Levinas and the “Matter” of Poverty
“Poverty„ is a term Levinas uses to describe the face-to-face encounter and the Other all through his corpus. Scholars regularly use this term, but no research has shown its origin nor that Levinas has a concept of poverty. This paper addresses both of those questions through an...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2018-11-01
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| Series: | Religions |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/12/391 |
| Summary: | “Poverty„ is a term Levinas uses to describe the face-to-face encounter and the Other all through his corpus. Scholars regularly use this term, but no research has shown its origin nor that Levinas has a concept of poverty. This paper addresses both of those questions through an analysis of an early reflection on Judaism and the relevant sections of his Totality and Infinity. In the process, I argue for an alternative interpretation of Levinas’s ethical phenomenology on the basis of poverty concluding with some suggestions on how a Levinasian spiritual poverty can aid the pursuit of justice. |
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| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |