Re: Humanism, Levinas, Foucault

Levinas is much in vogue in my discipline lately, due mainly to the
influence of Simon Critchley's book on Deconstruction and ethics (I can't
remember the exact title). I read quite a bit of Levinas when he began to
get imported and rejected him, for the following reasons.

One, his thesis that the other precedes and is constitutive of the self,
really doesn't help when faced with the practicalities of ethical decision
making. Who is the other, for instance, when I am faced with a choice of
sending my salary to feed an(other) or feed my family? Given the fact the
the Other is a actually many Others how do we mediate relations between
Selves and Others. Levinas's answer is to introduce the state as mediator
between Others. This really gets problematic when Levinas himself is faced
with a concrete ethical decision. Levinas was Jewish and when the Southern
Lebanese Army attacked the refugee camps in Shabra and Chatila, (excuse my
spelling) tacitly supported by the Israeli army (or allegedly so), Levinas
failed to come out against the act and when asked about his silence replied
that when he talked of the Other he really meant his immediate neighbour.
Make of this waht you will.


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Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA

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