April 8, 2007
David Gauthier says that his doctorate, entitled Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Politics of Dwelling, will consider:
the German philosopher’s attempted philosophical homecoming from the perspective of Emmanuel Levinas’s pointed critique of Heidegger’s place-bound view of human existence. Taking aim at the ontological, anti-humanistic, and pagan elements of Heidegger’s thought, Levinas posits an alternative that is ethical in emphasis, humanistic in thrust, and transcendent in scope. Supplementing and correcting Heidegger’s homecoming ethos with a philosophy that stresses hospitality (l’hospitalité) towards the Other (autrui), Levinas suggests that our ethical responsibility for the stranger, widow, and orphan supercedes our attachment to place.
Place has never had that much resonance in the Australian academy outside of environmental philosophy. It is our ethical relation to the Other that has taken grip.
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