders, Barriers and Grievable Lives

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Pötzsch
Keyword(s):  
Judith Butler ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Formal Properties ◽  
Epistemological Barriers

Abstract Based on a close reading of Ridley Scott’s war film Black Hawk Down (USA 2001; BHD), the present article investigates the formal properties through which a certain strain of war and action movies discursively constitutes the other – the enemy – as less than human. I develop the argument that the emergent relation between friend and foe in these films can be read through the concept of the border as an epistemological barrier that keeps the other incomprehensible, inaccessible, and ultimately ungrievable. Having demonstrated how BHD sets up such epistemological barriers, I widen my focus and show that similar formal properties can be found in other audio-visual media, such as video games or news items. I then proceed to investigate how the societal impacts of this audio-visual rhetoric might be conceptualized. Do the mass media constitute a logistics that organizes audiences’ perceptions of war, violence, and the other? Does the barring of the face of the enemy from the public sphere of appearance render particular lives ungrievable and therefore unprotectable? The main theoretical frame of the paper consists of an application of the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to an analysis of audio-visual media, and of the approaches of Judith Butler, James Der Derian, and Paul Virilio to conceptualizing impacts of media representations on political discourse and practice in times of war.

Gratitude as a Performative

2021 ◽  
pp. 000332862110238
Author(s):  
Armand E Larive
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Other ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Over Time

Rather than a general theory of gratitude, the paper focuses on gratitude as a human dynamic in appreciative recognition of others. The phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas’ face-to-face ethics is discussed as the subject’s call to responsibility for an Other. Following Jacques Derrida’s criticism of how this responsibility binds the subject into a hostage position regarding the Other, Paul Ricoeur repairs the working value of Levinas’ ethics by loosening the face-to-face obligation of the Other into one of reconnaissance, or thankful recognition. Without losing the face-to-face dynamic, the expression of reconnaissance is then investigated through J. L. Austin’s theory of performatives where gratitude is expressed as a speech act, or with the help of Judith Butler, where performativity is an activity expressing a reconnaissance between people over time. Three examples are given at the end.

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.

The Vulnerability of Precious Things

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoon Sook Cha
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Other

This chapter, a reading of “La Personne et le sacré,” asks how an ethics modelled on self-dispossession might recognize and respond to the cry of the other, specifically to his demand not to be harmed. The difficulty of such recognition is reflected in the expression of the demand, which Weil characterizes as being below semantic intelligibility and appeal. The demand nevertheless contains an ethical address in the binding character of its summons and the obligation to preserve the other from harm that ensues even when that demand entails one’s own subject dislocation and impels one toward impersonal being. Drawing upon the model of ecstatic relationality offered by Judith Butler and Emmanuel Levinas, this chapter considers how the other’s claim upon oneself propels us towards an ethical relationality based on subject displacement and vulnerability, asking how self-dispossession might be a passage to the other.

Face to Face with the Dead Man: Ethical Responsibility, State-Sanctioned Killing, and Empathetic Impossibility

1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Molloy
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Dead Man ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

The image of the death house with its polished tiles and gleaming oak chair is fading. I turn my attention to where life is. Although I have decided that I will not be going to death row again, I cannot bear to think that there are some men there now who are facing death alone. The other man's death calls me into question, as if, by my possible future indifference, I had become the accomplice of the death of the other, who cannot see it; and as if, even before vowing myself to him, I had to answer for this death of the other, and to accompany the Other in his mortal solitude. The Other becomes my neighbour precisely through the way the face summons me, calls for me, begs for me, and in so doing recalls my responsibility, and calls me into question.

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.”

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 Identidade e lugar na metafenomenologia da alteridade Payayá

GeoTextos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamille Da Silva Lima
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Face ◽  
Sense Of Identity ◽  
And Gender

A relação lugar-identidade apresenta uma ambivalência que vai da celebração à condenação, ganhando novo fôlego após os anos 1990 tanto com a relevância que os movimentos identitários de resistência (étnicos, raciais e de gênero) alcançaram, na luta pelo lugar, enquanto território, quanto na força que o clamor pelo respeito à diferença e pelo reconhecimento do sentido opressor e colonial da identidade receberam, questionando o papel dos processos de territorialização nos conflitos e na negação da diferença que promovem a captura do Outro pelo Mesmo. Deslocamos a questão da relação identidade-diferença para o nexo consciência-lugar, desfazendo esta associação que dá relevo ao sentido frente ao sem-sentido. A prevalência da consciência é compreendida como um dos instrumentos da razão imperialista-colonizadora, eurocêntrica, e por isso é necessário fissurá-la para um outro sentido geográfico de identidade. Mas como significar nossa relação geográfica e sua implicação para a identidade libertando-se das amarras da consciência e dos modelos coloniais de intelecção do ser? Este é o principal questionamento mobilizador do artigo, o qual será enfrentado a partir da experiência com os indígenas Payayá e da interlocução com a filosofia de Emmanuel Lévinas, como metafenomenologia, no sentido de um pensamento descolonial latino-americano. Abstract IDENTITY AND PLACE IN THE METAPHENOMENOLOGY OF THE PAYAYÁ’S ALTERITY The identity-place relationship presents an ambivalence that goes from celebration to condemnation, gaining a new impetus after the 1990s, both with the relevance that identity resistance movements (ethnic, racial and gender) have achieved, fighting for the place – as territory –, as with the strength that crying for respect differences and the oppressive and colonial sense of identity received, questioning the role of the territorialization processes in the conflicts and in the denial of the distinctions that promote the capture of the Other by the Same. We move the question of the identity-difference relationship to the nexus between consciousness-place, undoing this association that gives relevance to sense in the face of the non-sense. The prevalence of consciousness is understood as one of the instruments of the imperialist colonizing reason, Eurocentric, and therefore it is necessary to break it into another geographical sense of identity. But how do we give meaning to our geographical relationship and its implication to identity, freeing ourselves from the bonds of consciousness and the colonial models of the intellection of being? This is the main question that mobilized the paper, which will be faced from the experience with the Payayá natives and the interlocution with the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas, as methaphenomenology, toward a Latin American descolonial thinking.

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