The Self as Inseparable Separation: Deepening the Starting Position for Our Relation with the Environment

Within environmental ethics, the Cartesian dualistic trend has been largely to blame for today's inadmissible attitudes towards the environment. As a reaction to this, manifold contra-discourses have emerged, developing stances that deepen our inescapable connectedness to the world. Recently, however, several discourses have come up that ask the question if it would not be more appropriate to consider these opposites together. They favour an outlook in which both detachment and intertwinement are regarded as entangled, even if it is not yet fully clear how to approach and comprehend this paradox. This article will take on the challenge to deepen an understanding of this matter, here referred to in terms of 'inseparable separation'. It is partly reliant on Levinas's works. Although Levinas is commonly known for his ethical metaphysics, this article primarily considers the phenomenological analysis of part two of his Totality and Infinity, while going beyond it. The self is pictured as consisting of different modes, namely enjoyment, dwelling, labour, representation and attentive affectability, each providing a different access to the world. It is indicated how in each mode the paradoxical relation of being in the world is visible in its own terms, yet in labour and representation the internal distance in this paradox seems to narrow down to the point of being annihilated, however, only to transform into a different paradox. While this article intends above all to highlight the complexity of being in the world, its conclusion contains minor suggestions on how to deal with this.

ISBN:978-0-8207-0484-5

Trefwoorden:Levinas