Levinas? An explanation please

I have heard Levinas's name thrown around from time to time. What does he say? Even more important, what does he say that applies to recent debate resolutions?

JohnnyFontane wrote:I have heard Levinas's name thrown around from time to time. What does he say? Even more important, what does he say that applies to recent debate resolutions?

Here's the way I understand levinas:

Once upon a time, a dude named nietzsche came along and said "god is dead". Nietzsche's point is that up until this point in time, we understand meaning because it connects back to some transcendental idea (ie religion), and at the point where we have departed from religion, then god is dead, and we now have the question as to how we determine meaning.

Two notable answers before Levinas are by Descartes and Heidegger. Descartes says we determine truth via epistemology. His position is that we determine some basic facts from our senses, and build off of it to determine truth. Heidegger, on the other hand, says we determine truth via metaphysics and "dasein" (existence). Basically, Heidegger says that meaning isn't fixed meaning, but is developed at a particular place and time (hence the name of his book Being and time).

That's not really relevant but when I explain Levinas, I like to set up where he's coming from. Levinas answers Nietzsche's question with "ethics". He claims that ethics isn't some universal maxim that comes down from the skies, but rather, comes from an interpersonal relationship. Meaning comes from experience, and with that we get Levinas's idea of "the other". Ethics, according to levinas, is based upon this relationship to the other, which he claims to be "pre-ontological" meaning we have this relationship to the other before we even evaluate who we are. The relationship with the other is interesting in that upon hearing the call of the other (asking for help), we realize that we ourselves are vulnerable to the other just as the other is vulnerable to us (if you've ever heard of the Gift K, this is where it originates). Levinas argues that this relationship is infinite in that it is ever expanding and unmeetable. He says that the "I" only exists because there is this "other" whom we know is not us. The problem with his theory (Zizek is a great person to cut on this, his article "Smashing the face of the neighbor" expands on this a lot, and if you want an answer to levinas, is one of the best Ive found) is that because this relationship with the other is infinite, naturally, any attempt to fulfill this obligation results in violence against another other (the other other). Derrida comes in later and tries to solve for this by admitting this is the case. He says we always work towards the good, but the good is never reached (Justice/Democracy to come).

Anyways, you'd run this as an alt to util/deon as an ethical theory, and argue that affirming/negating is answering the call of the other (or the more nihilistic view of the philosophy, that they fail to meet justice/morality). On this topic, you could read a deterrence aff with this arg (or read deterrence turns and this on the neg) as a decent arg.

If you're looking for good sources on this, Zizek's article that I mentioned is a good one, Levinas's book Totality and Infinity is decent (Levinas himself is a kinda shitty author to try and cut because he doesn't really write in simple language, it's pretty dense stuff), Derrida's "Aideu to Emmmanuel levinas" or The Gift of Death, and if you have Muse access, search for Levinas and Genocide and you should find an article by Robert Meister that's pretty good, and I think a guy named Campbell is pretty good on this subject

if you want to gain a decent understanding of levinas, go buy 'outside the subject.'read the essay in it, entitled 'the rights of man and the rights of the other.'