Corporeal generosity: On giving with Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas (Book review)

Book review of Rosalyn Diprose, Corporeal Generosity: On Giving with Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas (State University of New York Press) Albany, 2002.

Levinas and the defination of philosophy: An ethical approach

Emmanuel Levinas’ thought seems to be strictly neither rational, phenomenological nor ontological, and it thus intentionally exposes itself to the asking of the question ‘why call it philosophy at all’? While we may have trouble containing Levinas’ thought within our traditional philosophical boundaries, I argue that this gives us no reason to exclude him from philosophy proper as a mere poser, but rather provides the occasion for reflection on just what it means, in an ethical manner, to call something ‘philosophical’. Instead of asking whether or not philosophy can ‘contain’ Levinas’ thought, I contend that it would be more ethical to instead re-phrase the question in terms of ‘sociality’. When we do this, I argue, we can indeed justifiably call Levinas’ thought philosophy.

Education for an ethical imagination

In response to the question, 'Education for what?', this article argues the case for an ethical imagination. It begins by illustrating different approaches to ethics - Greek antiquity, Kant s categorical imperative, Levinas's interhuman ethic of care, and Foucauldian genealogy. On the basis ofthis, it suggests that ethics may be understood as a disposition of continual questioning and adjusting of thought and action in relation to notions of human good and how to be and act in relation to others. It then briefly considers education as an ethical activity, and sets out three interrelated axes for an ethics of engagement in education: intellectual rigour, civility and care. Using examples ofcitizenship and statelessness in Australia, it argues that building an ethical imagination is a valuable goal for education.

Levinasian ethics and the representation of the other in international and cross-cultural management

In this paper, we seek to further the discussion, problematization and critique of west/east identity relations in ICM studies by considering the ethics of the relationship – an issue never far beneath the surface in discussions of Orientalism. In particular we seek to both examine and question the ethics of representation in relation to a critique of what has come to be known as international and cross-cultural management (ICM). To pursue such a discussion, we draw specifically on the ethical elaborations of Emmanuel Levinas as well as his chief interlocutors Jacques Derrida and Zygmunt Bauman. The value of this discussion, we propose, is that Levinas offers a philosophy that holds as its central concept the relationship between the self and Other as the primary ethical and pre-ontological relation. Levinas’ philosophy provides a means of extending the post-colonial critique of ICM, and ICM provides a context in which the Levinasian ethics can be brought to bear on a significant issue on contemporary business and management.