This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Burns, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Identifying concrete ethical demands in the face of the abstract other

Emmanuel Levinas' pragmatic ethics

King's University College at the University of Western Ontario, Canada

Critics of Levinas reject the notion that the abstract face of the other can ground ethics and generate specific responsibilities. To the contrary, I argue that the face does ground a practical and pragmatic ethics. Drawing on Levinas' phenomenological analyses of the enjoying subject, I show that the face communicates an imperative to the subject that obligates her or him to repair the concrete context of action in which the subject encounters the other. My elucidation takes very seriously the notion that the face speaks and the face is a body. When coupled with a pragmatic account of communication, Levinas gives us a robust elucidation of the phenomenological and pragmatic dimensions of ethical responsibility.

Key Words: embodiment • ethics • face • Emmanuel Levinas • phenomenology • pragmatics • responsibility

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?