Levinasian reflections on somaticity and the ethical self

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 51 (6):603 – 626 (2008)
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Abstract

In this article, I attempt to bring some conceptual clarity to several key terms and foundational claims that make up Levinas's body-based conception of ethics. Additionally, I explore ways that Levinas's arguments about the somatic basis of subjectivity and ethical relatedness receive support from recent empirical research. The paper proceeds in this way: First, I clarify Levinas's use of the terms “sensibility”, “subjectivity”, and “proximity” in Otherwise than Being: or Beyond Essence . Next, I argue for an interpretation of Levinas's thought that I suggest is buttressed by recent experimental work in both developmental psychology and neuroscience. I provide examples of research that I suggest opens up Levinas's phenomenological analysis in new and interesting ways. I also urge the importance of Levinas's phenomenological analysis in contextualizing the ethical significance of these empirical findings.

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Joel Krueger
University of Exeter

Citations of this work

Merleau-Ponty on shared emotions and the joint ownership thesis.Joel Krueger - 2013 - Continental Philosophy Review 46 (4):509-531.
Direct Social Perception.Joel Krueger - 2018 - In Albert Newen, Leon De Bruin & Shaun Gallagher (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Merleau-Ponty.Joel Krueger - 1920 - In Thomas Szanto & Hilge Landweer (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 197-206.
Levinas's Philosophy of Perception.Matt E. M. Bower - 2017 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 55 (4):383-414.

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References found in this work

Totality and infinity: an essay on exteriority.Emmanuel Levinas - 1961 - Hingham, MA: distribution for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Boston.
The Phenomenological Mind.Shaun Gallagher & Dan Zahavi - 2008 - New York, NY: Routledge. Edited by Dan Zahavi.
Otherwise than being: or, Beyond essence.Emmanuel Levinas - 1974 - Hingham, MA: Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Boston.

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