Ethics and the Face (From Totality and Infinity) Emmanuel Levinas

Get Started. It's Free
or sign up with your email address
Ethics and the Face (From Totality and Infinity) Emmanuel Levinas by Mind Map: Ethics and the Face (From Totality and Infinity) Emmanuel Levinas

1. Autonomy

1.1. Defined as: self centered way of being

1.2. Violence

1.2.1. We are experiencing a violent world and violent way of life

1.2.2. Connatus Essendi

1.2.2.1. Centripetal movement

1.2.2.1.1. Law of the self

1.2.2.2. Every being desires self-preservation

1.2.2.3. The self as a source of meaning

1.3. Enjoyment

1.3.1. Natural and radical goal of our lives

1.3.2. What you’re really enjoying is yourself enjoying that thing, not the thing directly

1.3.3. Intensification of the centripetal movement

1.3.3.1. Sensible: enjoying things using senses

1.3.3.2. Possession: whether or not you dislike things, you still preserve, you still "enjoy" your service

1.3.3.3. Work: transforming nature to human nature

1.3.3.4. Thought/Immanence of Knowledge: to make something part of ourselves

1.4. Metaphor of Ingestion

1.4.1. E.g. Eating spaghetti

1.4.1.1. Breaking down what is not us

1.4.2. Attitude towards not the self

1.4.2.1. "allergy"

1.4.2.2. reduction of otherness into a totaity

1.4.3. Way out is epiphany

1.4.3.1. face to face encounter of other people cannot be reduced

2. Heteronomy

2.1. qn experience that breaks away from ingestion, allergy, immanentization

2.1.1. being face to face with another being

2.2. The Vocative Situation / Speech Situation

2.2.1. subject matter, speaker, person spoken to

2.2.2. being "fully there"

2.2.3. possibility of seeing the face of the other

2.3. Experience of the radical alterity of the Other

2.3.1. “The face is present in its refusal to be contained. In this sense it cannot be comprehended, that is, encompassed."

2.3.2. We can know the other as the pure other

2.3.3. experience of an overflow

2.3.4. cannot be an object of enjoyment

2.3.5. not an object but also a subject

2.3.5.1. allowed to be there as an other

3. Epiphany of the Face of the other

3.1. "Face"

3.1.1. metonymy for the very ungraspability of the human person

3.1.1.1. unique

3.1.2. what we see/what we are allowed to understand about another

3.1.3. Desire

3.1.3.1. leads to going beyond oneself

3.1.3.2. overflows ones capacity

3.1.3.2.1. inexplicability of encountering a who

3.1.3.2.2. heals allergy

3.1.3.3. infinite

3.1.4. welcoming of the face pacifies opposition

3.2. Epiphany

3.2.1. "to manifest, to show"

3.2.2. happens suddenly; element of unpreparedness

3.2.3. the encounter of the face of the other

3.2.3.1. experiencing the weak unicity of someone

3.2.3.1.1. commands care and respect

3.2.3.1.2. glimpse of vulnerability

3.2.4. moral experience

3.2.4.1. "You shall not kill"

3.2.4.1.1. represents a moral imperative

3.2.4.1.2. the "object" is also a subject

3.2.4.1.3. subject to subject interaction

3.2.4.2. moral discourse

3.2.4.2.1. phenomenological to moral

3.2.4.2.2. invitation to a relation incommensurate

3.2.5. Locus of origination

3.2.5.1. experiential root of all moral imperatives

4. Responsibility

4.1. ultimate response to the other

4.1.1. "Here I am"

4.1.1.1. Unworthiness

4.1.1.1.1. Isaiah 6 as a narrative

4.1.1.1.2. Being there for the other

4.1.1.1.3. offering time and existence

4.1.1.2. Frodo and Samwise's companionship

4.1.2. "Ikaw Muna"

4.1.2.1. The other is always ahead

4.1.2.2. Moral experience of the other

4.1.2.3. What makes SACRIFICE possible

4.1.2.4. nature of human relationships is reciprocity

4.1.3. Concrete

4.1.3.1. there are different ways to contribute

4.1.3.2. MY responsibility

4.2. No limit to the responsibility to the other

4.2.1. Assymetry of the interpersonal

4.2.2. limit goes as far as substituting ourselves in the suffering of the other

4.2.2.1. suffering servant; Jesus Christ

4.2.2.2. Atlas: bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders

4.3. Responsibility and Freedom

4.3.1. We are free because we are responsible

4.3.2. being able to transcend oneself

4.3.2.1. Magis?

4.3.3. “Responsibility is not measured or given by freedom; rather, freedom is invested by responsibility.”

5. The Third party

5.1. The other and the others

5.1.1. horizontal

5.1.2. the other is also the other of another

5.1.2.1. organizing life of society

5.1.3. vertical

5.1.3.1. the infinite, God

5.1.4. when applied, it can be seen as a role

5.1.4.1. not seeing the other in their whole and epiphany

5.2. The face of the other as the trace of the infinite

5.2.1. alterity of the infinite is not cancelled

5.2.1.1. overflow of the other

5.2.1.2. "God is the other"

5.3. Knowing the face of the other impacts:

5.3.1. awareness of the face of the other impacts quality of life

5.3.2. foundation of exchange and human reciprocity

5.4. There can be no third party without the other

5.4.1. another other besides the immediate other

5.4.2. society around us

5.4.3. "other others"