Abstract
To what extent can Levinas’ thought be useful, to engage with and perhaps learn from, non-Western and postcolonial ethical frameworks and conceptions of difference and alterity? An encounter between ethical metaphysics and “other” non-Western, postcolonial philosophies of alterity seems critical in light of the fact that all of Levinas’ philosophical labors have relentlessly been dedicated to uncovering the violence at the very heart of Western philosophy — the reductive tendency of the Self to reduce, subject or “colonize” any and every form of otherness it comes into contact with. Within the canon of contemporary Western philosophy, his has been one of the most prominent (if not the first) voice(s) to initiate the ethical turn towards the Other, insisting upon the inherent responsibility we bear towards others. With this insistence, Levinas decisively reconstrued the decentered subject of the second half of the 20th century in terms of its fundamental relatedness to the Other. This Other is not merely the one who appeals to me in the face of the beggar, the orphan or the widow. More radically, this Other is conceived as an alterity lodged within the self. When considering the possibility of a critical encounter between Levinas and non-Western and/or postcolonial conceptions of the other, however, one runs up against a number of challenges.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
K. A. Appiah (1992), In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 72.
R. H. Bell (2002), Understanding African Philosophy: A Cross-cultural Approach to Classical and Contemporary Issues (New York: Routledge), p. 48.
E. Levinas (1988), “La vocation de l’autre,” in E. Hirsch (ed.), Racismes. L’autre et son visage (Paris: Cerf), p. 92.
T. Serequeberhan (1994), The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy (New York: Routledge), p. 128.
E. Mphahlele (1967), “Remarks on Negritude,” in African Writing Today (Harmondsworth: Penguin), p. 248.
J. E. Drabinsky (2011), Levinas and the Postcolonial. Race, Nation, Other (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
M. L. Morgan (2011), The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 186.
J. Robbins (ed.) (2001), Is it Righteous To Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press), p. 163.
E. Levinas (1987), Time and the Other, trans. R. Cohen. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press). In French: (1948), Le temps et l’autre (Grenoble & Paris: B. Arthaud).
S. Critchley (2010), “Five Problems in Levinas’s View of Politics and the Sketch of a Solution to Them,” in P. Atterton and M. Calarco (eds), Radicalizing Levinas (Albany: Suny Press), pp. 41–53.
R. Eaglestone (2010), “Postcolonial Thought and Levinas’s Double Vision,” in P. Atterton and M. Calarco (eds), Radicalizing Levinas (Albany: Suny Press), pp. 57–68.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 AB (Benda) Hofmeyr
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hofmeyr, A. (2015). Levinas Meets the Postcolonial: Rethinking the Ethics of the Other. In: Imafidon, E. (eds) The Ethics of Subjectivity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137472427_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137472427_16
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-50124-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-47242-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)