The Unbearable Burden of Levinasian Ethics
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Levinas's treatment of persecution as the inaugural basis of ethical responsibility tacitly relies on the ethical subject's availability for seduction through an invitation to profane the beloved that is the obverse of the face. Using Jean Laplanche's conception of the enigmatic signifier, I interpret the face–beloved dyad as a pathological response to the primary, overwhelming, and persecutory demand of the breast on the infant. Furthermore, I suggest that Levinas refuses to acknowledge what precedes the anxiety of the enigmatic signifier – the encounter with spacing and temporality that announces the subject into the world. Finally, I challenge the viability of an ethical model that relies on a Judeo-Christian notion of non-reciprocity, which forces survivors of violence into an untenable subject position, thereby reifying their continued erasure as ethical subjects.
Source: Angelaki
Author: Jay Rajiva
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2068675816