Radical passivity: rethinking ethical agency in levinas (original) (raw)
Related papers
The De of Levinas: Cultivating the Heart-Mind of Radical Passivity
Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 2015
This essay explores the resources of the early Chinese text Guanzi to address the question of ethical responsibility in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. We begin with the premise that being responsive to the other, feeling the impossibility of renouncing ethical obligation, and experiencing the basic moral asymmetry at the heart of Levinas’s project all rely on the welcome openness of the subject that Levinas describes as the subject’s “radical passivity.” However, his emphasis on infinite responsibility, coupled with the theme of radical passivity, gives the problematic impression that ethics amounts to a never-ending to-do list for the other, and certainly this is not what Levinas means. We turn to the Guanzi, which recommends that the ethically efficacious sage-prince must cultivate a state of passive stillness and inner vacuity. Only because the sage-prince maintains this deferential heart-mind is he freely open and responsive to others. In this sense, we note that the sage-prince looks strikingly like a good Levinasian: He is deferential to others, sensitive to context, and hyper-aware of the limitations of his own knowledge. The Guanzi goes on to describe specific practices the sage-prince can employ to cultivate his ethical prowess, including practices of meditation and gentle physical exercises. Taking this insight into Levinas’s context, we suggest that such practices of self-regulation are necessary to enable effective responsiveness to the other. From this perspective, responsibility is “infinite” not because I am perpetually beholden to the other’s whims, but because I am perpetually accountable for calming and clearing my own mind of the unstable emotions, selfish desires, and intellectual machinations that prevent the welcome openness of radical passivity.
in: Benda Hofmeyr (ed), Radical Passivity. Rethinking Ethical Agency in Levinas (2009), 95-108
This paper unfolds the political core of the late Levinas' thinking of Alterity: the transition to the realm of the Political with the unfolding of "the-Other-in-Plural", i.e. the "Third", in »Otherwise than Being«. Contrary to Alphonso Lingis's claim that radical passivity cannot be the basis for effective ethical agency, this contribution argues that it is precisely the later Levinas's reconceptualized notion of alterity and consequently of subjectivity that makes ethical action — understood as substitution and sacrifice — possible. The argument proceeds by way of a close reading of the ‘passage to the Third ’ inconspicuously located towards the end of Levinas's second magnum opus, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974). In response to critique levelled against his early conceptualization of the self as radically independent and autochthonous, the later Levinas introduces the notion of substitution, which entails a self always-already ‘infected’ by the other. The encounter with the other is therefore no longer premised on atheism and autarky, but anarchically located within the self. The other concerns me precisely because the other is not absolutely outside-of-me; the other is the other-within-the same, within me, the essence of my humanity.
Ethics of Interaction: Levinas and Enactivism on Affectivity, Responsibility, and Signification
Middle Voices, 2022
In recent years, there have been a number of attempts to connect enactivism with the work of Emmanuel Levinas. This essay is such an attempt. Its major theme is the relationship between affectivity and ethics. My touchstones in enactivist thought are Giovanna Colombetti and Steve Torrances’ “Emotion and Ethics: an (inter-)enactive account” (2009) and the influential concept of participatory sense-making developed by Hanne De Jaegher and Ezequiel Di Paolo (2007). With respect to Levinas, I deploy major insights from Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being. I first show that enactivist thought (thus represented) and Levinas roughly agree on three points: the fundamentality of human affectivity; the ethical significance of affective response to the other; the interpersonal nature of sense-making. I then consider some difficulties with Colombetti and Torrance’s conception of interaction-responsibility, which is based on De Jaegher and Di Paolo’s formulation of interaction-autonomy, and use Levinas to draw attention to the role of passivity and asymmetry in interaction in a way so far overlooked by enactivist thinkers. Working through a problem case yields insights for both perspectives. I argue, first, that ethics does not arise from interaction but instead should be considered foundational for interaction as such. Second, we must distinguish between a participant and observer perspective on interaction in a way not yet carried out by enactivist thinkers. Third, the method of enactivist research exemplified by Colombetti and Torrance can help make phenomenologically manifest important insights into Levinas’ difficult concept of “the third”.
Levinas Subjectivity, Affectivity and Desire.
The thesis argues that Emmanuel Levinas s later concept of ethical subjectivity, explicated in his late work Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, can really only be understood by taking into account the very early work On Escape. The thesis argues that the concept of ethical subjectivity emerges from his work via his attempts to articulate transcendence. Transcendence itself is ultimately identified with ethics. My thesis traces his continued attempts at a satisfactory conception of transcendence through the early works (Existence and Existents and Time and the Other), and via his other major work Totality and Infinity. On Escape articulates a very specific notion of need in terms of a need for escape which forms the conceptual seeds of Levinas s idea of transcendence, and which will ultimately become his notion of metaphysical Desire. His notion of ethics as the arresting of the spontaneous ego s conatus by the face of the Other, will turn out to ultimately requires the articulation of ethical subjectivity. The notion of ethical subjectivity is made possible, and thus his work reaches maturity, by the introduction of the notion of the trace. I argue that the idea of subjectivity as openness and vulnerability and the notion of an otherwise than being can be traced to the early work. My thesis takes as its starting point Levinas s engagement and criticism of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. I argue that Levinas can best be understood as always in some sense in conversation with Heidegger. 7 Levinas (2006b) 8 We will see that there are significant exceptions to this whole. 9 I use capitals in order to emphasise the philosophical centrality of these concepts in Levinas s philosophy. It
Levinas and the Possibility of Dialogue with “Strangers”
Identity and Difference, 2018
She lived and worked in the Netherlands while completing her doctoral studies and postdoctoral research. She still maintains strong collaborative ties with the Radboud University Nijmegen where she obtained her doctoral degree in Philosophy on the work of Foucault and Levinas. Her research interests fall within the broad ambit of contemporary Continental philosophy with an enduring fascination for the inextricable entanglement of the ethical and the political.
The Question of Freedom in the Early Writings of Emmanuel Levinas
2014
Conclusion Bibliography 7 The philosopher most often associated with viewing morality as autonomy and self-governance was Immanuel Kant. For more on the historical development of the concept of morality as self-governance, and the importance that such a view had in shaping the Western liberal vision of the relationship between individual and society, see, J.
In: An Encyclopaedia of Communication Ethics: Goods in Contention, Eds. Ronald C. Arnett, Annette M. Holba and Susan Mancino (Peter Lang, 2018), 2018
Addressing Levinas (Evanston: Northwestern University Press)
Addressing Levinas, edited with Antje Kapust and Kent Still, 2005
Table of Contents and Nelson and Kapust, Preface An international group of scholars on a corpus becoming increasingly central to contemporary continental philosophy and ethics. At a time of great and increasing interest in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, this volume draws readers into what Levinas described as "philosophy itself"--"a discourse always addressed to another." Thus the philosopher himself provides the thread that runs through these essays on his writings, a thread guided by the importance of the fact of being addressed--the significance of the Saying which is much more than the Said. The authors, leading Levinas scholars and interpreters from across the globe, explore the philosopher's relationship to a wide range of intellectual traditions, including theology, philosophy of culture, Jewish thought, phenomenology and the history of philosophy. They also engage Levinas's contribution to ethics, politics, law, justice, psychoanalysis and epistemology, among other themes. In their radical singularity, these essays reveal the inalienable alterity at the heart of Levinas's ethics. At the same time, each essay remains open to the others, and to the perspectives and positions they advocate. Thus the volume, in its quality and diversity, enacts an authentic encounter with Levinas's thought, embodying an intellectual ethics by virtue of its style. Bringing together contributions from philosophy, theology, literary theory, gender studies, and political theory, this book offers a deeper and more thorough encounter with Levinas's ethics. It shows readers a productive approach to a body of work that is becoming increasingly central to contemporary continental philosophy and ethics. "Emmanuel Levinas is today generally recognized to be one of the most important European thinkers of the twentieth century. If one wished to read a single volume to get a sense of the range and depth of contemporary criticism on this major, indispensable figure, Addressing Levinas would have to be it. This outstanding collection of essays brings together many of the best-known commentators on Levinas’s work—as well as some of his finest translators into English—on a variety of essential topics, from Levinas’s original reinterpretation of ethics, ontology, and phenomenology (for example, his analyses of the face, the Other, and death) to his important but often neglected political works, his rich Talmudic readings, and his suggestive if sometimes problematic relation to psychoanalysis and questions of sexual difference. Addressing Levinas is a collection wholly worthy of its most eminent and, sadly, now silent addressee." — Michael Naas, Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University "Given the rapidly growing interest in Levinas, this volume has to be seen as an important contribution. Addressing Levinas gathers together the best-known scholars working today in French thought. Frequently reflecting on contemporary events, these essays demonstrate that Levinas's thought is not only appropriate but more than ever trenchant." — Leonard Lawlor, Faudree-Hardin University Professor of Philosophy, The University of Memphis