Political Responsibility for a Globalised World: After Levinas' Humanism (Being Human: Caught in the Web of Cultures - Humanism in the Age of Globalization)

The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalised world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement with the issues of postcoloniality and humanism. Yet, Levinas fails to realise the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel and Ricoeur, Ernst Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice. Table of contents Preface INTRODUCTION Chapter 1. Doing justice to responsibility: The primordial political nature of Levinas’ philosophy 1 Orientation: Levinas as political philosopher 2 “There are always at least three...”: Urgency and primacy of the political relation 2.1 The constitution of political meaning 2.2 Politics: the indispensable translation of the Saying to the Said 3 Clarifications on the title PART 1. ETHICS AFTER THE COLONIES: THE GLOBAL SCOPE OF LEVINAS’ POLITICAL THOUGHT Chapter 2. Ethnography, atheism, decolonisation 1 Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, or the use of ethnography for ontology and politics 1.1 “To be is to participate” 1.2 Heidegger, nostalgia, cruelty and the eclipse of monotheism 1.3 Ethnography, ontology and socio-political criticism 2 Claude Lévi-Strauss, decolonisation and indifference 3 Conclusion: the politics of Levinas’ philosophy of alterity Chapter 3. The range of the political: Decolonisation as a case in point 1 From situated thought to global consequences 2 Decolonisation, colonisation: figures of the global 3 For a globalised world PART 2. LEVINAS’ POST-ANTI-HUMANIST HUMANISM AND AFTER Chapter 4. Humanism and anti-humanism in Levinas’ reflection on Jewish education 1 “For a Hebraic humanism” 2 “Anti-humanism and education” 3 Universalism and authority: an uncertain conclusion 4 Changing of the guards: Talmudic humanism and a philosophical post-anti-humanist humanism Chapter 5. Levinas’ post-anti-humanist humanism: Humanism of the other 1 First attempts at a political and ontological formulation of the problem 2 The crisis of humanism 2.1 End of the subject 2.2 Questioning the rationality of the animal rationale 2.3 Cultural relativity or the death of God 3 Humanism and ethicity 4 “Ethical culture” and the “cultural and aesthetic notion of meaning” 5 “Real humanism”: an un-likely family portrait 5.1 Sartre: humanism as existentialism 5.2 Heidegger: “humanism” in the extreme sense 5.3 Althusser: humanism as ideology Chapter 6. After Levinas: The risk of irresponsible responsibility 1 Universalism and particularism: Marion and Bernasconi 2 Responsibility and irresponsibility 2.1 Can a Levinasian kill? From the original contradiction to the participation of practice in the meaning of the ethical 2.2 Infinite responsibility and the polysemy of transgression 2.3 Mediation: the irreducible political condition of responsibility 3 After Levinas PART 3. POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A GLOBALISED WORLD Chapter 7. Levinas and Max Weber on being called for politics 1 An inhospitable world: disenchantment and polytheism in Weber and Levinas 2 Levinas: a Gesinnungsethiker or a Verantwortungsethiker? 2.1 The prima facie case for Levinas as “ethicist of principle” 2.2 Levinas as political “ethicist of responsibility” 2.3 Responsibility elevated to principle or principle elevated to responsibility? Chapter 8. Towards a post-Levinasian understanding of responsibility: the Weberian contribution of Apel 1 Justification: Apel and the unavoidability of responsibility 2 From a Weberian Apel to a Weberian Levinas 3 Four objectives for a theory of political responsibility Chapter 9. Ricoeur’s contribution to a notion of political responsibility for a globalised world 1 Ricoeur’s political paradox and appropriation of Weber 2 From the political paradox to its integration in the “Little ethics” 3 Political action between capacities and conflict 4 Responsibility, prudence, collaboration, equity 4.1 Remarks on the resources: Levinas and Ricoeur 4.2 Ambiguity concerning Ricoeur’s use of the notion of responsibility 4.3 Towards a political responsibility for a globalised world CONCLUSION FOR A “GOOD ENOUGH” JUSTICE Bibliography 1 Abbreviations 2 General Bibliography The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalised world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement with the issues of postcoloniality and humanism. Yet, Levinas fails to realise the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel and Ricoeur, Ernst Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice. Responsibility,Humanism,Politics,Globalisation,Levinas,Human,Globalization,Political Philosophy,Philosophy of Culture,Ethics,Philosophy The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalised world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement with the issues of postcoloniality and humanism. Yet, Levinas fails to realise the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel and Ricoeur, Ernst Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice.-- Provided by publisher "The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalized world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement in the issues of postcolonialism and humanism. However, Levinas fails to realize the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between the ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel, and Ricoeur, Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice."--Publisher Biographical note: Ernst Wolff (Prof.) teaches philosophy at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and is fellow of the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen (Germany). His research covers hermeneutics, social and political philosophy and the philosophy of technology