Émmanuel Lévinas

This paper criticizes social revolution, by focusing on the reconfiguration of the notion from an ethical point of view. It is divided in three sections: (i) Brother's death; (ii) Remove the sandals; (iii) Thou wilt be as many as the stars. Each section contains Levinas's thought as the main axis. Although it is well known that Levinas does not develop a theory of revolution, it is possible to find a fruitful analysis in light of his meditations about politics and ethics.

One of the most persistent and poignant human experiences is the sensation of longing—a restlessness perhaps best described as the unspoken conviction that something is missing from our lives. In this study, Drew M. Dalton attempts to illuminate this experience by examining the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas on longing, or what Levinas terms “metaphysical desire.”

Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular object beyond us, much less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other—both the human other and the divine Other.

Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas’s thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas’s notion of metaphysical desire—namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto—the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a “hagiography of desire” detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its “true self,” and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other.

Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the “Good beyond being,” shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing’s role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.

In the spring of 1944, the Yiddish poet and partisan Avrom Sutzkever was airlifted into the unoccupied Soviet Union. With him he brought more than new information about the Holocaust. He brought a distinct approach to witnessing, one that summoned Soviet Jews, and refugees especially, to tell him their stories in response. Sutzkever’s testimony differed from other important testimonial publications that appeared in
the Soviet media at the time. In the latter, we find a stylistic and conceptual separation between the voice of Jewish victim and Jewish advocate, observer and interpreter of catastrophe. By contrast, Sutzkever’s work, the epic poem “Kol nidre” in particular, emphasizes dialogue and reciprocity among different witness perspectives. His writing also
ascribes dignity and poetic beauty to the voice of the Jewish victim from Poland-Lithuania. In this essay, these observations about Sutzkever’s writing are set in conversation with
epistolary responses to the author from Soviet Jewish refugees.

The article reads the invention of the Exodus-Narrative in its historical context of the religious and political system of the Ancient Near East. It reconstructs the revolutionary different approach to political power and theological foundation in the development of the Mose- and Exodus-Narrative and its innerbiblical Fortschreibung. For this development it is most decisive that the Exodus-Narrative is not based on a historical migration-movement "from point A to point B", but on a historical confrontation with the political powers at that time. The foundation of a strict monotheistic understanding of theology and the invention of “textual authority” that diverged from the status of scripture in the Ancient Near East and which can be reconstructed through the structure of the Exodus-Narrative and its canonical form as the Tora of Mose, has laid the foundation for the identity of Israel and the basis for the three Monotheistic Religions. The article's argument is strictly developed in correspondence with contemporary exegetical and historical research (esp. E. Otto and Chr. Dohmen) and is brought together with contemporary accounts to political thought from poststructuralist and deconstructive philosophers like Derrida, Levinas, Badiou and Agamben. The outcome of this study is articulated as a contribution to an affirmative reading of the so-called »crisis of representation«.

Inhalt
Christoph Binkelmann: Enthusiasmus und Skepsis. Das europäische Pendel
Burkhard Nonnenmacher: Kants Postulatenlehre als Prüfstein für Heideggers »These der neuzeitlichen Ontologie«?
Günter Zöller : Ex aliquo nihil. Fichtes Anti-Kreationismus
Kai U. Gregor: Eine Kritik innerhalb der Grenzen der Vernunft. Wilhelm Weischedels Grundlegungsversuch einer Philosophischen Theologie im Zeitalter des Nihilismus und ein Gedanke Fichtes
Marco Rampazzo Bazzan: Die Staatslehre Fichtes unter dem Aspekt der
politischen Theologie nach Carl Schmitt
Cristiana Senigaglia: Die Spur der Andersheit: Fichte und Levinas
Detlev Pätzold Hegels Philosophie der Religion: Die Stellung der Religion zwischen Kunst und Philosophie
Arthur Kok: Absoluter Geist und Schöpfung. Jan Hollaks neothomistische Hegelkritik
Kazimir Drilo: Kritik des religiösen Bewusstseins. Falk Wagners theologische Interpretation von Hegels »Wissenschaft der Logik«
Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz: »Der Mensch lebt in zwei Welten […]«. Religion und Staat in Hegels Ansicht und in der heutigen Debatte
Elena Ficara: Der ontologische Gottesbeweis bei Hegel und in der analytischen Philosophie 
Robert Marszałek: Die Gegenwart der Religionslehre des mittleren Schelling
Mildred Galland-Szymkowiak Philosophie und Religion bei K.W.F. Solger.
Ein Beitrag zur nachkantischen Frage nach dem Prinzip der Philosophie
Patrick Grüneberg: Der transzendentale Gott
Wibke Rogge: Emmanuel Lévinas: Über die Beziehung des Unendlichen zum Seienden als Gemeinschaft in der Trennung
Ansgar Lyssy : Darwin, Gott und Neurotheologie. Was können uns die Biowissenschaften über die Religion sagen?

This essay invites us to take Emmanuel Levinas’s thought in the spirit in which it was written: a profound engagement with Husserlian’s phenomenology and, secondarily, with Heidegger’s existential philosophy. Levinas’s central idea, whether called “responsibility,” “substitution,” or the “other-in-the-same,” has often been criticized as mere “smoke and mirrors”—an indemonstrable hermeneutics of ethical investiture. The purpose of this essay is to show how Levinas analyzed and exploited ambiguities in Husserl’s work on intersubjectivity and sensibility, in view of developing his own phenomenology. It is organized as follows: Following an initial discussion of Husserl’s importance as an intersubjective thinker, I situate briefly Husserl’s interest in, and his approach to ethics. I discuss his early equation of object sensations with sentiments of value. Section II turns to Husserl’s interest in “intropathy” (Einfühlung), a concept he appears to have adapted from Theodor Lipps (1851-1914). It was Einfühlung that allowed Husserl to attempt various phenomenological constitutions of the other person; just as it was Einfühlung that provided a bridge between his extensive investigations into intersubjectivity and passive synthesis. Section III develops Husserl’s phenomenology of passive synthesis in light of the evolution of his conception of the living present and of transcendental consciousness. Section IV returns to a moment (1908) when Husserl’s other, like Levinas’s other in 1961, was “absolute”. Section V discusses Einfühlung in Cartesian Meditation V and Husserl’s notes on intersubjectivity during the period 1921 and 1928. Section VI examines intropathy and pairing with the other’s body in view of self-objectification and what Husserl occasionally called Ent-fremdung (alienation). It ventures a rapprochement with concepts in Levinas’s later work (e.g., “recurrence”). Section VII explores Husserl’s approach to affective forces and a phenomenological “unconscious,” with an eye on Levinas’s 1974 resistance to the passive spontaneity of meaning-formation. Section VIII discusses Husserl’s reading of a master-servant relationship and the fusion of wills in praxis. Section IX examines his subjectivity “thrust into the interior” of another subjectivity, and the possibility that the Husserlian monad might have windows. Section X returns to Husserl’s conception of sensation, this time as originary (hyletic) contents that ‘feed’ the flow of time-consciousness. It summarizes Levinas’s interrogation of Husserl’s formalism, notably between 1905 and 1909. In each section, I emphasize ambiguities in Husserl’s thought and the way in which Levinas utilized these between 1961 and 1974. My hope is to sketch some of the lesser known, phenomenological sources of his thought, and thereby encourage discussion of Levinas as an unorthodox Husserlian.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

This paper is a speculative experimentation that aims to explore the relationship between desire and thinking. Deviating from the letter, it attempts to understand philosophy as the knowledge of desire, as much as the desire for knowledge. To do so, it starts with the figure of Erôs, as assimilated by Plato with the dialectical method and the nature of philosophical inquiry. It then turns toward French phenomenology, for which the caress is the embodiment of desire-so much so that the horizontal exploration of matter replaces the vertical ascension toward the intelligible. Finally, it focuses on the concept of the erogenous zone, which Deleuze borrows from psychoanalysis but transforms into an ontological category intimately associated with the image of thought. In these terms, philosophy can therefore be regarded as a caress.

http://ojs.francoangeli.it/_omp/index.php/oa/catalog/book/510?fbclid=IwAR1kePaq_Yq-hpJUZ63DNFlz1dpKcQfE3UXX8VdxRnZYQmnWuyUTl3CpL7o

Il volume riunisce contributi che, rispondendo ad un’esigenza oggi molto sentita, si interrogano sui concetti di libertà, responsabilità e imputazione: si tratta di categorie fondamentali non solo in ambito morale, per definire la colpa del soggetto agente, ma anche in ambito giuridico, per definire una pena che sia equa e giusta.
I saggi qui presentati analizzano, da un lato, le condizioni di attribuzione di responsabilità e di libertà all’essere umano; dall’altro, rintracciano forme di libertà anche in riferimento alla natura (tradizionalmente compresa come regno della necessità) e all’indagine filosofica stessa. Si dispiegano così differenti prospettive, che risultano complementari nella comune ricerca di un fondamento filosofico.
A partire da un classico della filosofia antica, Platone, si giungerà, passando attraverso le concezioni della libertà di Leibniz, Kant e Fichte, alla filosofia di Hegel, di cui proprio nel 2020 si celebra il duecentocinquantesimo anniversario della nascita, proseguendo da qui verso la contemporaneità. Ci si interrogherà, infine, sul significato della pratica filosofica e sulla responsabilità che essa comporta.

Scritti di: G. Battistoni, G. Erle, S. Fuselli, P. Giuspoli, F.L. Marcolungo, F.
Menegoni, A. Moretto, A. Schmidt, K. Vieweg.

Openbaring betreft de boodschap van een waarheid die groter is dan we misschien aankunnen. Het betekent een inbreuk op de orde die we in het dagelijks leven nastreven en is in dat opzicht een trauma, dat dwingt tot een herziening van ons bestaan. Onze moderne cultuur heeft het echter verbannen uit het rijk van rationaliteit en wetenschap. Dit essay gaat het trauma van openbaring niet uit de weg, maar zoekt het op. Want kan onze humaniteit wel zonder openbaring? Slagen we erin werkelijk mens te zijn nadat we openbaring succesvol uit onze cultuur hebben verdreven?
Over o.a. Levinas, Lacan, Michel Henry

Les pages les plus connues de Hegel selon Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron sont celles que l’on nomme ordinairement comme « Dialectique du maître et de l’esclave » dans la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit de 1807. Traditionnellement, on comprend la dialectique du maître et de l’esclave comme le combat des deux consciences pour se faire reconnaître par l’autre, afin de parvenir à la conscience de soi-même. La scène commence par le fait du dédoublement. La conscience de soi s’est perdue dans son autre qui n’est en fait que son extériorité,  son double, mais qui,  dans un deuxième temps, supprime cet autre car c’est elle-même qu’elle voit dans l’autre. Il s’agit donc pour la conscience de soi de se reconnaître elle-même comme conscience de soi. Ceci passe par le dédoublement en deux consciences individuelles et l’utilisation de l’autre comme intermédiaire entre soi et soi. Et ce, afin de passer à la conscience universelle, sujet éthique et gnoséologique qui reste posé, mais non argumenté, dans le criticisme kantien et que l’ouvrage de Hegel vise à justifier en raison. Ainsi le mouvement de la reconnaissance implique à la fois le dédoublement de la conscience de soi et l’unité spirituelle des deux consciences de soi divisées. On voit bien ici la portée politique implicite dans la dialectique du maître et de l’esclave.
Or du point de vue de la pensée d’Emmanuel Levinas, Hegel n’affirme pas l’identité de la conscience de façon simple qu’en excluant l’autre. La conscience de soi est nécessairement orientée vers la suppression de cet autre. Elle s’affirme, selon Levinas, dans un narcissisme absolu. Tout ce qui est autre qu’elle-même est négatif.  La phénoménologie de l’esprit décrit et analyse l’expérience de domination et de perte d’autonomie pour celui qui est dominé. Dans le sixième paragraphe du texte « La trace de l’autre » paru dans la revue Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, de 1963, Emmanuel Levinas étend cette thématique à la totalité de l’histoire de la pensée occidentale en signalant : «La philosophie est atteinte, depuis son enfance, d’une horreur de l’Autre qui demeure Autre, d’une insurmontable allergie. C’est pour cela qu’elle est essentiellement une philosophie de l’être, que la compréhension de l’être est son dernier mot et la structure fondamentale de l’homme. C’est pour cela aussi qu’elle dévie la philosophie de l’immanence et de l’autonomie ou de l’athéisme. Le Dieu des philosophes, d’Aristote à Leibniz, à travers le Dieu des scolastiques- est un dieu adéquat à la raison, un dieu compris qui ne saurait troubler l’autonomie de la conscience, se retrouvant  elle-même à travers toutes ses aventures, retournant chez soi comme Ulysse qui, à travers toutes ses pérégrinations, ne va que vers son île natale. La philosophie qui nous est transmise attribue à ce retour non seulement la pensée théorétique, mais tout mouvement spontané de la conscience. Non seulement le monde compris par la raison cesse d’Être autre car la conscience s’y retrouve, mais tout ce qui est attitude de la conscience, c’est-à-dire valorisation, sentiment, action, travail et, d’une façon plus générale engagement, est en derrière analyse conscience de soi, c’est-à-dire identité et autonomie. La philosophie de Hegel représente l’aboutissement logique de cette allergie foncière de la philosophie. » 

Toutefois, cette opposition de Levinas à Hegel est solidaire d’une certaine interprétation métaphysique de Hegel qui soulignait le rôle de l’esprit absolu dans une spéculation philosophique subordonnée à une certaine exigence de cohérence rationnelle  totale. Or, on sait  que Hegel est, avec Platon, le plus « contrefait » des philosophes. Il est donc possible de trouver une interprétation de Hegel qui plutôt que de les opposer rapproche Hegel et Levinas de façon assez inattendue. Cela s’avère possible si on prend en considération l’importante influence qu’a exercé le commentaire de la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit livré par Alexandre Kojève sur la pensée de Merleau- Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre et Eric Weil qui ont influencé à leur tour la pensée de Levinas. De plus, le problème du désir, qui occupe une place centrale dans la pensée de Levinas, occupe une place tout aussi importante pour la démarche de la conscience dans la lecture de Hegel par Kojève. En effet, la conscience, comme point d’aboutissement de tout phénomène, est elle-même une force qui n’est pas seulement attirée par son autre, à savoir l’objet, mais qui tend aussi à repousser ce qui est identique. Autrement dit, la conscience saisit désormais l’importance de son propre rôle dans la concurrence des désirs, des attractions et des répulsions de forces. Ainsi, la vérité de tout phénomène n’apparaît que si l’on tient compte du jeu de toutes les forces qui interviennent, qu’elles soient directes ou indirectes. En ce sens, les phénomènes ne se réduisent pas si facilement à une loi, mais l’entendement se trouvera donc ouvert à une infinité de relations fluides, mouvantes, vivantes  dans une quête sans fin. La philosophie de Hegel s’ouvre à un monde contingent, imprévisible où chaque partie réfracte la totalité des relations auxquelles elle participe  et qui changent constamment. On sait bien que pour Kant comme pour Leibniz la conscience de lui-même ne pouvait pas déroger aux lois qui gouvernent son émergence. Hegel bouleverse ce préjugé : cette conscience de  soi dont tout le travail consiste précisément à s’extraire de ce monde, à entrer en lutte avec les autres. Pour cet homme la vérité est la tension entre l’infini de l’autre et l’infini de son propre pouvoir de négation. La dialectique est devenue alternance d’angoisse et de révolte, puissance érotique de dépense et d’ouverture à l’autre.  En faisant cela, Kojève ajoute une nouvelle oscillation entre esprit subjectif et esprit objectif. Quant à l’esprit subjectif, l’accent est mis sur la dialectique du désir et du manque, tandis que l’esprit objectif met en avant les besoins immédiats. Besoin de saisir, de maîtriser la réalité et désir d’assumer, de revendiquer l’échec de cette entreprise. Chacun d’entre nous, comme le dirait Jaques Lacan, se balance entre l’imaginaire et le réel, entre l’existence rêvée de l’enfant et le désir impossible pour la mère, entre le fantasme de maîtrise et la douleur du manque. Lacan dirait que cela correspond précisément à la prééminence de l’autre chez Hegel. Pensée de Jaques Lacan qui est, selon  Slavoj Žižek,  « L’une des plus authentiquement hégéliennes ». Donc, il ne s’agit pas pour Hegel de supprimer la différence, mais de donner un champ plus vaste au régime de la négativité propre à cette différence. Tout cela implique donc une possible interprétation post-métaphysique de Hegel qui donne un lieu prioritaire à l’autre.

Notre thèse vise donc à confronter la pensée de Levinas à celle d’Hegel autour du problème de la reconnaissance. Elle a pour but non seulement de faire une lecture critique de la pensée de Levinas à la lumière de la pensée de Hegel, mais de mener également une lecture critique du problème de la reconnaissance chez Hegel à la lumière des exigences de Levinas. Le propos est d’envisager une relecture du problème de la reconnaissance qui permette de surmonter l’ensemble des critiques. Ainsi, nous projetons de faire une relecture de l’ensemble de la philosophie hégélienne en donnant une portée post-métaphysique à son œuvre.

This is a commentary and reflection on the book, Relational Approaches to Gestalt Therapy edited by Lynne Jacobs and Rich Hycner. I consider the implicit relationality of gestalt therapy and wonder about the so-called "relational" turn. I introduce the idea of "dialogical contacting" and address questions of ethics and values that are uncovered as a consequence of this so-called "turn."

Logos e Torah, nella contrapposizione e nella distinzione di due principi teorici che hanno dato vita nel tempo alla cultura e alla tradizione spirituale dell’Occidente, sono attualmente chiamati a indicare, con differenti e complementari segnali, la necessità di ridisegnare i tratti di quell’umanesimo che, destinato a sperimentare nella notte di Auschwitz la stretta mortale di un'impresa antiumana, subisce una forza di scuotimento decisiva nel suo fondamento. Della crisi di quest'umanesimo Emmanuel Lévinas è stato testimone e, a partire dall'esperienza del vuoto e del silenzio compiuta nei campi di prigionia, egli è giunto a mettere in questione le nozioni di «libertà» e di «totalità» elaborate nel corso della riflessione occidentale: al costante ritorno della tradizione sul soggetto, l’Autore vuole sostituire l’apertura della filosofia all’Autrui, l’Altro, lo Straniero, l’Ospite.
La critica che, dunque, il filosofo formula al fondamento autocosciente di ogni sapere e potere, assunto nella modernità dalla soggettività umana, è espressione dello sforzo linguistico e teoretico di declinarla in una forma non ego-centrata, esposta all’evento e all’avvento dell’Altro. Il soggetto, che si scopre come non prodotto da sé ma come formulato solo a partire dalla relazione con l’Altro (prima il mondo del godimento, poi l’intimità con il femminile, infine la convocazione del volto d’Autrui), spodestato della sua centralità, si ritrova «eletto», investito di una libertà e di una responsabilità che lo rendono unico. Il filosofo, così facendo, prospetta dunque un «umanesimo dell'altro uomo» che, fondato sulla tradizione ebraica, si rivela all'alba del nuovo secolo capace di offrire un saldo punto di appoggio per ridefinire la finitezza ontologica dell’umano non più sul piano di una «ontologia senza morale», di una «filosofia della potenza e del dominio», per ritrovare una parentela diversa da quella che ci lega all'Essere, per sottrarsi al fascino che da esso si sprigiona, rinunziando a considerarlo come luogo onnicomprensivo del reale. Da quel luogo, a partire dal quale sono stati consumati tutti i misfatti del nostro tempo, occorre separarsi per situarsi finalmente in un «altro luogo», o meglio in un non-luogo, οὐ-τόπος, luogo dell’«altrimenti che essere», luogo del «meta-fìsico», ovvero dell’etica, della relazione in cui il soggetto responsabile, abbandonando ogni ontologia della guerra, si apre al volto dell’Altro, alla possibilità di un’escatologia della pace.

La tesi presenta inizialmente il pensiero di Jacques Derrida sull'animalità. Il tema affrontato è la sovranità dell'uomo sul resto dei viventi, in particolare nei riguardi della discriminazione dell'animalità. Nei capitoli a seguire si attua un'emancipazione dell'animalità e non dall'animalità come la corrente umanista voleva. Attraverso l'ontogenesi del concetto di "umanità" viene decostruito il costrutto che sorregge la soglia che divide l'uomo dagli animali, laddove essi partecipano all'animalità in maniere differenti. L'emergenza di questa composizione dei temi trattati si erge ad azione esemplare con cui Derrida, prima di morire, ha lasciato delle tracce da seguire durante il ricevimento del premio Adorno.

Deriving from the myth of Narcissus, in which a beautiful youth falls in love with his own reflection, the concept of narcissism was given its first systematic treatment in Sigmund Freud's 1914 essay “On Narcissism.” Since Freud's account of narcissism remains the starting point for most subsequent discussions of the topic, this entry begins with a brief summary of Freud's views before moving on to consider some of the major questions that have consistently arisen in philosophical treatments of narcissism and self‐love. How ought we to draw the line between healthy self‐esteem and pathological narcissism? Given the apparently ubiquitous presence of “the dear self” (to use Kant's term) in human consciousness, what would it mean to cultivate a truly nonnarcissistic concern for others, and is such a thing possible – or even desirable?

Esta investigación ofrece un esbozo de una forma alternativa de concebir la categoría clásica de la subjetividad que subyace al concepto de objeción de conciencia y de desobediencia civil.
La mayoría de los puntos de vista habituales sobre este tema se centran en el individuo y sus derechos. Demostrando que este enfoque es insuficiente y, por lo tanto, insatisfactorio, esta investigación destaca la importancia de conceptualizar de nuevo la categoría de subjetividad,
lo que a su vez hará posible una nueva forma de conceptualizar la noción de objeción de conciencia, es decir, pensar en ella no más como un derecho individual, sino como un deber de responsabilidad social.
Para la explicitación de este enfoque alternativo, esta investigación se basa principalmente en la obra de Emmanuel Levinas, quien centra todas sus reflexiones filosóficas en la perspectiva del otro (autrui).

It has been often pointed out that one problem, perhaps the furthest reaching problem, of the constitutive primordiality of the manner in which Levinas uses the term ethics is the apparent impossibility of formulating a theory of action. If all is ethics, what is unethical? However, the author has a number of works in which he discusses the nature of prescription and its substantive contents at some length, these are his Talmudic Readings. In this paper, I will try to build a conceptual bridge between the apparently inert metaphysical primacy of ethics in the major works and the elucidation of norms and prescriptions in Levinas' account of the uptake of the law. In the next few pages, I will argue that it is possible to find in Levinas' account of what I shall call the performative uptake 1 of the law, the conditions necessary for the formulation of a theory of action-guiding principles without thus providing a substantive account of those principles. That is to say, we can infer from Levinas' account of the law, an account of the manner in which principles of adjudication and action-guidance take hold without thus committing to a substantive account of laws, that is of what the specific principles, in one or other system of law actually are. In arguing this position, I will make a few substantive claims. The first one is that according to Levinas the acceptance of law—not of any one law in particular but rather a primordial susceptibility to law—is the most radical expression of the constitutive primacy of ethics and that this acceptance is not deliberate but rather insurmountable and perhaps natural. The second one is that it is precisely within the scope of the articulation of this insurmountable susceptibility to law that the deliberate adjudication of particular laws and 1 The term uptake I borrow from J.L. Austin, who makes this form of active receptivity a central mechanism of his account of linguistic praxis in How to Do Things with Words.

Despite Emmanuel Levinas’s famous denigration of art in “Reality and Its Shadow” as an egregious evasion of ethical responsibility, discussions of poetic art in his later writings court the ethical rhetoric that lies at the heart of his philosophy. Refuting claims that a more mature Levinas simply changed his attitude towards art, this article argues the existence of a poetic art that equates to a Jewish understanding of Temimut, or holiness, and describes the written word as a “holy aesthetic” born of ethical artistic intentions. Through these claims, this article seeks to add an interdisciplinary dimension to existing Levinas scholarship on ethical aesthetics, which has yet to consider how Levinas’s later discussions of art emerge from Talmudic thought.

“Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry” imbricates Emanuel Levinas’s ethics of the care-for-the-other and the experience of resistance and capitulation in the context of political prisons.  It responds to basic questions: Why, under the paideia of the totalizing system, do we so often come to lose our ethical bearings, our social identities, such that we capitulate in this way?  Yet again, why is it that we also so often resist when resistance seems impossible? Through textual analysis of publicly documented memoirs, interviews, letters and of my own experiences, this article analyses the paideia of totalizing systems and illustrates with Levinas not only the indispensability, however occluded, but also the living presence of ethics of the other in the political realm.

The idea of brotherhood has been an important philosophical concept for understanding community, equality, and justice. In Gendering Modern Jewish Thought, Andrea Dara Cooper offers a gendered reading that challenges the key figures of the all-male fraternity of twentieth-century Jewish philosophy to open up to the feminine.

Cooper offers a feminist lens, which when applied to thinkers such as Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas, reveals new ways of illuminating questions of relational ethics, embodiment, politics, and positionality. She shows that patriarchal kinship as models of erotic love, brotherhood, and paternity are not accidental in Jewish philosophy, but serve as norms that have excluded women and non-normative individuals.

Gendering Modern Jewish Thought suggests these fraternal models do real damage and must be brought to account in more broadly humanistic frameworks. For Cooper, a more responsible and ethical reading of Jewish philosophy comes forward when it is opened to the voices of mothers, sisters, and daughters.

Quando Platone prende alle spalle Parmenide e lo uccide, non sa quali saranno le conseguenza di questo gesto per lui necessario. Quando Platone, con le mani ancora sporche del sangue del suo geni-tore filosofico, rielabora la divisione parmenidea tra essere e non esse-re, affermando la vivacità della verità dell'essere, non immagina mi-nimamente che in questo modo avrebbe dato inizio a tutta quella tra-dizione filosofica, protrattasi fino all'Ottocento, e che ha fatto della metafisica l'emblema più tipico e caratterizzante della filosofia occi-dentale. Nel Parmenide e nel Sofista, Platone sente di dover trovare una giusti-ficazione per il mondo delle Idee, che non può essere rigido e statico, e al tempo stesso avverte la necessità di rendere questo mondo vero nella sua elasticità, al contrario del mondo fenomenico, considerato falso e ingannatore. Inoltre con quel mondo dell'essere, che Parmeni-de aveva strutturato in maniera unitaria e immutabile, Platone non riu-sciva a giustificare la diversa molteplicità delle Idee. Il filosofo atenie-se doveva fare qualcosa e quel qualcosa era spezzare questa ferrea uni-tà. Nel Sofista Platone dimostra come l'Essere sia vivo, influenzato nella sua stessa realtà dalla possibilità di essere pensato, e come questo Es-sere non sia uno, ma sia molteplice. Il punto estremo del parricidio avviene quando Platone arriva ad affermare la possibilità dell'errore e quindi del non essere, che esiste perché qualsiasi cosa che è qualcosa non è un'altra cosa. Non essere qualcosa cioè, significa essere qual-cos'altro, pur rimanendo sempre all'interno dell'Essere. In questo mo-do Platone riesce a creare un mondo delle Idee diversificato e diffe-renziato. Secondo Parmenide il non essere non poteva neppure essere pensato, ma in questo caso anche solo pronunciando queste due parole il suono che usciva dalla bocca di colui che parlava sarebbe stato assolutamen

The term “ethical monotheism” is an important marker of Judaism’s tumultuous transition into the modern era. The term emerged in the context of culture wars concerning the question of whether or not Jews could or should become emancipated citizens of modern European states. It appeared in arguments whether or not Judaism could be considered a Religion of Reason—a symbolic, motivational  representation of a universal morality—and in debates about whether or not Judaism could or should reform itself into a Religion of Reason. This book is both a decisive departure from those discussions and an attempt to add a further, post-modern statement to their ongoing development. As a departure, it refuses to take for granted a philosophical conception of Religion of Reason as the standard for ethical monotheism according to which Judaism was to be evaluated or reformed. As a continuation, the book undertakes a phenomenology of Jewish modes of ethical religiosity that allows it to inquire about what kind of ethical monotheism Judaism might be. The introduction and the conclusion present the argument of the book and explain its structure. Readers may benefit from reading those sections first, and then going on to the evidence in chapters 1 to 5.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asians have been othered in American society due to racism and xenophobia because some view them as responsible (as individuals or as a community) for causing and spreading the virus. In response to the nationwide surge of anti-Asian hate crimes, the author, an Asian American preacher, suggests a revitalization of ren (仁), the foundational concept of the collectivist culture of East (Southeast) Asian society and also the essence of Confucianism, as an indigenous homiletical voice. The paper explores the distinctive conception of otherness-in particular, the heart of compassion (惻隱之心, ceyin zhi xin) and righteousness (義, yi)-in ren as an alternative concept for mitigating controversial features of Levinas's ethical project. Further, the author proposes revitalizing ren in preaching so that the praxis of compassion and resistance combines with the dynamic of biblical lament as a homiletical strategy.

Dit paper zal eerst de bevindingen van Emmanuel Levinas uiteen zetten, zodat de dualistische grondstructuur van het subject aangetoond wordt. Vervolgens zal kort de theoretische verdieping van Giorgi Agamben op deze bevindingen aan bod komen, zodat de theorie van Levinas in verband kan worden gebracht met de notie van de auto-affectie. In het tweede hoofdstuk worden de zelftechnieken geïntroduceerd aan de hand van een van de laatste collegereeksen van Michel Foucault. Hieruit zal blijken welke invloed dit Oud-Griekse begrip heeft gehad op de subjectiviteit-invulling van de Franse filosoof. In het voorlaatste deel, De dubbele beweging en de zelftechnieken, worden de antieke en hedendaagse bevindingen over het subject met elkaar verbonden. Hoewel de verschillende visies niet direct met elkaar overeen lijken te komen, zal dit paper aantonen dat de auteurs die aandacht besteden aan het spirituele onderzoek elkaar aanvullen. De ethiek gebaseerd op het spirituele vraagstuk zal hierbij centraal staan: Hoe moet het subject met zichzelf leven?

Course Description & Aim
The rise of National Socialism to power prompted an unprecedented large-scale exodus of Central European scholars who have had an enormous impact on American cultural life in particular, and the post-World War II world of politics in general. The primary aim of the course is to introduce students to the key ideas and classical writings of these figures, and to examine their responses to and analysis of the age of extremes. We will begin our journey with the writings of Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm – the founders of the Frankfurt School – and will continue with the analyses of totalitarianism and " political Messianism " offered by Hannah Arendt, Gershom Scholem, Jacob L. Talmon, and Karl Popper, which we will then compare and contrast with the evaluation of liberalism one finds in the writings of Leo Strauss, Isaiah Berlin, and Arthur Koestler. We shall examine these thinkers' analyses of enlightenment, nationalism, socialism, and totalitarianism, their life stories, and their direct and indirect role in creating a transatlantic political discourse in postwar years. We will try to ask ourselves to what extent were their political and philosophical writings designed as a response to the maladies of the twentieth century, and to what extent did their Jewishness notify their writings, if at all. By doing so we shall be able to contextualize historically the fundamental features of Jewish intellectual activity after 1945.
*No prior knowledge of political science, philosophy and/or Jewish studies are required.

Discriminatie en racistisch geweld zijn onuitroeibare feiten. Girard, Bataille, Nietzsche en Freud hebben er ieder hun eigen verklaringen voor. Levinas (1906-1995) was een consequent denker tegen het racisme in. Hij is geen moralist of prescriptieve ethicus. Hij voert een filosofische analyse uit van de ervaring die we opdoen in de omgang met onszelÍ
en met elkaar en stuit daarbij op de dimensie van het ethische, in de zin
van het geraakt-kunnen-worden door de andere mens. Dit passieve 'kunnen' maakt ons tot zelfstandige en unieke mensen; de menselijkheid van de mens hangt ervan af.

In this chapter, I argue that mainstream animal-centered (i.e., “humane”) ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that this emphasis on similarity is a reason why these two fields are generally anti-naturalistic and ultimately (though ironically) anthropocentric. Moreover, on the assumption of a general Levinasian ethic of alterity, this anti-naturalism and anthropocentrism is violently immoral. I propose, therefore, an ethic of animal difference based on an ethically naturalistic reading of intra- and inter-specific behavior sets. However, such naturalism is problematic if the Anthropocene is understood to be a naturalized fact which undermines all (metaphysical or normative) claims to naturalness or wildness. In response, I argue that the Anthropocene is not a naturalized fact but a socially-contingent and constructed fact, and as such is open to moral evaluation. M...

Çevirmen: Murat Erşen

Bir filozofun layıkıyla anlaşılması bakımından doğrudan onun kendi eserlerine yönelmek gerektiği açıktır; bununla birlikte her filozof salt kendi eserlerine başvuruyla da kolayca anlaşılabilir değildir. Bir filozofu kendi dilinden okumak, hem felsefe tarihine mal olmuş kavramları kendi hesabına nasıl kullandığını görmek hem de kendi diline ve felsefi kavramsallaştırmaya getirdiği yenilik ve özgünlüğü tartabilmek açısından son derece önemlidir. Ancak her filozofu kendi dilinden okuyabilme şansına çok az insan sahiptir. Öte yandan Lévinas’ın da aralarında bulunduğu, neredeyse özel bir terminoloji yaratmış bazı filozofları -Örneğin Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan vs.- kendi dillerinden okumamak, bu düşünürlerin kavramsal ve düşünsel zenginliklerinden tatminkâr biçimde beslenmeye ve felsefelerini layıkıyla anlamaya maalesef azımsanmayacak bir engel teşkil etmektedir. Levinas Sözlüğü, bir filozofun ancak kendine has kavram dağarından hareketle anlaşılabilir olduğu ilkesini temel alarak Lévinas’ın başlıca felsefi kavramlarını sunmaktadır.