How to Domesticate Otherness: Three Metaphors of Otherness in the European Cultural Tradition (original) (raw)
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The encounter of the other from an educational standpoint
CEMeR - Caminhos da Educação Matemática em Revista, 13(2), 113-125., 2023
Driven by educational motivations and concerns, in this article I am interested in discussing the encounter of the other-its welcoming. My goal is not to derive specific pedagogical actions. Rather, my goal is to carry out a propaedeutic theoretical attempt at reflecting on some of the fundamental questions that arise when we try to understand the encounter with the other. In the first part of the article, I make a short incursion into the vast problem of individualism; more precisely, the intention is to highlight some aspects of the historical processes through which the self of individualism came to impose itself as a model of life in Western societies. This part paves the way for the second part of the article, which is devoted to Emmanuel Lévinas's ideas about self and other. Lévinas has produced an innovative approach that inspires much of the current research on ethics, not only among philosophers but educators as well. In turning to Lévinas I endeavour to point to and comment on some of the assumptions that we find at the core of his account. In the last part of the article, I explore what can be learned from these assumptions from an educational standpoint.
2006
The main aim of this research is to introduce diverse qualities of thinking about ‘Otherness’/‘Other’ in a contemporary, multicultural and at the same time transcultural world, and also to search for and discover their origins (sources), as well as to search for an answer to the question of what really hinders or blocks contact and communication with the Other and who, actually, the ‘Other’ is. The research was carried out from the hermeneutic perspective and concerned the problem of the Other/Otherness, which refers to "the circular process of understanding" by Hans Georg Gadamer, helping to understand the phenomenon and the fact that everyone is different (the hermeneutic perspective allows emphasis on the hermeneutical measurement of the subject of ‘Otherness’/ ‘Other’ and their multidimensional nature). In order to broaden the understanding of the issue mentioned above, I will refer to number of theories, such as: Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoueur, Rene Girard, Erving Go...
Our age is characterised by a growing interest in religious plurality. Several reasons can account for this. There is the increasing knowledge of other religious traditions and particularly the vivid contact with people belonging to other religions and cultures 1 . The religious other is no longer an abstract figure, but shows himself in all his concreteness as a neighbour, a colleague, a friend, a partner, etc. The consequence is that "more and more Christians, along with peoples of other faiths and ideologies, are experiencing religious pluralism in a new way -that is they are feeling not only the reality of so many other religious paths, but also their vitality, their influence in our modern world, their depths, beauty and attractiveness" 2 .
The Image of the Other in the Cultural Practices of the Modernity
Filosofiya-Philosophy
The cultural diversity and the culture of plural coexistence becomes the global problem of existence. Mutual penetration and leveling of the boundary having divided the world into Other and Own is relevant, as it challenges identity in the conditions of openness and unification. Own culture is able to reveal its potential and present its essential features and original character only in the context of a different cultural dimension. The complex intertwinings, connections, influences of the cultures of different peoples and their worldviews in a single world cultural space are illuminated by the dialogue. Dialogue determines the nourishing interaction, which allows to get richer by knowing the unique, valuable experience of the Other, to expand the horizons of one’s own existence. The atmosphere created by the dialogue is marked by humanism, implies the dignity and the right of each participant to argue their own point of view, therefore, to use their own intellectual abilities, know...
Otherness: A multi-dimensional Perspective
Robert Badenberg, 2013
This essay addresses otherness from a variety of perspectives. It does not take one single context (e.g. a village community or a single nation such Germany) and look at it from a sociological, theological or political perspective, but rather shines a light on otherness itself across a certain spectrum of several contexts (personal, sociological, political, theological) revealing to some extent the many facets of this phenomenon. On the one hand there could be a danger here of losing the main thread. On the other hand, however, the multi-dimensional perspective in the presentation of several contexts of the phenomenon of otherness could indeed open a window on how significant this topic really is in the world of today, and where need for concrete action existed and still exists.
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The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2020
This paper develops a response to the ethical conception of the human Other formulated by Gilles Deleuze in his review of Michel Tournier’s 1967 novel Friday . The central contention here is that although Deleuze develops a compelling notion of intensive ethics in response to Tournier’s novel, that ethics also remains deeply problematic in refusing to ascribe a positive role to the human Other. My wager is that some of these problems can be brought to light by placing Deleuze’s philosophy in dialogue with that of Emmanuel Levinas. As I seek to show, Levinas’s philosophy of alterity not only reveals that Deleuze is mistaken in failing to ascribe a positive ethical role to the human Other, but also begins to point the way toward a more positive conception of ethics that does not oppose the Other to the intensive realm that Deleuze so much values.
The Meaning of Otherness in Education: Stakes, Forms, Process, Thoughts and Transfers
2019
It has become clear that there is not one otherness but several, since it takes at least three forms: external, internal and epistemological. Are they that different? Do they have no connection, no common ground? Against the very nature of otherness, which must always remain other than itself, we gather its three forms into a concept, noted by a capital letter, three-dimensional and educational: L'Altérité enseignante (teaching Otherness) (Briançon 2012a). But this impossible concept does not exist and exists at the same time: frozen in its three dimensions and immortalized as if one were taking a picture, otherness is no longer otherness at a time when one talks about it, therefore does not exist; at the same time, a dynamic process from which one constantly learns, teaching Otherness exists when one experiences it. 3.1. The concept of Otherness The three forms of Otherness appear to be very heterogeneous with respect to each other. Is it then legitimate to group them into a meta-category? Can they be brought together in one concept? And how can this be useful? 3.1.1. Three-dimensional Otherness Depending on whether the other is sought in others, in me or in the unknown, the relationship with Otherness and the desire for Otherness are very different (Briançon 2012a). All page numbers for citations throughout this chapter refer to the edition listed in the References section. Citations have been translated from the French edition.
2014
In the belief that teachers' attitudes toward the other have a 'ripple effect' on society as a whole, the researchers designed a course called 'Dealing with Diversity' offered to one class of Arab students and one class of Jewish students studying to become English teachers at two colleges of education in Israel. The course aimed to expose the student to theoretical material relating to diversity and to provide an authentic vehicle for application of the principles discussed in the literature. Students were required to complete joint projects in mixed groups (Arab and Jewish), in two face-to-face and a semester of virtual meetings. Attitudes and reactions towards 'the other'their Jewish or Arab peers-were explored on the basis of journal and forum entries which were part of the course requirements. The students' writings showed themes of apprehension (negative), expectancy (positive), or indifference (neutral), and evidence of change in attitude was documented.
Some Problems with the Very Idea of Otherness (2011)
The article uses a reading of Eliot’s Middlemarch and a discussion of Levinas and Heidegger to challenge two aspects of the approach to literary texts proposed by Toril Moi. I suggest that we needn’t assume that the inner lives of others are inaccessible in the way Moi (following Stanley Cavell) does, nor that literature has a privileged role in helping us come to terms with this alterity. Literature is one practice amongst others with which re- lations with other people are negotiated more or less honestly. I argue that recent developments in phenomenology and cognitive science, in particular the focus on enactive and participatory models of being in the world, can help to make more concrete Heidegger’s concept of being-with (Mitsein) and Levinas’ concept of proximite ́. Heidegger and Levinas’ can then take their place in a counter tradition of 20th-century thinkers who engage with human togetherness rather than declare it to be impossible. The ques- tion Heidegger and Levinas’ raise about the ethical challenge of human togetherness is not, however, answered by more recent research. It is by turning back to Middlemarch and viewing it in the context of its original marketing that we can see one way that this challenge may be confronted in everyday life.