Body as Subjectivity to Ethical Signification of the Body: Revisiting Levinass Early Conception of the Subject
In Levinass early works, the body as subjectivity is the focus of research bearing significant implications for his later philosophy of the body. How this is achieved becomes the thrust of this article. We analyze how the existent, through hypostasis, emerges hic et nunc, and explores further its...
| Published in: | Sophia |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Netherlands
[2015]
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| In: |
Sophia
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| RelBib Classification: | NBE Anthropology TK Recent history VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Escape
B il y a B Substitution B Enchainment B Passivity B Body-subject |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | In Levinass early works, the body as subjectivity is the focus of research bearing significant implications for his later philosophy of the body. How this is achieved becomes the thrust of this article. We analyze how the existent, through hypostasis, emerges hic et nunc, and explores further its effort to exist is effected in its relation to existence. In delineating this, we argue that the existent does not emerge from the il y a as an idealistic subject, but rather is born as a natural subject. This is arguably the most remarkable aspect of Levinass analysis of the dawn of the bodily subject. However, the subjectivity of the subject is to be found in the inescapable self-possession of its embodiment. The body, in turn, is a conditional possibility for being a corporeal subject. We argue that the subject as a being in the flesh is the meaning of the embodied human subject, and it bears fertile implications for the ethical signification of the body. In re-conceiving the meaning of the body as subjectivity to ethical signification of the body against the odds of the traditional dichotomies, we argue that Levinas tries to overcome the bio-political understanding of racist conception of the body subject. Given this ethical meaning beyond materiality we reconsider how the embodied subject is a radical passivity as a here I am (me voici). In suggesting the implication of this claim with Levinas we find how the ethical subjectivity is beyond dualistic assertions and racist conceptions. |
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| ISSN: | 1873-930X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sophia
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11841-015-0475-z |