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Title: Verantwoordelijkheid voor de Ander?
Subtitle: Levinas, interreligieuze dialoog en de andersheid van de Ander
Author(s): MOYAERT, Marianne
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie
Volume: 52    Issue: 1   Date: 2012   
Pages: 33-52
DOI: 10.2143/TVT.52.1.3203340

Abstract :
In this article I examine how Levinas’ ethics relate to interfaith dialogue and to pluralism and particularism, the models it currently uses to reflect on religious diversity. I build my argumentation in four steps. My questions are whether Levinas’ notion on alterity can be reconciled with one of these models and how Levinas’ ethics relate to recent calls for interfaith dialogue. (1) In the first step, I explain a few of Levinas’ basic principles. I focus mainly on the distinction between alterity and the other’s difference. This distinction is the foundation for the subsequent reasoning. (2) Next I analyse pluralism and particularism, two current approaches to religious diversity, each of which offers a different interpretation of openness for the (religious) other’s otherness. While pluralism understands openness to the other’s otherness in terms of reciprocity, complementarity and mutual enrichment, particularism focuses on openness as recognising the various religions’ irreducible unicity. Although these two tendencies claim to be the preservers of true openness to the religious other’s otherness, Levinas would subject them to severe criticism in the name of this alterity. From Levinas’ perspective, neither pluralist nor particularist openness show any sign of really recognising the Other’s alterity. Levinas’ way of viewing alterity resonates with neither pluralism nor particularism. The reason is simple. Particularism and pluralism are both examples of the kind of differentiation that Levinas distrusted and contested. (3) In the third step, I use an ethical perspective to reorient the previous call for openness to the Other. I argue that given Levinas’ ethics, it would be more suitable to speak of hospitality for the foreign Other who arrives as the uninvited guest. Yet this article goes further than merely contrasting Levinas’ idea of alterity with notions of difference at stake in interfaith dialogue. (4) In the fourth step I make some critical remarks on the contrast between alterity and difference. I suggest that Levinas’ distrust of ideas on difference lacks balance.

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