Ontology of the subject’s identity in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
Philosophy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2024-4-494-504Keywords:
subject’s identity, responsibility, totality, the Other, selfsameness, otherness, criterion of identityAbstract
This study presents an ontological analysis of the conception of the subject’s identity proposed by Emmanuel Levinas. The topic appears to be relevant due to the interest of the humanities to the category of the subject’s identity increasing over past decades. The paper deals with Levinas’s criticism of the classical model of the subject’s identity, in which the subject is comprehended as selfsame. The study has found it to be related to Hegel’s interpretation of totality, which is understood as sublation of the other by the same, and also to Husserl’s phenomenology. The author notes a significant drawback of the classical conception of the identity of the subject — its incapacity to provide a final selfsameness of the subject, which results in the suppressing of otherness in the subject. The study analyzes Levinas’s attempt to present the face of the Other as an expression of the transcendental, which subverts totality and opens up a possibility of constructing an alternative model of the subject’s identity. Levinas’s conception of identity as responsibility is reconstructed, its ethical consequences are outlined. The article states that Levinas’s model of the subject’s identity is formed around the responsibility of the subject, which is understood simultaneously as responsibility of the subject to the Other for itself and responsibility of the subject to itself for the Other. The author concludes that Levinas’s conception is capable to ensure a balance in the subject between selfsameness and otherness through the idea of responsibility as the central category in constructing the model of the subject’s identity. The paper demonstrates that Levinas’s model of the subject’s identity not only contributes to resolving the problems created by the classical model but also appears to be its reliable alternative.References
Гегель Г. Энциклопедия философских наук. Т. 3: Философия духа / пер. с нем. М.: Мысль, 1977. 471 с.
Гуссерль Э. Идеи к чистой феноменологии и феноменологической философии. Кн. 1: Общее введение в чистую феноменологию / пер. с нем. А. В. Михайлова. М.: Академ. проект, 2009. 489 с.
Гуссерль Э. Картезианские медитации / пер. с нем. В.И. Молчанова. М.: Академ. проект, 2010. 229 с.
Евстропов М.Н. «Иное, чем бытие»: лицо в метафизике Эмманюэля Левинаса. Часть I: Черты лица // Вестник Томского государственного университета. 2011. № 342. С. 44–49.
Левинас Э. Заметки о смысле / пер. с фр. А.В. Ямпольской // (Пост)феноменология: новая феноменология во Франции и за ее пределами / сост. С.А. Шолохова, А.В. Ямпольская. М.: Академ. проект, 2014. C. 18–38.
Левинас Э. Тотальность и Бесконечное / пер. с фр. И.С. Вдовиной // Левинас Э. Избранное. Тотальность и Бесконечное. М.; СПб.: Университетская книга, 2000. С. 66–291.
Марион Ж.-Л. Насыщенный феномен / пер. с фр. В.В. Земсковой, Г.Б. Юдина // (Пост)феноменология: новая феноменология во Франции и за ее пределами / сост. С.А. Шолохова, А.В. Ямпольская. М.: Академ. проект, 2014. C. 63–99.
Сартр Ж.-П. Основная идея феноменологии Гуссерля: интенциональность / пер. с фр. А.И. Пигалева // Проблемы онтологии в современной буржуазной философии: сб. ст / отв. ред. Т.А. Кузьмина. Рига: Зинатне, 1988. C. 318–320.
Сокулер З.А. Пассивнее самой пассивности: субъективность и идентичность в учении Э. Левинаса // Субъективность и идентичность: колл. моногр. / отв. ред. A.B. Михайловский. М.: Изд. дом ВШЭ, 2012. C. 198–211.
Сокулер З.А. Субъективность, язык и Другой: новые пути и искушения мысли, открываемые учением Эммануэля Левинаса. М.: Университетская книга, 2016. 240 с.
Эриксон Э. Идентичность: юность и кризис: пер. с англ. М.: Прогресс, 1996. 344 с.
Ямпольская А.В. Гетерогенность самости: проблематизация идентичности у позднего Левинаса // ESSE: Философские и теологические исследования. 2019. Т. 4, № 2. С. 34–47.
Blond L. Identity, Alterity and Racial Difference in Levinas // Identity and Difference: Contemporary Debates on the Self / ed. by R. Winkler. Johannesburg, ZA: Macmillan, 2016. P. 259–281. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40427-1_11
Levinas E. Autrement qu’etre ou au-dela de l’essence. La Haye, FR: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974. 242 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1111-7
Petrilli S. The Law Challenged and the Critique of Identity with Emmanuel Levinas // International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. 2022. Vol. 35, iss. 1. P. 31–69. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-021-09845-7
References
Blond, L. (2016). Identity, alterity and racial difference in Levinas. R. Winkler (ed.) Identity and difference: Contemporary debates on the self. Johannesburg, ZA: Macmillan Publ., pp. 259–281. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40427-1_11
Erikson, E. (1996). Identichnost’: yunost’ i krizis [Identity: Youth and crisis]. Moscow: Progress Publ., 344 p.
Evstropov, M.N. (2011). [«Other than being»: Face in the metaphysics of Emmanuel Levinas. Part I: Features of face]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Tomsk State University Journal]. No. 342, pp. 44–49.
Hegel, G. (1977). Entsiklopediya filosofskikh nauk. T. 3: Filosofiya dukha [Encyclopedia of the philosophical sciences. Vol. 3: Hegel’s philosophy of mind]. Moscow: Mysl’ Publ., 471 p.
Husserl, E. (2009). Idei k chistoy fenomenologii i fenomenologicheskoy filosofii. Kniga 1: Obshcheye vvedeniye v chistuyu fenomenologiyu [Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to phenomenological philosophy. Book 1: General introduction to pure phenomenology]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy Proekt Publ., 489 p.
Husserl, E. (2010). Kartezianskie meditatsii [Cartesian meditations: an introduction to phenomenology]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy Proekt Publ., 229 p.
Levinas, E. (1974). Autrement qu’etre ou au-dela de l’essence [Otherwise than being, or beyond essence]. La Haye, FR: Martinus Nijhoff Publ., 242 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1111-7
Levinas, E. (2000). [Totality and infinity]. Levinas E. Izbrannoe. Total’nost’ i beskonechnoe [Levinas E. Selected works. Totality and infinity]. Moscow, St. Petersburg: Universitetskaya kniga Publ., pp. 66–291.
Levinas, E. (2014). [Notes on meaning]. (Post)fenomenologiya: Novaya fenomenologiya vo Frantsii i za ee predelami, sost. S.A. Sholokhova, A.V. Yampolskaya [S.A. Sholokhova, A.V. Yampolskaya (eds.) (Post)phenomenology: New phenomenology in France and abroad]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy Proekt Publ., pp. 18–38.
Marion, J.-L. (2014). [Saturated phenomenon]. (Post)fenomenologiya: Novaya fenomenologiya vo Frantsii i za ee predelami, sost. S.A. Sholokhova, A.V. Yampolskaya [S.A. Sholokhova, A.V. Yampolskaya (eds.) (Post)phenomenology: New phenomenology in France and abroad]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy Proekt Publ., pp. 63–99.
Petrilli, S. (2022). The law challenged and the critique of identity with Emmanuel Levinas. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. Vol. 35, iss. 1, pp. 31–69. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-021-09845-7
Sartre, J.-P. (1988). [Intentionality: a fundamental idea of Husserl’s phenomenology]. Problemy ontologii v sovremennoy burzhuaznoy filosofii, otv. red. T.A. Kuz’mina [T.A. Kuzmina (ed.) Problems of ontology in contemporary bourgeois thought]. Riga: Zinatne Publ., pp. 318–320.
Sokuler, Z.A. (2012). [More passive than the passivity itself: Subjectivity and identity by E. Levinas]. Sub’ektivnost’ i identichnost’, otv. red. A.V. Mikhaylovskiy [A.V. Mikhaylovskiy (ed.) Subjectivity and identity]. Moscow: HSE Publ., pp. 198–211.
Sokuler, Z.A. (2016). Sub’ektivnost’, yazyk i Drugoy: novye puti i iskusheniya mysli, otkryvaemye ucheniem Emmanuelya Levinasa [Subjectivity, language and other: New ways and temptations of thought opened by the teachings of Emmanuel Levinas]. Moscow: Universitetskaya Kniga Publ., 240 p.
Yampol’skaya, A.V. (2019). [Heterogeneity of self: the problematisation of identity in later Levinas]. ESSE: Filosofskie i teologicheskie issledovaniya [ESSE: Studies in Philosophy and Theology]. Vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 34–47.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
