Product Description

In "Humanism of the Other", Emmanuel Levinas argues that it is not only possible but of the highest exigency to understand one's humanity through the humanity of others. In paperback for the first time, Levinas's work here is based in a new appreciation for ethics and takes new distances from phenomenology, idealism, and skepticism to rehabilitate humanism and restore its promises. Painfully aware of the long history of dehumanization that reached its apotheosis in Hitler and Nazism, Levinas does not underestimate the difficulty of reconciling oneself with another. The humanity of the human, Levinas argues, is not discoverable through mathematics, rational metaphysics, or introspection. Rather, it is found in the recognition that the other person comes first, that the suffering and mortality of others are the obligations and morality of the self.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174286 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Customer Reviews

Levinas, Humanism and Meaning.
Levinas's book 'Humanism of the Other'[Humanisme de l'autre homme] is a compilation of three seperately published articles. The first and longest is entitled 'Signification and Sense', the second and third are,respectively; 'Humanism and An-archy' and 'Without Identity'. All are fairly hard and require some knowledge of Levinas's other writings. On saying that; it is an immensely rewarding book which shows clearly Levinas's difference from Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty on the subject of meaning or signification. It also elaborates Levinas's own theory of meaning as primarily ethical. There is an explication of Levinas's notion of 'the trace' and a criticism of structuralism. The work aims at exposing certain modern notions of meaning - those that arise from Heidegger's thinking - as issuing in a kind of anti-humanism. The primary thesis being that the ethical relation to the other person, displayed in our encounter with the 'face' of the other, is the fundamental event. Theories of meaning which attempt to ground themselves upon man as essentially situated, socially and historically [As Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's are said to do. Though this could also be claimed of Wittgenstein.];do not allow sufficient space for the ethical criticism of cultures.

Since multi-culturalism is a hot topic, it might well be worth consulting what one of the most important thinkers of the modern age has to say.