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Document Details : Title: The Child as Subject and as Other Author(s): BLOECHL, Jeffrey Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies Volume: 7 Date: 2023 Pages: 173-187 DOI: 10.2143/EPH.7.0.3291059 Abstract : Levinas’s conception of responsibility as radical and unqualified openly assumes that the subject who would take this on must have attained a certain maturity. Responsibility is for adults, who have achieved insight and self-control. These claims imply a theory of the child who is not only in need of care (child as Other) but also a potential responsible subject. Levinas’s theory of the child and of teaching both resembles that of Kant and differs from it on crucial matters. It is also embedded in a theory of family, that appears in his philosophical writings. In this instance, his Jewish writings are especially instructive, because they take up the child explicitly and at some length. Reflection on the themes of teaching, responsibility, and innocence leads finally to proposals concerning the introduction of the child into language, which for the later Levinas makes up the ethical relation. |
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