Emmanuel Levinas and Ethical Responsibility

• Time/day: 6:30-8:30, Wednesdays starting June 25 and running for 10 weeks
• Venue: The Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue (note revised address)
• Facilitator: Corey Katz
• Contact: corey@anarchistu.org

This will be a facilitated reading group on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas attempts to show how the Western philosophical tradition has forgotten the ethical foundation to all human life and thought. I am looking forward to discussing Levinas's writings with people of all backgrounds. I do not see myself serving the role of lecturer but instead one of facilitating the discussions and serving as a philosophical resource. Levinas's difficult texts are poetic and rhetorical at the same time as being philosophical, and they can be accessed in a number of ways. I look forward to exploring them together!

About Me

I do not come from an activist background but primarily an academic one. I completed my MA thesis last summer on ethical philosophy. I am not an expert at Levinas's often difficult thought, though I do have a background in European philosophy.

About Levinas

Levinas was born in to a religious Jewish family in Lithuania and was educated and lived in France. His writings have been incredibly influential in post-WWII European thought, shaping the work of Maurice Blanchot, Paul Ricœur and especially Jacques Derrida. He was instrumental in bringing phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger) to France. After the Holocaust and his experiences in a German work camp, Levinas attempted a radical critique of the European philosophical tradition. Except for a few moments, Levinas argues, this tradition forgets the ethical foundation to all human life and thought. His work over fifty years sought to show how the infinite ethical responsibility that arises from the relationship with the Other is "first philosophy."

Despite his deep engagement with the Western philosophical tradition, Levinas's work extends today far beyond academia. An understanding of ethical responsibility has implications for the struggle against poverty, for justice and the respect of the rights of others. Levinas's spiritual and ethical positions have influenced activists, intellectuals and statesmen around the world, such as Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Jorge Semprun in Spain and Liberation Theologist Enrique Dussel.

Logistics

Our meetings will take place on the ground floor of the Centre for Social Innovation, which has been kind enough to let us use their space. Meetings will be on Wednesday evenings from 6.30-8.30pm (except session 6 which will be on a Tuesday). Our first meeting will be June 25th and the group will run for ten weeks.

The Centre for Social Innovation 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 120 http://www.socialinnovation.ca/contact

Resources

Levinas's "Straw Men": A very abridged placement of Levinas within the tradition. I hope this review will allow us to get a basic understanding of Levinas’s “straw men” and thus the critiques of these earlier thinkers that are woven into Levinas’s writing. These are “straw men” because they are not always based on the most nuanced interpretation of the previous philosophers.

• FreeU_Levinas_Group_Straw_Men_Lecture.doc: Levinas's "Straw Men"

Biography of Levinas

Peter Atterton's Emmanuel Levinas Web Page: An excellent resource including a short biography, lists of primary and secondary literature, interesting links and more.

The following are some intro readings and guides to Levinas's thought.  

·     Davis, Colin, Levinas: An Introduction, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1996.

·     Dudiak, Jeffrey, The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas, New York, Fordham University Press, 2001.

·     Ethics and Infinity, Conversations with Philippe Nemo, translated by R. Cohen, Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press, 1985.

·     Peperzak, Adriaan, Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University Press, 1997.

The Outline

The first half of our time together will be spent getting a basic sense of how Levinas understands the ethical relation and how he interacts with the Western philosophical tradition. This will include discussing what Levinas has to say about labour and the environment, as well as discussing feminist critiques of him.

In our second half, we will turn to Levinas's later work where he attempts to reformulate his idea of ethical relation, especially in the face of critiques by Jacques Derrida. We will then review how Levinas pictures the relation between ethics and politics in general. In our discussions, it might be necessary to subject Levinas's various political positions to his own idea of ethical responsibility to really see how his theory might be a productive tool for activist struggles.

In general, I have suggested a primary reading for each week (1). I have tried to keep the length to around 30 pages. I have also included secondary (2) and sometimes tertiary (3) readings for those with more time or interest. Each meeting will be two hours (or longer if discussion is really going).

Anyone wishing to also act as a facilitator for the discussion for any week is more than welcome. For each week I will try to prepare some discussion questions and/or a brief outline of the text to help direct us, but if you wish to facilitate you can do so in whatever way you see fit.

The Readings

Each week I will email out .pdf files of the readings. If you’re interested in attending specific weeks, email me for the readings. If you do not have access to a printer we can arrange it for me to photocopy the readings for a nominal fee ($1-$2/class).

 

For those interested in purchasing the books for themselves, I have given citations for the books from which our readings will be taken. For those wishing to minimize their purchases, I recommend Levinas’s two major works that begin the list.

 

·     Totality and Infinity, translated by A. Lingis, Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press, 1969. (TI)

·     Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, translated by A. Lingis, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. (OB)

·     Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, edited by A. Peperzak, S. Critchley and R. Bernasconi, Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1996. (BPW)

·     Collected Philosophical Papers, translated by A. Lingis, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987.

·     Re-Reading Levinas, ed. Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley, Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1991.

·     The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, ed. Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

·     Entre Nous: On Thinking of The Other (European Perspectives), translated by Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav, Columbia Univ Press, 1998.

 

Course Outline

Week 1. Introduction - Wednesday, June 25

• Levinas's biography
• Levinas's relation to the Western tradition
• course outline

 

Week 2. Is Ontology Fundamental? - Wednesday, July 2

• The break from Heidegger
• The importance of language
• The ethical relation 1.0

Readings

1. "Is Ontology Fundamental?" in Basic Philosophical Writings (BPW)

 

Week 3. Totality and Infinity 1 - Wednesday, July 9

• The ethical relation 2.0: the infinite transcendence and height of the Other

Readings

1. "Transcendence and Height" (BPW 11-30) and "Preface" ( Totality and Infinity (TI) 21-30)
2. "Metaphysics and Transcendence" (TI 21-52)

 

Week 4. Totality and Infinity 2 - Wednesday, July 16

• Labour, Enjoyment and the Elemental
• Levinas on animal life
• Levinas and environmental ethics

Readings

1. TI 109-142
2. John Llewelyn, "Am I Obsessed by Bobby?: (Humanism of the Other Animal)" in Re-Reading Levinas

 

Week 5. The Feminine - Tuesday, July 22

• The dwelling and the feminine
• Feminist critiques

Readings

1. 143-174 in TI
2. Catherine Chalier, "Ethics and the Feminine" in Re-Reading Levinas
3. Stella Sandford, "Levinas, feminism and the feminine" in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas

 

Week 6. Otherwise than Being 1 - Wednesday, July 30

• The ethical relation 3.0
• Self as a hostage in substitution
• The trace of the Other

Readings

1. "Substitution" in BPW
2. Otherwise than Being (OB) 1-20

 

Week 7. Otherwise than Being 2 - Wednesday, August 6

• Substitution continued
• The Saying and the Said

Readings

1. 45-60, 72-94 in OB

 

Week 8 & 9. Ethics and Politics - Wednesday, August 13 & 20

• a. The ethical relation and Levinas’s support of the liberal State
• versus b. The an-archic reading of politics
• Levinas on human rights

Readings

1. "Peace and Proximity" in BPW
2. "Humanism and An-archy" and "No Identity" in Collected Philosophical Papers
3. "The Rights of Man and Good Will" and "The Other, Utopia, and Justice" in Entre Nous

 

Week 10. Sum-Up - Wednesday, August 27

• tying up the loose ends
• finishing up discussions