Apology of Redundancy in the Ethics of E. Levinas

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show how E. Levinas reveals the preontological possibilities of an ethical relationship, which is built not on the principle of a totalizing logos and order, overwhelming and suppressed, but on the principle of “relationship without relationship”, and has pronounced methodological consequences. The first part reconstructs Levinas’ criticism of the classical ontological tradition, which is inevitably reductive in relation to the object of study. In particular, the relation to the Other is here replaced by a neutral being. The Other loses its otherness as a result. Next, the problem of a “non-averaged” approach to the Other is solved, firstly, through a face-to-face relationship with a radically different one, and secondly, by refusing to think the human exclusively in relation to being. It is in the face-to-face relationship that Levy reveals us to pathos that is not subject to ontology, sending us beyond the limits of being. Levinas formulates a paradoxical thesis: ethics precedes ontology, ethical attitude precedes ontological one. In the final part, the question is raised about the way the Other is given. The Infinite Other does not need to correspond to truth as a correspondence of being and thinking. Social heterology, partly developing the approach of Levinas, sees the Other as an event. The Other in an event cannot become an object; the event is manifested by impersonal, multiple, irrelevant elements and relations. The event of the Other is given, but not to sensual or intellectual intuition. It is always incomparably more immediate than anything visible, phenomenal, manifest. The author comes to the conclusion that social heterology is the most adequate development of a number of provisions of E. Levinas. The concept of an event, which overcomes a number of metaphysical oppositions, opens up the possibility of creating cognitive models oriented towards revealing the immanent logic of the objects under study. The thesis about the primacy of ethics over ontology should be understood as a radical methodological setting that calls for taking into account the fact that the human relationship to reality goes far beyond the limits of theoretical contemplation.