POSTHUMANISTIČKA ETIKA ODGOVORNOSTI: OD LEVINASA KA DRUGOM, KA NEHUMANOM

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the theoretical and conceptual connections between the philosophy of the Otherness by Emanuel Levinas and postulates established by the critical posthumanism theoreticians regarding the new humanism ethics. The starting point for this elaboration is the theory of responsibility for the Other developed by Levinas, which is understood as the basic principle of humanity, and therefore of the human subject as well. The responsibility for the Other is an immanence of being, instigated by the encounter with the face, the look and the touch of the Other. For Levinas, precisely these form the primary speech of humanity that one can express to the Other, becoming himself too in that expression. As posthumanism is a paradigm which brings the overcoming of the exclusivist principle of the traditional anthropocentric humanism, the notion of the Other has become a focal point for all the posthumanist discourses regarding the investigation of the essence of the human. Considering the fact that posthumanism tends to surpass all the dichotomies related to the Other – human or inhuman, configured differently in the racial, class, gender, biological or technological manner – we can confirm that posthumanism has restored the question of the responsibility for the Other and the necessity of his recognition without any tendency to assim- ilate, subjugate or eradicate it. Therefore the paper comparatively depicts and analyzes all the overlapping points of the new ethics of Levinas and the desired ethics of posthumanism overlap.