Ethics as first philosophy: wisdom of peace/word in Lévinas - doi: 10.4025/actascihumansoc.v34i1.12429

Abstract

The thread of this study will be the third stage of intellectual development of Lévinas, the period called ethical, developed mainly in the work Autrement qu'être ou au-delà de l'essence. We will show that Lévinas’ philosophical proposal is an attempt to reconstruct the notion of human subjectivity, going through an ethical intrigue between the Same and Other, in which the Other is not reducible to the Same. Therefore, we propose a redefinition of reason and its role, from a prime fundament prior to the Greek Logos which is word (ethics). Reason then changes from an attitude of concern and domain (love of wisdom) into a condition for acceptance (the wisdom of peace / word), thereby undoing the idea that the ability to learn involves seizing and holding data. We therefore propose that ethics has the task of rescuing the sense of reason and philosophy, through a new way of situating subjectivity as responsibility for Others and not as a cancellation or symmetry of the Self.