The Face of the Other in Emmanuel Levinas and Alexey Uhktomsky
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2017, Vol 2, Issue 4
Abstract
The author compares ethical concepts of a Russian physiologist and philosopher Alexey A. Ukhtomsky and a French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Both use the word “face” as a philosophical term. The paper examines the “face” as a key image in the work of both authors which helped them understand the meaning of dialogue and social interaction. The fact that the Russian word “litzo” (“face”) has two different meanings (a “person” and a “human face”) was very important for Ukhtomsky. For the better understanding of Levinas, it is necessary to take in account the interaction of Russian, Hebrew, and French languages as part of the linguistic consciousness of this author. Both philosophers considered ethics to be philosophia prima. The encounter with the face of the Other is the central event in the personality development for both Levinas and Ukhtomsky. For Levinas, the study of the face was a way to transcend the limits of phenomenology because the face is not a “common” phenomenon. For Ukhtomsky, the image of the face pointed at the problematic character of sciences. It was part of his search for the non-theoretical knowledge, e. g. knowledge that accounts not only for the universal but also for the individual and is capable of describing not only impersonal structures and objects but also individual and unique events. Both thinkers thus were seeking to reconsider religious tradition in the context of contemporary science and philosophy. Ukhtomsky arrives at the idea of asymmetrical relationship between the “I” and the “Other” independently of Levinas. Whereas Levinas describes the experience of the encounter with the Other as a kind of epiphany, Ukhtomsky calls God “the First and the Ultimate Interlocutor.” The encounter with the Other for both philosophers is, namely, a mundane, everyday analogue of the Revelation.
Authors and Affiliations
Alexey N. Belarev
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26183
- DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2017-2-4-30-43
- Views 279
- Downloads 16
Why Was a Baby Devil Born: The Legend about a Blasphemous Communist, Monstrous Births, and the Limits of Religious Didactics
In 1923, the Russian ethnologist and archaeologist Vasily Smirnov published an article entitled “A Devil is Born. (Contemporary Legend)”. The article dealt with an unusual demonological legend that had appeared short t...
A DOCUMENT PAUL AUSTER’S NEW YORK TRILOGY
The article deals with the way a literary work “creates” a document out of itself, on the example of Paul Auster’s novels. A document here is the report of a character, a private detective who is watching another chara...
Alexander Pushkin in the 19 th Century Italian Drama
The article deals with the problem of Alexander Pushkin’s reception in the 19 th century Italy. In the first half of the century, during the years of national liberation movement, Italian intellectuals were concerned wit...
ESENIN’S RECEPTION IN RUSSIA AND ABROAD
This is an analytical overview of the International Conference “Esenin in Literature and Culture of the Peoples of Russia and Abroad” held on September 22–24, 2016 in Moscow and Ryazan region. The conference was devote...
A NARRATIVE ABOUT A “RESURRECTED WOMAN” IN THE RECEPTION OF D.V. BATOV, AN OLD BELIEVER OF TULA
The article deals with one of the genres of Russian folklore, the so-called obmiraniye narratives about a human soul visiting the other world during the lethargy state. It discusses the problem of perception of such tex...