Texte remanié de: Diss.--Katholisch-theologische Fakultät--Tübingen--Eberhard-Karls-Universität, 1997. Titre de soutenance : Subjektivität als Verantwortung : die Ambivalenz des Humanum bei Emmanuel Levinas und ihre Bedeutung für die theologische Rede vom Menschen in der Perspektive von Gottesbildlichkeit und Sündhaftigkeit. / Bibliogr. p. 482-497. Index.

Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney / This dissertation investigates the possibility of a renewed phenomenological ethics that would ground ethics in the structure of lived experience, so that daily existence is ethically informative and the good is located in the concrete, heartfelt affairs of dwelling in the world with others. Thus far, phenomenological ethics has been deeply influenced by the two schools of Max Scheler’s value ethics and Emmanuel Levinas’ alterity ethics, both of which I argue share a fundamental point of contact in what I am calling Deep Kantianism. That is, phenomenological ethics has been haunted by Immanuel Kant’s non-phenomenological divide between nature and freedom, being and goodness, ontology and ethics. In response, I will suggest a new point of departure for phenomenological ethics beginning with the originary unity of being and goodness as revealed by the love that moves the self beyond herself toward her ground in the other person. Chapter One seeks to establish and identify the problem of Deep Kantianism, or explain what exactly Deep Kantianism is according to its origins. Kant begins his ethics with Hume’s assumption that being and goodness, is and ought, are separate. The implications of this divide threaten to reduce being to bare being without ethical import and to convert the good into an abstract shadow that is irrelevant to the situations of daily life. Chapter Two examines how Scheler in his value ethics shows against Kant that the ethical is only experienced by a being with a heart. The source of normativity is revealed and known through affectivity. However, this insight is troubled by Scheler’s distinction between values and bearers of value that repeats the Kantian distinction between nature and freedom, respectively. Chapter Three focuses on Scheler’s prioritization of love as the fundamental affect of the heart and person in its moving the person outside of herself, a movement that constitutes the person as such. However, this love turns out to not be for the sake of the person but for the value-essence that she bears, again placing the ethical with Kant outside of the realm of Being. Chapter Four begins with Levinas’ discovery that ethics is constituted by the relation to the Other, an ethical relation that is the first relation before any ontological relation, indicating that the self is responsible for the Other. Yet Levinas here is haunted by Deep Kantianism in his denigration of affectivity, which for him is an egoist return to the self that excludes the Other. Chapter Five argues that Levinas’ ethics is permeated by an abyssal nothingness that is exhibited in the destitution of the Other in Totality and Infinity and the passivity of the self in Otherwise than Being. The nothingness that permeates the ethical relation hints at the necessity of a return to the ontological, suggesting that ontology is not, as Levinas maintains following Kant, devoid of ethical implications. Chapter Six turns to Martin Heidegger in his retrieval of a pre-Kantian pathos through his readings of Augustine and Aristotle. This pathos suggests that affectivity is always already oriented toward the things and persons of the world in a way that reveals what is conducive and detrimental to one’s Being, implying a notion of what is good and bad for one’s Being, which Heidegger leaves undeveloped. Chapter Seven conducts a phenomenology of the ground of ethics that is informed by the discoveries made by Scheler, Levinas, and Heidegger. The self begins as constituted by a nothing, demanding that it move outside of itself in the exteriorization of love. This exteriorization directs the self to the concrete other person, the thou, who is revealed to be both the Good and Being as the proper end of love, indicating that the self is constituted by Being-for-the-Other. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Bloechl / The dissertation addresses two interrelated questions through a reading of works by Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil: (1) what justification is there for the reality of ethics since the Shoah, and (2) what does the vulnerability of the person and of ethics imply about the nature of human subjectivity and its witness to atrocity? The thesis argued is that vulnerability is the one quality that best defines human existence at every level of experience, hence that ethics requires constant active preservation. After introducing Levinas and Weil through their ideas of substitution and decreation, respectively, we consider how their tolerance of contradiction defines a decreative hermeneutics, or self-abdicative interpretation of the world. Further preliminaries justify Levinas’s use of value judgments in philosophical arguments and review the relation of his and Weil’s thought to Heidegger’s philosophy, to Nelson Goodman’s notion of worldmaking, and to the problem of evil. Through Levinas’s controversial notion of persecution, the method of decreative phenomenology is developed as an approach to ethical problems that explicitly seeks to preserve the alterity of the other person. Applications include Levinas’s idea of subjectivity as expiation, the status of testimonial literature on atrocity, and the present-day totalizing legacy of the concentration camps. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

本研究從對理性主體教育學之質疑出發，透過與Emmanuel Levinas他者哲學之對話，嘗試從責任、對話與正義三個與教育相關之議題切入，闡述Levinas他者哲學對存有論、知識論與政治學之批判，藉此，豐富教育學在主體觀、知識論與政治學三個面向上之倫理性意涵。因此，本研究關於Levinas他者哲學與教育學之連結，所採取的不是將Levinas他者哲學應用在教育學實踐之取徑，而是在理論層面上，透過Levinas他者哲學對西方傳統哲學之反思，重新返回教育學原初的倫理處境，挖掘更豐富的教育學意涵。最後，本研究之主要結論為：一、教育主體必先是為他人負責的責任主體，才可以是自由的主體；二、與他者的關係必先是一種言說關係，知識才可以有其客觀性，互為主體的認識關係方可以運作；三、在為他負責的主體性及不對稱關係作為教育正義之前提下，教育的多元性才可以不只是多樣性，才可以是平等的，而正義方可以是比較的。 / Based on “ethics as first philosophy”, Levinas criticized the western philosophy in ontology, epistemology, and politics. Along with Levinas’ thought, this research discusses the educational implications of responsibility, dialogue, and justice. As for the connection between Levinas’ thought and pedagogy, this research is not intended to apply the former to the latter. The author believes that Levinas’ ethical thought (about ontology, epistemology, and politics) can enrich the meanings of pedagogy theoretically. Finally, this research findings conclude: (1) the responsibility for the other is prior to the freedom of the subject; (2) the saying with the other is prior to the comprehension of the inter-subjectivity; (3) the dissymmetrical relation is prior to the equality.

L’objectif de notre présente étude est d’examiner un contexte philosophique dans lequel s’inscrit la recherche de la subjectivité liée à l’idée de l’extériorité à travers une étude des liens entre la philosophie de Franz Rosenzweig et celle d’Emmanuel Levinas. L’idée de socialité dans notre recherche se fonde sur la question de l’extériorité et sur celle de la subjectivité dans leurs philosophies. Ces deux philosophes soutiennent tous deux l’idée de la rupture de la totalité et défendent la subjectivité. Toutefois, leurs divergences sont profondescar la tentative de Levinas qui aboutit à la recherche d’une subjectivité consistant dans le dérangement de l’ordre ne renvoie pas au système rosenzweigien. Dès lors, quel est l’héritage de Rosenzweig dans la philosophie de Levinas ? Dans la première partie, nous déterminons la portée de la notion de système et celle de totalité dans leurs philosophies. Dans la seconde partie, nous observons la divergence entre leurs philosophies sur la conception du Soi et son rapport à l’extériorité. Dans la troisième partie, nous examinons la signification de la socialité fondée sur la question du temps. Selon nous, la question du langage qui fonde la relation entre le sujet et autrui se déploie à travers les analyses du temps, et ce sont des modalités du langage – le rapport entre le dialogue du « face-à-face » et l’intrusion de l’autre dans le sujet exprimé par Levinas comme « Dire sans Dit » - qui nous permettent de relier encore une fois la philosophie de Levinas à la philosophie de Rosenzweig. Levinas approfondit la question rosenzweigienne du dialogue sans dévaloriser sa signification et sans la systématiser, en partant de la pensée du système. / The objective of our present study is to examine the philosophical context in which the research of a subjectivity which would be linked to the idea of the exteriority becomes possible. This objective will be achieved thanks to the study of the connection between Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophy and Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy. In our research the idea of sociality is founded upon the question of the exteriority and upon the question of the subjectivity. Both Rosenzweig and Levinas are determined to put the idea of the totality into question and to defend the subjectivity. However, their differences are great: Levinas’s endeavor to open the field for a new understanding of the subjectivity, which consists in the disturbance of the order, doesn’t appear in Rosenzweig’s system. If such is the case, what does Levinas’s philosophy owe to the heritage of Rosenzweig? In the first part, we try to determine the realm of the notion of system and that of totality in their philosophies. In the second part, we try to observe the difference between their philosophies about the conception of the Self and of its link to the exteriority. In the third part, we examine the meaning of a sociality founded upon the question of time. In our view, the question of language, which is the basis of the relationship between a subject and the other, is inseparable from a profound analysis of time. The modalities of language – the connection between the dialogue of the “face-to-face” and the intervention of the other into the subject expressed by Levinas as “ Saying without Said” - allow us to underline the relation between the philosophy of Levinas with that of Rosenzweig. Levinas has deeply studied Rosenzweig’s understanding of the dialogue without depreciating its signification.

Levinas s’intéresse à la notion du concret de la phénoménologie de Husserl. En 1930, Levinas montre que la notion de l’être a son origine dans l’expérience concrète de l’être qui est l’intuition immanente philosophique. Dans les années 1940, d’une part, Levinas met en relief que la phénoménologie consiste à rechercher dans les vécus concrets l’origine du phénoménologue et de sa vie ; et d’autre part, il détermine l’esprit humain par sa puissance de coïncider avec l’origine de sa vie et de lui-même. À l’époque de Totalité et infini, Levinas clarifie que la description phénoménologique de l’expérience concrète d’une entité est à la fois l’événement même de la révélation de l’être concret de cette entité et l’événement même de l’effectuation de cette entité. D’où Levinas met en évidence, d’une part, la méthode de concrétisation qui lie les expériences concrètes les unes aux autres et, d’autre part, le perspectivisme qui décrit l’expérience concrète telle qu’elle est vécue maintenant. Dans Totalité et infini, Levinas effectue la description phénoménologique comprise par lui. En décrivant les expériences concrètes du moi, il les distribue en deux séries : celle du besoin (vie naïve) et celle du désir (critique de soi). Dans la série du besoin, sur la base de l’habitation se fondent les expériences du moi naïf : le travail, la possession et la représentation. Et dans la série du désir se distribuent les expériences avec autrui : la parole, l’amour avec la femme et la fécondité. Ces deux séries d’expériences constituent la forme originaire de l’expérience du moi personnel. Totalité et infini est en ce sens la description phénoménologique du moi personnel par excellence. / Levinas brings out the notion of the concrete from Husserl’s phenomenology. In his 1930 book, Levinas shows that the notion of the being has its origin in the concrete experience of the being that is philosophical immanent intuition. In two articles published in the 1940s, Levinas reveals that the phenomenology searches in concrete experiences the origin of the phenomenologist himself and his life. On the other hand, he determines the human spirit by its power to coincide with the origin of his life and himself. In four articles published around 1960, Levinas clarifies the phenomenological description of the concrete experience of an entity is the very event of revelation of the concrete being of this entity and the very event of the effectuation of the entity. Hence, Levinas brings out the method of concretization which connects together concrete experiences as well as the perspective which describes concrete experience as it is now experienced. In Totality and infinity, Levinas practices the phenomenological description understood by himself. By describing concrete experiences of the “I”, Levinas categorizes them into two series of experience: that of need (naive life) and that of desire (self-criticism). In the series of need, the experiences of the naive “I” relies on the dwelling : labor, possession and representation. And in the series of desire, experiences with the other are distributed: speech, love with woman and fecundity. These two series of experiences constitute the proto-form of the experience of the personal “I”. Totality and infinity is in this sense the phenomenological description of the personal “I” par excellence.

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.

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

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Bloechl / Per Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, existentialism is the profound truth that the world lacks inherent meaning and thus, we are radically free to choose, to live life as we please. While these assertions are both true and liberating and the theoretical level, these axioms leave individuals disoriented. They never answer the question: how does one live within an absurd world? Thus, these authors never give us a way of coping with the harsh repercussions of absurdity. To answer this question, this project turns to intersubjectivity and the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas’s theory of the other demonstrates that we are not merely beings in a vacuum; the world is conditioned by the interpersonal. Relating to the Other allows us to see that we are not alone in our suffering, for the Other and the individual mutually witness one another. Such connections provide a means of coping with absurdity, allowing us both solidarity and insight into the truly absurd nature of the world. Thus, the application of Levinas’s intersubjectivity to existentialism serves to save Camus’s notion of absurdity from its more nihilistic tendencies, allowing us to accept and apprehend absurdity without falling into despair or ignorance. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Philosophie, 2002. / Notes bibliogr., bibliogr. p. 177-183.