Proximity according to Levinas: a logic beyond relativism

Abstract

In this article we seek to substantiate the guiding idea that not even the historical and philosophical context – the crisis of meaning, which coincides with the deconstruction of the foundations of modern metaphysics, the rise of post-metaphysics, the structuralisms and the affirmation of moral relativism in the name of a plurality of meanings – led the Lithuanian philosopher to renounce the search in the same philosophical tradition for the possibility of overcoming the impasse of contemporary philosophy’s relativism. Perhaps some readers in a hurry may see Levinas’ intention of founding ethics upon a relationship irreducible to the concept as an adhesion to relativism, a refusal to face the logos that always moves toward a unifying consciousness. We think that comparing Levinas’ thought to the relativist discourses means to refute the critical purpose of his language, its destructive and demystifying energy. The pluralism of being is not produced as a constellation exposed to a possible glance, because in this way it would already be totalized, it would become an entity. Pluralism takes place in the goodness that goes from me to the other. It seems that Levinas’ intention is to challenge the primacy of theory without falling into the prison of multiplicity.

Keywords: ethics, relativism, crisis of meaning, proximity.