_Care of the Self: Ancient Problematizations of Life and Contemporary Thought_, by Lívia Flachbartová, Pavol Sucharek, and Vladislav Suvák, focus on different manifestations of “taking care of the self” present in ancient and contemporary thought.

Referring to a passage from Blanchot’s novel Thomas l’Obscure, the paper questions the clear contours between literature and philosophy as disciplines. The point where the clear distinction breaks down is the phenomenon of reading. In a decisive moment of each authentic reading, the author tries to introduce a “phenomenology of reading”, in which we ourselves as readers are being transformed to the ones who are read. Light, truth, clarity – all these are notions, which in Blanchot are opposed by passivity, (...) night, and absence. Underlined in particular is the absence of meaning, of any light in perpetuated occidental theoretical discourse, which is nothing more than one’s apology of oneself. Not to betray Blanchot means to abandon pure commentaries of his philosophy and to find another ways of its interpretation. Thus the questions of reading, interpretation, and translation might become the questions of life and death. To articulate this alternative approach is one of the aims of the paper. (shrink)

The essay compares Ricœur’s and Levinas’s conceptions of the constitution of conscience in the sense of German Gewissen. Beginning with Ricœur’s basic distinction between “identity-idem” and “identity-ipse” it shows the proper place of conscience in his conception. For Ricœur conscience is a finite category of otherness as related to the self, i.e. its most interior, intrinsic otherness. For Levinas, on the other hand, conscience – the other in the same – is an initiatory category, which is described in terms of (...) absolute passivity, persecution and substitution. In conclusion Ricœur´s critique of Levinas’ category of “the Other” is examined on the background of Levinas’ conception of subjectivity as a vocation for Good. (shrink)