Abstract

The context and work of Emmanuel Levinas, a contemporary French phenomenological philosopher, is introduced to the mainstream psychologist. The implications of this philosophy are explored for three interrelated areas of psychology: psychology's boundaries and cohesiveness; the place of the human in psychology; and psychology's role in justifying, establishing, or prescribing what is proper in terms of behavior. ;The dissertation examines, using Levinas' work as a guide, the uncanny nature of time as articulation of the world, how time is related to ethics and justice, and how it is intrinsically related to one's relationship with another. The work investigates subjectivity's basis in responsibility and its role in language. ;It is concluded that psychology's disunity is based in unresolvable philosophical aporias, not the least of which is the impossibility of capturing within a representational system the human who escapes representation. The various systems in psychology are attestations to the elusive nature of human subjectivity. ;Insofar as the place of the human in psychology is concerned, historicity is transcended by an ethically-based temporality. While the historico-cultural context of the human can explain a good deal, a philosophical investigation of temporality reveals an ethical bearing which eludes historicity and which is constitutive of subjectivity. ;Regarding its normative influence, as an historical entity psychology is vulnerable to ideological pressures, fads, and changes in historico-cultural context. Recognition of this historicity and of the responsibility inherent within a science charged with explaining human conduct might promote a humility within psychology which would temper its pronouncements. ;Other implications were also found and discussed, including the self-alienation present within human identity; the reliance of the logical law of identity upon visualism, the use of visual metaphors to describe understanding, awareness, consciousness, and comprehension; and the possibility of a counter-discourse to remind us that the terms we use are always inadequate when persons are involved