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| “The Paradox of the Other”: Lyotard’s Interpretation of Levinas’Ethics of Obligation |
| SHI De-jin |
| School of Marxism, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510275 |
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Abstract Since the other was beyond rhetoric and language, how could Levinas put forward the ethical concept of the absolute other without incorporating the other into the existential discourse? Therefore, in the opinion of many skeptics, this was “the paradox” that Levinas could not resolve. At this point, Lyotard believed that this was just a neo-Hegelian misreading. Lyotard established a unique logic of prescriptive statements, which were not commensurable with denotative (or descriptive) one, but “other than” or “beyond” it. It would go to the paradox of formal logic or misreading if the discourse of Levinas put into the logic of denotative statements. Instead, it is only being placed in a logic that “other than” denotative statements that it could be correctly understood. Accordingly, Lyotard believed that Levinas just tried to suggest an asymmetric relationship with “the other” through this unique way of statements, and then established the absolute obligation to others.
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Received: 25 December 2015
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2016, Vol. 33 
