273
See also: Edmund Husserl 224–25 ■ Roland Barthes 290–91 ■ Luce Irigaray 320 ■
Hélène Cixous 322 ■ Julia Kristeva 323L
evinas’s ideas are most easily
understood through looking
at an example. Imagine that
you are walking down a street on a
cold winter evening, and you see a
beggar huddled in a doorway. She
may not even be asking for change,
but somehow you can’t help feeling
some obligation to respond to this
stranger’s need. You may choose
to ignore her, but even if you do,
something has already been
communicated to you: the fact that
this is a person who needs your help.Inevitable communication
Levinas was a Lithuanian Jew who
lived through the Holocaust. He says
that reason lives in language in
Totality and Infinity (1961), explaining
that “language” is the way that we
communicate with others even
before we have started to speak.
Whenever I see the face of another
person, the fact that this is another
human being and that I have a
responsibility for them is instantly
communicated. I can turn away
from this responsibility, but I cannot
escape it. This is why reason arisesout of the face-to-face relationships
we have with other people. It is
because we are faced by the needs
of other human beings that we must
offer justifications for our actions.
Even if you do not give your change
to the beggar, you find yourself
having to justify your choice. ■THE MODERN WORLD
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Ethics
APPROACH
Phenomenology
BEFORE
1920s Edmund Husserl
explores our relationship to
other human beings from a
phenomenological perspective.
1920s Austrian philosopher
Martin Buber claims that
meaning arises out of our
relationship with others.
AFTER
From 1960 Levinas’s work on
relationships influences the
thoughts of French feminist
philosophers such as Luce
Irigaray and Julia Kristeva.
From 1970 Levinas’s ideas
on responsibility influence
psychotherapy.
2001 Jacques Derrida explores
responsibility in relation to
humanitarian questions such
as political asylum.
REASON LIVES
IN LANGUAGE
EMMANUEL LEVINAS (1906–1995)
Nothing else in our lives so disrupts
our consciousness as an encounter
with another person, who, simply by
being there, calls to us and asks us
to account for ourselves.