Diss. Univ. Greifswald, 2007 (leicht überarb.). / Bibliographie: S. 263-284.

Le personnalisme conçoit la personne comme une fin, jamais comme un moyen. La personne surpasse toutes ses propriétés pour devenir une réalité transcendante grâce à ses particularités. Elle donne un sens à l'histoire de l’humanité et préserve sa place dans l'univers par le principe de personnalisation. Le personnalisme conteste l'individualisme parce qu'il s’oriente vers l'expression et l'ouverture de la personne. Celui-là défend la personne au nom de la dignité humaine. En outre, le personnalisme enseigne à la personne comment vivre dans la réalité, harmoniser la nature et aimer son prochain. Ainsi, il s'oppose à la fois au libéralisme et au marxisme. Ces deux idéologies condamnent la personne; de plus, le libéralisme méprise la dimension communautaire. Dans cette thèse "Dimensions de la personne selon E. Mounier", nous démontrerons de quelle manière le recours au personnalisme d ’Emmanuel Mounier combat et dépasse ces deux conceptions fausses de la politique. Selon Emmanuel Mounier, le personnalisme, l’existentialisme et le marxisme se partagent en France le royaume de l'esprit. Néanmoins, ils possèdent chacun leurs particularités. Le marxisme se définit comme un système indépendant et précis en lequel il réalise sa philosophie par une révolution sociale et économique. L’existentialisme s'engendre dans la pensée nietzschéenne et kierkegaardienne. Cette conception s'affirme sous la plume de Sartre, Merleau Ponty et Gabriel Marcel. Le personnalisme, pour sa part, surpasse ces systèmes car il assure la promotion de la personne et se met à l’écoute de l'événement. A la suite de Kant, le personnalisme présente la personne comme une fin qui ne doit jamais servir de simple moyen. La personne ne constitue pas une chose ou un objet à utiliser mais "un centre de réorientation de l’univers objectif” (E. Mounier). La personne donne un sens à l'histoire de l’humanité. Elle a sa place dans l'univers; ce qui fait intervenir le principe de personnalisation. Le personnalisme montre à la personne de vivre dans la réalité, de s’ouvrir vers le monde, d'aimer son prochain et d'harmoniser la nature positivement. Il y a deux principales conditions de la personne. Premièrement, la condition infra-consciente et, en deuxième lieu, la condition supra-consciente. La dimension infra-consciente amène la personne à grandir parmi les choses qui l’entourent. Le personnalisme surpasse la condition infra-consciente pour raviver la dimension spirituelle (condition supra-consciente). La personne se situe dans un environnement vivant mais participera aussi au destin de l'univers. Elle s'incarne et vit dans le réel car elle communique avec son milieu. Mounier parle de la révolution personnaliste et communautaire, cependant cette révolution se voit colorée par la dimension morale, sociale et politique. La personne vivra dans l'amour et l'apprentissage du "tu”. L'existence personnelle bascule entre un mouvement d'extériorisation et d’intériorisation. Ces deux mouvements soutiennent l'existence personnelle. La connaissance possède le même principe. Le rationalisme sépare la raison humaine de l’homme lui-même comme s'il sollicitait une preuve concrète. Le personnalisme, dans sa pensée, lie la raison à l’homme connaissant. Le rationalisme extrême situe sa foi au niveau de la raison. Le personnalisme, quant à lui, parle en termes de foi philosophique qui devient la base de toutes les connaissances.

Univ., Diss.--Zürich, 2006.

Univ., Diss.--Kiel, 2004.

Karl Rahner, responding to the problems raised by Kant's critical philosophy, sought to present a Thomistic metaphysics of realism in a modern thought-form through a reduction of the interrogative thrust of the intellect to its possibility conditions, and so, like Marechal before him, attain an absolute affirmation of Being. Rahner's transcendental system, however, would seem to have been overtaken by a more existential stress in phenomenological thinking. Emmanuel Levinas, with his thought of the Other and his attempt at an excendence from Being, would seem at first glance to sit uncomfortably alongside Rahner's system, yet, a closer reading of both unearths a remarkable convergence in their thinking. The deeper phenomenological reduction which Levinas undertakes to reveal the inter-subjective context of consciousness helps to humanise Rahner's approach. This thesis attempts a fruitful confrontation of both thinkers by, firstly, indicating the tension between Rahner's own philosophical propaedeutic and his theological writings, particularly on grace, mystery and the love of God and neighbour, where he affirms that human existence is ultimately reductio in mysterium and that human fulfilment is to be found in a personal relationship with a human Other. A second purpose is to show how these same theological themes can be developed from within Levinas' own thought, and how his own philosophy can provide a worthwhile context for Christian theology. The thesis unfolds by considering the various methods - metaphysical, transcendental and phenomenological - which surround both thinkers (Chapter 1) and then proceeds to outline their various philosophical influences (Chapter 2). Since the notion of Being as self-presence is fundamental in Rahner, and since Levinas refuses a philosophy of presence, Chapter 3 questions the privilege of presence. This will lead, in its turn, to a rethinking of the notion of subjectivity: the subject is not to be consider as presence-to-self but as a relationship with the Other (Chapter 4). This relationship is experienced in Desire (Chapter 5) and in the responsibility experienced before the face of the Other (Chapter 6). The relation between ethics (the good) and Being is pursued in chapter 7. Finally, the notion of mystery is indicated as the theme which inspires the work of both Rahner and Levinas (Chapter 8). Rahner's unmastered mystery will become Levinas' incomprehensible infinity in the presence of which the subject is called to response and responsibility.

Few philosophers, today, are doing more than simple recognition of Levinass debt to phenomenology when a thorough explication of how phenomenological methodology impacts Levinass work is needed. This dissertation is the needed discussion of methodology that has been so absent in Levinas as well as in so many of his interpreters. The purpose, herein, is to synthesize Levinass work, explicating it in terms of transcendental methodology, the result of which reveals Levinass claims to be more defensible when understood in these terms than when the full rigor of this methodology is not properly grasped. First, to connect Levinas to transcendental phenomenology a correct perspective of the phenomenological tradition is needed. I argue that phenomenology is a methodology that discloses those horizons that condition experience such that appearance takes on meaning. I further argue that it is important to see this disclosure as something open-ended and ongoing rather than a method capable of fully revealing a final telos. Levinas fits into this methodology by providing the ethical as just such a horizonal condition, while his constant returning to this theme highlights the need to keep reworking the description of its meaningful impact on experience. Second, I defend Levinas from those who claim his work cannot be phenomenological, based on what they see as an implied Jewish tradition informing his description. I argue that what must be understood is that Levinass reference to God, Biblical stories, and Jewish wisdom impose an unsettling language that is introduced to replace traditional phenomenological language that does not always allow for the goals phenomenology sets for itself. This imposition does not use the Jewish tradition to make his argument but as a vocabulary far better at describing the ethical condition than what is commonly used in phenomenology. The final step of explication involves the actual application of the methodology, now understood aright, to Levinass claims about the other, the self, and the ethical. The result is that once we understand the ethical as the infinite originative horizon out of which the conscious ego emerges, later interpretations of Levinas will be able to successfully move beyond his work.

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This thesis interrogates how Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes represents histories of violence ethically by utilizing Emmanuel Lévinas’s philosophy of ethics as a methodology for interpretation. Traditional slave narratives like Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography and postmodern neo-slave narratives like Toni Morrison’s Beloved animate the violence endemic to slavery and colonialism in an effort to emphasize struggles in conscience, the incomprehensible atrocities, and strategies of rebellion. However, this project illustrates how The Book of Negroes supplements these literary goals with Hill’s own imagination of how slaves contested the inhumanities thrust upon them. Through his aesthetic choices as a realist, Hill foregrounds the possibilities of pacifism, singular identities, and altruistic agency through his protagonist Aminata Diallo. These three narrative elements constitute Lévinas’s ethical peace, which means displaying a profound sensitivity towards the historical Other whom imperial discourses and traditional representations of catastrophes in Black history might obscure. / Graduate / 0325 / 0328 / 0352 / jaslife12@hotmail.com

Engaging the question of postmodern ethical intersubjectivity in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Luce Irigaray I attempt to move beyond Levinas sacrificial view of intersubjectivity with Irigaray's critique of sexual difference. I argue that Levinas view of ethical 'subjectivity' is violently conditioned by a necessary narcissim located in Levinas's description of the feminine dwelling. Instead of narcissim I argue with Irigaray for a way of love that offers an ethical relationship bonded in mutuality. This way of love is rooted in an understanding of the primordial matter of life as good for intersubjective-relationships that do not depend upon narcissim for connection. Concluding this study I suggest that his kind of intersubjectivity can be rooted in a primordial way of life found in the rhythm of breath.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Filosofía / El título de este trabajo, La alteridad como punto de partida de una práctica transformadora de la educación, contiene dos nociones que sustentan el desarrollo del texto: las nociones de alteridad y de transformación educativa. Comencemos revisando la primera:¿qué es la alteridad? Este concepto es propio de la filosofía de Emmanuel Lévinas y su significación tiene relación con la experiencia de la otredad: la presencia del Otro humano, de su rostro, es clave en el seno de una subjetividad ética. La perspectiva levinasiana es absolutamente rupturista con la mayor parte de la tradición filosófica occidental pues supone una deconstrucción radical de la noción tradicional del yo (cogito) y de todas sus determinaciones como identidad, autonomía y poder. En su lugar, reformula el significado de “sujeto” o “subjetividad” para reescribirla en clave ética. El sujeto levinasiano implica procesos de subjetivación complejos y articulados, en los que el momento “heterónomo” del impacto del otro es constitutivo y primero. La filosofía de Lévinas es una filosofía de la intersubjetividad. Ella significa un abandono de la centralidad de la categoría de Mismo (ego, mónada, conciencia, Dasein) y la reivindicación o preponderancia del Otro (alteridad, prójimo, infinito) que, lejos de suprimir la subjetividad, la reorienta y la reescribe, como ya se ha dicho, en clave ética.