Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality

286 Pages·2015·1.82 MB·English

by  Topolski, Anya

Arendt, Levinas and a
Politics of Relationality
Reframing the Boundaries:
Thinking the Political
Serieseditors:AlisonAssiterandEvertvanderZweerde
Thisseriesaimstominetherichresourcesofphilosophersinthe ‘continental’tradition
fortheircontributionstothinkingthepolitical.Itfillsagapintheliteraturebysuggesting
thattheworkof a wider rangeof philosophersthanthosenormallyassociated withthis
sphereofworkcanbeofrelevancetothepolitical.
TitlesintheSeries
KierkegaardandtheMatterofPhilosophy,MichaelO’NeillBurns
Arendt,LevinasandaPoliticsofRelationality,AnyaTopolski
Arendt, Levinas and a
Politics of Relationality
Anya Topolski
London•NewYork
PublishedbyRowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.
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Copyright©2015byAnyaTopolski
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ISBN:HB978-1-7834-8341-9
ISBN:PB978-1-7834-8342-6
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Topolski,Anya,1976–
Arendt,Levinasandapoliticsofrelationality/AnyaTopolski.
pagescm.—(ReframingtheBoundaries)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-78348-341-9(cloth:alk.paper)—ISBN978-1-78348-342-6(paper:alk.paper)—
ISBN978-1-78348-343-3(electronic)1.Politicalethics.2.Politicalscience—Philosophy.3.Arendt,
Hannah,1906–1975.4.Levinas,Emmanuel—Politicalandsocialviews.I.Title.
JA79.T662015
172—dc23
2015005063
TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
NationalStandardforInformationSciencesPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibrary
Materials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992.
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
FormydaughterHannahAliyahRahela,
agiftofpurejoytakenafterjusttwoshortyearsontheearth,
leavingaspaceinmyheartandintheworldnevertobefilled.

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Note x
KeyAbbreviationsforWorksbyHannahArendtandEmmanuel
Levinas xi
WorksbyHannahArendt xi
WorksbyEmmanuelLevinas xii
Introduction:InSearchofaPoliticsofRelationality xiii
Notes xviii
I:BridgesandBreaks 1
1 BiographicalandPhilosophicalIntersections 3
LifeStories 5
PhilosophicalParallels 11
Notes 23
2 DividedbyDisciplinaryConfines? 27
InsurmountableTensions? 28
WhatIsthePolitical? 31
WhatIsEthics? 34
APoliticalEthics 36
Notes 37
II:OnHannahArendt 41
Notes 42
3 OnthePolitical:FromAshestoHope 43
Totalitarianism:TheLossoftheHumanWorld 44
ThePolitical:CreatingaWorldTogether 56
Plurality:ANewPrincipleforthePolitical 68
Notes 71
4 AnEthicsfromWithinthePolitical 77
TheCriterionforanArendtianEthics 78
RethinkingtheVitaContemplativainPoliticalandEthical
Terms 85
vii
viii Contents
Responsibility:BridgingtheVitaActivaandVita
Contemplativa 96
AssessingArendt’sPoliticalEthics 102
Notes 106
III:OnEmmanuelLevinas 109
Notes 110
5 Levinas’sEthics:FromOntologytoAlterity 111
FromOntologytoEthics 112
EthicsasFirstPhilosophy 116
ResponsibilityfortheOther 129
Notes 142
6 AnEthicalPolitics 145
TheCriterionforLevinas’sPolitics 146
Post-FoundationalJudaicPolitics 156
IsLevinas’sEthicalpolisEnough? 169
Notes 173
IV:FromPluralityandAlteritytoRelationality 177
7 FromArendtandLevinastoRelationality 179
IntroducingBackgroundElementsintoRelationality 181
ExperienceandthePhenomenologicalApproach 183
WrestlingwithHeidegger 184
TheJudaicContributiontoRelationality 186
FromAlterityandPluralitytoRelationality 199
Notes 211
8 ThePromiseandPitfallsofRelationality 217
Relationality:PuttingthePiecesofthePuzzleTogether 217
TowardsaPoliticsofRelationality 227
Notes 230
WorksCited 233
RelatedWorks 245
Index 259
Acknowledgements
I first began researching the contents of this book in 2004. In its original
formasmydoctoraldissertation,itwassuccessfullydefendedattheend
of2008.Bynowitis2014,adecadehaspassed,andinthistimemuchhas
changed in the shared world as well as in my own personal life. Let me
tell my own story and the story of this work by interweaving them into
thechangingpoliticalcontextwithinwhichtheytookplace.
BornintoanonpracticingJewishfamilyofEasternEuropeandescent,
myworld wasoneofsurvivorsandrefugees.Theformer thegeneration
of my grandparents, the latter the generation of my parents, who were
forced to leave Poland in March 1968 during a less known history of
JewishpersecutionbehindtheIronCurtain.Questionsofidentity,inclu-
sion and exclusion, anti-Semitism and prejudice were never foreign to
my thinking, even though as a resident of Canada, they were foreign to
mylivedexperience.AllthischangedwhenImovedtoEuropetostudy
philosophy. Having lived in many parts of the globe, I never expected
culture shock to manifest itself so strongly in the continent my parents
had never ceased to speak about as our home, in terms of beings both
JewsandPoles.
Inpost-9/11,7/7,and11-MEurope,andmostevidentlyinthedecade
in which this work has been written, there has been a resurgence of
supportforpoliticians,andtheirideas,thatIwoulddefineinLevinasian
terms as espousing the ‘same hatred of the other man’, a form of racism
often connected to religion, race or economics. While Europeans, and
certainly those caught up in the project of the European Union, talk a
greatdealabouthavingfoundedaEuropethatwillneverrepeatthewars
and genocide that disgrace the history of the twentieth century, what I
haveobservedgreatlyconcernsme.Thegapbetweenrhetoricandreality
is immense. I have seen Muslim women violently disrobed and shamed
much like Jews were in the 1930s. I have seen mosques burning. These
images differ only from those I have seen of synagogues burning in the
1930s because they are in colour, digital and often taken by cameras on
cell phones of observers. Worst of all, I have seen too many bystanders
keepwalkingandremainsilent.
While there are undoubtedly many differences between the histories
of Jews and Muslims in Europe, the inspiration for my dissertation and
my further research is motivated by a need to signal the alarm bells. In
this vein, I see a politics of relationality as a contribution towards an
ix