Phenomenology of the Other.  Paul Ricœur and Emmanuel Lévinas’ attitude towards the ontology of Totality

Adriana Warmbier

doi:10.15633/lie.3766

Phenomenology of the Other. Paul Ricœur and Emmanuel Lévinas’ attitude towards the ontology of Totality

Authors

Adriana Warmbier http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4152-7146

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15633/lie.3766

Keywords:

Ricœur, Lé vinas, subjectivity, non-intentional phenomenology

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present Ricœur’s and Lé vinas’s approach to the concept of selfhood (French soi) as a response to the dispute over subjectivity which was initiated by the critics of modern tradition of the absolutization of Cartesian cogito. The debate on the notion of selfhood has not been closed yet. The author analyses two diff erent approaches to the problem. One appeals to the Hegelian dialectic, adjusting it to the formula “oneself as another” (discounting that part of the dialectical movement in which Hegel jumps to a vision of absolute knowledge). The other refers to the category of substitution. Both Ricœur and Lé vinas point to the Platonic opposition of the notions of “the Same” and “the Other.” Ricœur’s initial claim breaks with the established language of ontology. Moving beyond the circle of sameness-identity towards the dialectic of sameness- and selfhood-identity entails the transformation of the notion of otherness: it is no longer an antonym of “same,” but it is a kind of otherness that is constitutive of selfhood.

Author Biography

Adriana Warmbier

Adriana Warmbier – Ph. D., an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University; she also lectures at the Department of Philosophy, UPJPII. Adriana Warmbier has won many scholarships, including Fellowship Corbridge Trust of Robinson College at the University of Cambridge. She specialises in ethics, moral philosophy, es-pecially philosophy of the self (self-consciousness, the will and personal identity), naturalism and phenomenology. She is an author of multiple papers published in, inter alia, “Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal,” “Ethics in Progress,” “Ethos,” “Ruch Filozoficzny” and “Zarządzanie Publiczne.” She has authored the book Tożsamość, narracja i hermeneutyka siebie. Paula Ricœura filozofia człowieka (2018). She has also edited the following volumes: Spór o podmiotowość. Perspektywa interdyscyplinarna (2016), The Idea of Excellence and Human Enhancement. Reconsidering the Debate on Transhumanism in Light of Moral Philosophy and Science (2018).

References

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Warmbier A., Spór o pojęcie intersubiektywności. Transcendentalizm etyczny a podmiotowa treść doświadczenia, “Kwartalnik Filozoficzny” 43 (2015) no. 4, pp. 45–60.

Warmbier A., Tożsamość, narracja i hermeneutyka siebie. Paula Ricœura filozofitha człowieka, Kraków 40 (Horyzonty Nowoczesności).

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Published

2020-11-20

Issue

Vol. 26 (2020): Special issue

Section

Articles

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