Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical work on ‘the Other’ offers a challenge to the discipline of anthropology that claims knowledge of the human. For Levinas, the ‘secrecy’ of subjectivity – a fundamental facet of the human condition – demands an ethics of ignorance and not-knowing; the mystery of otherness is only to be approached through ‘inspiration’. Can anthropology meet a Levinasian challenge if it would define itself as a science as well as a humanistic documentation of social life? This book endeavours to take Levinasian and anthropological precepts equally seriously and offers a radical conclusion.
One of the most significant philosophical voices of the twentieth century – the philosopher of ‘the Other’ – Emmanuel Levinas’s work offers a challenge to the discipline of anthropology that claims knowledge of the human. This book endeavours to take Levinasian and anthropological precepts on ‘humanistic science’ equally seriously and offers tentative conclusions.
