Brian Treanor

One of the most astonishing aspects of Levinas’s philosophy is the assertion that other persons are absolutely other than the self. The difficulties attending a relationship with absolute otherness are ancient, and immediately invoke Meno’s Paradox. How can we encounter that which is not already within us? The traditional reply to Meno (anamnesis) reduces other persons to the role of midwife and thereby, says Levinas, mitigates their alterity. Although Descartes seems to provide a rejoinder to anamnesis in theThird Meditation, this response alone is not adequate for Levinas’s purpose. St. Augustine, in De Magistro, describes a form of “recollection” that accounts for infinity while still reducing the human interlocutor to the role of midwife, thus reasserting a marginal role for the other. Levinas needs additional help to overcome the specter of anamnesis, which he finds in Kierkegaard’s relationship of the individual to “the god” in the Philosophical Fragments.

Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misunderstood, or underdeveloped, this work initiates a new field of study and concern. Carnal Hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to the body as interpretation. Transcending the traditional dualism of rational understanding and embodied sensibility, the volume argues that our most carnal sensations are already interpretations. Because interpretation truly goes "all the way down," carnal hermeneutics rejects the opposition of language to sensibility, word to flesh, text to body. In this volume, an impressive array of today's preeminent philosophers seek to interpret the surplus of meaning that arises from our carnal embodiment, its role in our experience and understanding, and its engagement with the wider world.

Insufficiently radical environmentalism is inadequate to the problems that confront us; but overly radical environmentalism risks alienating people with whom, in a democracy, we must find common cause. Building on Paul Ricoeur’s work, which shows how group identity is constituted by the tension between ideology and utopia, this essay asks just how radical effective environmentalism should be. Two “case studies” of environmental agenda—that of Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and that of David Brower—serve to frame the important issues of cooperation and confrontation. The essay concludes that environmentalism must lead with its utopian aspirations rather than its willingness to compromise.

One of the most astonishing aspects of Levinas’s philosophy is the assertion that other persons are absolutely other than the self. The difficulties attending a relationship with absolute otherness are ancient, and immediately invoke Meno’s Paradox. How can we encounter that which is not already within us? The traditional reply to Meno (anamnesis) reduces other persons to the role of midwife and thereby, says Levinas, mitigates their alterity. Although Descartes seems to provide a rejoinder to anamnesis in theThird Meditation, this response alone is not adequate for Levinas’s purpose. St. Augustine, in De Magistro, describes a form of “recollection” that accounts for infinity while still reducing the human interlocutor to the role of midwife, thus reasserting a marginal role for the other. Levinas needs additional help to overcome the specter of anamnesis, which he finds in Kierkegaard’s relationship of the individual to “the god” in the Philosophical Fragments.

One of the central points of Derrida’sArchive Fever is that the nature of the “archive” affects not only what is archived, but also how we relate to and access it. The archive also conditions the process of archiving itself and, indeed, the very nature of what is archivable. Derrida's comments, however, were made in 1995, when the full extent of the Internet boom was only beginning to become evident. The intervening years have reshaped the archive in ways that Derrida could scarcely have foreseen in 1995. Although many of the changes bear out his fundamental theses, the power that the Internet has come to exert over public and private discourse demands that we re-examine the archive in order to begin to assess what these changes portend

It is increasingly clear that virtue ethics has an important role to play in environmental ethics. However, virtue ethics—which has always been characterized by a degree of ambiguity—is faced with substantial challenges in the contemporary “postmodern” cultural milieu. Among these challenges is the lure of relativism. Most virtue ethics depend upon some view of the good life; however, today there is no unambiguous, easily agreed-upon account of the good life. Rather, we are presented with a bewildering variety of conflicting accounts of the good life. Narrative—in particular Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative identity—has much to contribute to virtue ethics, including resources that can help us respond to the chal­lenges presented by the postmodern context. Narrative constitutes an “ethical laboratory” by providing us with an “as if” experience through which we can try out various ethical alternatives. Two sorts of environmental narratives, working in concert, further help to limit relativist objections: (1) narratives of environmental survival (which identify dispositions, such as simplicity, necessary for our long-term survival) and (2) narratives of environmental flourishing (which make a virtue of necessity by pointing out those dispositions necessary for our survival often contribute to our flourishing beyond mere survival)

"Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other." This is the claim that Aspects of Alterity defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. Such a self-centered perspective never encounters the other qua other, however. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim "every other is wholly other." But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions--absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness--are the main contenders in the contemporary debate.The philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel provide the point of embarkation for coming to understand the two positions on this question. Levinas and Marcel were contemporaries whose philosophies exhibit remarkably similar concern for the other but nevertheless remain fundamentally incompatible. Thus, these two thinkers provide a striking illustration of both the proximity of and the unbridgeable gap between two accounts of otherness.Aspects of Alterity delves into this debate, first in order understand the issues at stake in these two positions and second to determine which description better accounts for the experience of encountering the other.After a thorough assessment and critique of otherness in Levinas's and Marcel's work, including a discussion of the relationship of ethical alterity to theological assumptions, Aspects of Alterity traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney.Ultimately, Aspects of Alterity makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude. Properly articulated, such an account is capable of addressing the legitimate ethical and epistemological concerns that lead thinkers to construe otherness in absolute terms, but without the "absolute aporias" that accompany such a characterization.