Levinas on the Face

This short clip comes from the beginning of a 2014 documentary on Emmanuel Levinas by Yoram Ron called "Le Dieu absent - Emmanuel Lévinas et l'humanisme de l'autre" ("Absent God - Emmanuel Levinas and the Humanism of the Other"). I thought it was interesting, so I translated it into English and added subtitles. The full documentary (with English subtitles) can be found on TH-cam here: • ABSENT GOD - Emmanuel ...
#philosophy #levinas #phenomenology

[@PrimitiveBaroque]

Amazing philosopher. Originality is through the roof. He's probably more consequential today then he ever was.

[@raginbakin1430]

I asked ChatGPT to introduce me to a relatively obscure post-WW2 French philosopher. It brought me to Levinas.

[@gregorykamweru346]

Educative but the background sounds are disturbing

[@hcpiano]

I recently explored Emmanuel Levinas and imediately started reading about him and his thinking. His elucidating words in this clip hit me as shockingly original. They actually kinda blew my mind. I mean he present his ideas so easily and still they seem so rich and almost profound. His insight shines throug his words. I'm suspiscious his reading streches beyond Good Night Moon and Humpty Dumpty.

[@olympiahendrix4392]

The more Levinas is put out there the better IMO. The world needs him NOW.

[@Impaled_Onion-thatsmine]

Crooked faces and I'd just laugh at them

[@RMGWOO]

You see in the face the same sense of being in you that comes from behind and lives through all your faculties.

[@Verulam1626]

Most underrated comment ever

[@7466sd]

How can I cite this 2 minutes for my doctoral dissertation? I am studying cognitive and social neuroscience and this is exactly what I would like to write in the beginning. Could you at least cite that documentary?

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

The documentary is called "Le Dieu absent: Emmanuel Lévinas et l'humanisme de l'Autre".

[@LittleMushroomGuy]

Levinas is such a genius author and thinker, iv met a lot of people that don't really find him insightful but I have no idea where such a claim can come from

[@yohanessaputra9274]

The ontological nature of our face is that it is a command from God, and by seeing this transcendent feeling of seeing another's face we can feel spiritually of the existence of God

[@pallabidutta968]

The face of the other is a mirror to oneself.

[@jt11erink]

This made me feel more than I would have expected.

[@nicolasgarciaguerrero8897]

That would be murder in Levinas ethics. A semiotic murder. The key would be to dialogue with the Other keeping the distances that make The Other be The Other that is. The Other, would not be Myself under any circunstance.

[@sticlavoda5632]

​​​​@@nicolasgarciaguerrero8897But it is true that we only know the Other insofar as we know ourselves by the fact that we fundamentally ascribe to the Other the nature of ourselves. That they are a subject, that they have a conscious. As such we, or rather I, selfishly impose myself onto the Other in my recognition of them naturally (and here I conceive that this is fundamentally true for all that is subject, and as such I also impose myself unto you), in seeing that they are themselves alive and distinct from me. If I am to conceive of them as truly distinct, I, or we, must imagine that they are absolutely unknown (as such void in our cognition), and devoid of any attribute one may come to associate with themselves. If we do this, we make them into a negation of ourselves, and as such they become an object strictly reliant on their relation to us as an unactualized nothingness (whereas we, or rather I, may be actualized nothingness, in that I do not have a defined cognition of the self but yet I know myself to be actualized trough an empirical self, a set of attributes, and the phenomenal realm which projects from myself onto myself).
I must recognize the Other as a mirror of my own conscious ability, as an extention of my attribute of thought, in order to affirm their very existance. In this I must also subjugate myself as an extension of their thought (which is nothingness to me, an absolute unknown) by seeing myself as present in their position and devoid of life beyond their particular sensibility, as I am the object of their experience and without experience The Other would not exist. In the same sense, I would not exist without my experience and neither would this experience exist without me. The phenomenal world is bound on my undefinable existance. To escape solipsism or Egoism is to affirm that The Other is in the same position as myself and I am also the object of their projection onto life.

[@japaneselearning3892]

That is the absolute opposite of what Levinas says, and it is a line of reasoning he thinks is dangerous.

[@amuail]

based face