Reflection On Emmanuel Levinas

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Paper 4: Reflection on Emmanuel Levinas The Other that Levinas describes is “not a character within a context” (EI 89). It is not someone who has “relative alterity” or is familiar to us, but instead it’s someone who has radical alterity (TI 194). There are two ways to experience the Other: through the Face and through language. If you take the Face as “a nose, eyes, a forehead, a chin”, then you are reducing the Other to an nothing more than an object and that is why Levinas says that “the best way of encountering the Other is not even to notice the color of his eyes” (EI 85). The Face is a non-phenomenon because it’s not what you literally see. Once we pay attention to what the Face truly represents, we begin to experience the Other as more than what we see – more than just an object. That is when the Face has meaning to us, can express something to us and be an “epiphany” of what is beyond (TI 197). The second interaction one can have with the Other is through language, discourse, conversation, etc. Language is the positive interaction because when you begin to talk to somebody you have already acknowledged their presence. Levinas says that “to speak, to respond to him and already to answer for him” shows that you are aware of and have experienced the Other (TI 195). Also, there are two ways one can respond to the Other’s language or the Other’s “appeal” (TI 200). One way is to reject their differences and the second way is to accept their difference and help them. The first way is considered a moral sin in Levinas’ eyes. The second way causes you to have responsibility because now you’re not one in the masses, you have become singled out. You responsibility creates an “inalienable identity” because it cannot be transferred to another individual (EI 101). In Levinas’ eyes once you have an encounter with the Other that provokes responsibility in you, you are
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