This article considers the affinities in the socio-political thought of Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Rorty. The writings of both display considerable concern for the suffering of others. Both authors note the importance of a self-critical subject becoming more aware of its own injustice as very important for recognizing our responsibilities to others. Furthermore, both stress the importance of recognizing the other outside of the usual, objectifying categories, since it is the uniqueness of the other that reminds us of our responsibility (...) for the other. Both writers view the liberal state as the best political forum in which to realize a fuller recognition of and responsibility towards the other, a form of state in which the ethical constantly interrupts the political. Rorty and Levinas disagree, however, on the legitimacy of not responding to the other. Key Words: Critchley • irony • justice • Levinas • liberal state • other • responsibility • Rorty • sentimental education. (shrink)

Having been struck by the Levinasian aspects of J.M. Coetzee's Age of Iron, this article tries to ‘reveal' Coetzee's novel as a Levinasian narration of how the other ruptures a specific subject's self-regarding egoism, leading the subject to take up its responsibility for the other. Throughout, the concreteness and realism of the novel is considered supplementary to the abstraction of Levinas's philosophical thought. It is demonstrated how the main character in Age of Iron, Elizabeth Curren, is confronted by the other (...) as a face, has her right to be put into question by the other, experiences guilt for her usurpation of the place of the other, which becomes positive in her assuming responsibility for the other. In awakening to the other, Curren moves from a Heideggerean concern with her own death (she is dying of cancer) towards a Levinasian prioritising of the other's life over her own. Her coming into contact with the political violence and oppression of late 1980s South Africa adds to and focuses her expiation for the other. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(1) 2005: 22-32. (shrink)