Jolanta Saldukaitytė

In the first part of this essay the author indicates some of the problems of contemporary society related to how fragmentation of the social order affects and transforms self-identity. Today identity is chosen rather than given as it was in the past. Such freedom to choose who, how and where to be not only opens the possibility of unrestrained creativity but requires that the subject face new ethical and political issues.In the second part the author introduces these themes and questions as they have been discussed by others. The problem of identity is put in the framework of space and time and approached as well with questions regarding the theory of names. Social problems of contemporary society are also discussed by using the approach proposed by Kantian philosophy. In the final essay of the present issue the question of how technology re-shapes and effects our everyday life is raised.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editor’s IntroductionRichard A. Cohen (bio) and Jolanta Saldukaitytė (bio)For more than a decade, Levinas Studies has served admirably as the only English-language journal dedicated exclusively to the academic study of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. It is an honor to coedit an issue of Levinas Studies — not only to contribute articles but also to organize an entire volume. Volume 11 of Levinas Studies gathers together essays from scholars who have (with the exception of James Mensch) participated in one or more of the annual Levinas Philosophy Summer Seminar (LPSS), held from 2013 to 2016, directed by Richard A. Cohen, with the assistance of James McLachlan, and organized jointly by Cohen and Jolanta Saldukaitytė, coeditors of the present volume.The LPSS has met in different countries at different venues around the world, each time with ten invited international participants (and some additional auditors). Each summer these dedicated scholars join up for one very intense week of reading and conversation, finding a deeper understanding of an important topic in Levinas’s philosophy. As a one-week Seminar for College and University Teachers, 16 American scholars gathered at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), Buffalo, to discuss “Emmanuel Levinas: On Morality, Justice and the Political.” As the ancient Greek philosophers along with the biblical prophets understood, ethics and politics are inseparable. [End Page vii]Participants usually attend only one LPSS, but some have returned for more, and two scholars have attended four. This and Levinas’s philosophy, and a few e-mail updates to former participants, have created a modicum of continuity and group spirit, or so we hope. The contents of the present volume of Levinas Studies contributes to that collegiality and continuing discussion, enabling a much wider audience of Levinas scholars to look over our shoulders, as it were, and join the conversation. Most of the topics and concerns of the present issue of Levinas Studies — embodiment, Eros, aesthetics, Kant, and difficult freedom — reflect those of past LPSS gatherings.Volume 11 starts with Irina Poleshchuk’s essay, “Transcendence and Sensibility: Affection, Sensation, and Nonintentional Consciousness.” Underscoring the importance of sensibility in Levinas’s philosophy, she shows that subjectivity is not only a vulnerable and affected selfhood but also that, in and through, its sensible subjectivity is endowed with transcendence. Affected by the other, the vulnerability and sensibility of selfhood are “nonintentional” and radically passive. By introducing the phenomenon of a sensibility with two distinct dimensions — one on the level of enjoyment and the other on the suffering of the face-to-face encounter — she shows the double character of affection, both constituting and constituted. Sensibility is both source and shocked in the face-to-face relation. Elaborating sensibility as enjoyment and sensibility as nonintentional consciousness and passivity, Poleshchuk deepens our understanding of the core Levinasian structures of one-for-the-other and hospitality. In contrast to the idealistic leanings of philosophy’s ontological tradition, Poleshchuk shows that transcendence in Levinas’s ethical philosophy becomes flesh in sensibility.Sensibility also features centrally in Brigitta Keintzel’s essay, “ ‘Like a Virgin’: Levinas’s Anti-Platonic Understanding of Love and Desire.” This essay questions how sensual love and ethical desire relate to Levinas’s description of the relations linking “intimate” and “real” society. On the one hand, she shows that Levinasian ethical desire coincides with the Platonic notion of love as desire, and hence not as an existing or already accomplished knowledge. On the other hand, Keintzel [End Page viii] underlines that Platonic love does not coincide with what Levinas calls “Desire,” since the latter is directed not toward an idea but toward the face of the Other. Love for Levinas begins as a subject addressed in his/her direct, vulnerable, traumatized passivity. Eros lies in love’s ability to orient itself to the future. Virginity, then, has to be understood beyond biological attributes, in relation to the intersubjective transcendence that defines the human as such. “Like a virgin” is not biological innocence, or eternal youth, or an exclusively female matter, but being “not-yet,” the open orientation of one to the Other. Finally, the figure of the Third — care for others, for justice — deepens the difference between ethical desire and...

This paper discusses guilt and responsibility in Jaspers and Levinas. First, it explores the concept of guilt in Jaspers and shows that while “metaphysical guilt” deepens the existential dimension of human life it remains indifferent to the moral dimension of guilt and responsibility uncovered by Levinas. Second, the paper explores the notions of guiltless responsibility and unavoidable guilt in Levinas and shows that responsibility is not limited to specific wrongdoing or explicit acknowledgment of guilt. By drawing out these differences between Jaspers and Levinas, the author asks if Levinas’s approach might provide illuminating guidance to talk about our guilt and responsibility for the Holocaust as well as other social events.

By distinguishing between space and place, the article situates and analyses the meaning of the closest place – home – in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. The effort to encounter transcendence, to escape, to leave, to not be attached a particular place, and not to be driven by a nostalgia to return, is dominant in Levinas’s philosophy. This article shows that dwelling in a place, as settling in a home, also has a positive meaning for Levinas. This positive meaning comes, however, not from an ontological but from an ethical relationship with a place. The home is shown as chosen place, warm and human, as opposed to a given or natural place. On the one hand, the home is a necessary condition for security, but also the very condition of interiority and activity, of having the place in the world in contrast to thrownness. On the other hand, it is not a place where I is embodied and rooted in like a vegetable, but a place where I welcome the other.

Straipsnyje analizuojamas unheimlich fenomenas Heideggerio filosofijoje, keliamas klausimas tiek apie patį šį fenomeną, jo įvairius aspektus, svarstoma, kokiu būdu šis fenomenas pasirodo. Pirmoje straipsnio dalyje analizuojama, kaip šis slėpiningumas, svetimybė gali būti suprasta Būties ir laiko kontekste. Tai atliekama aptariant Dasein būtį pasaulyje – pamatinę baimės nuotaiką ir sąžinės fenomeną. Antroje straipsnio dalyje žmogaus slėpiningumas analizuojamas taikant Antigonės mito heideggerišką interpretaciją 1935 ir 1942-ųjų metų Heideggerio tekstuose.

This essay addresses the topic of place, more specifically it raises the question how and why place is essential for defining the strangeness of the other person. In Levinas’ philosophy the Other as stranger is the one whom I welcome to my home and country, i.e., to my place. This essay takes up three interrelated topics: (1) the general notion of place; (2) the ethical notion of place in Levinas’ philosophy, contrasted with an ontological notion of place. The deepest significance and virtue of place appears not in my dwelling or my compatibility with being but at the site from which the I is able to welcome the Other. Furthermore, the “ownness” of my place is always contested by the stranger as I have no necessity, no ultimate right to be; (3) the strangeness of the Other in Levinas’ philosophy defined not by topology but by vulnerability. To welcome the stranger and give up my place comes from my infinite responsibility for the Other. On the ethical level, the vulnerable face of the Other cannot be objectified and classified.