Ethics and Selfhood: Alterity and the Phenomenology of Obligation

226 Pages·2003·0.61 MB·English

by  James Richard Mensch

Ethics and Selfhood

Ethics and Selfhood
Alterity and the Phenomenology of Obligation
James Richard Mensch
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2003 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mensch, James R.
Ethics and selfhood : alterity and the phenomenology of obligation /
James Richard Mensch.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–7914–5751–6 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0–7914–5752–4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Ethics. 2. Phenomenology. 3. Self (Philosophy). 4. Other (Philosophy)
I.Title.
B945.M4853 E84 2003
170—dc21
2002030482
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to Jessica Claire Mensch
and to the promise of her work

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Selfhood and Certainty 17
2. Empathy and Self-Presence 37
3. The Divided Self: A Phenomenological History of Ethics 49
4. Rescue and the Origin of Responsibility 97
5. An Ethics of Framing 121
6. Freedom and Alterity 147
7. Alterity and Society 171
Notes 185
Bibliography 205
Name Index 211
Subject Index 213
vii

Acknowledgments
Some of the chapters appearing in this volume are reworked versions
of previously published articles. Acknowledgment is made to the fol-
lowing publishing houses, periodicals and persons for their kind permis-
sion to republish all or part of the following articles: “Selfhood and
Politics,”Symposium, Journal of the Canadian Society for Hermeneutics
and Postmodern Thought 6:1 (2002), “Crosscultural Understanding and
Ethics,” in New Europe at the Crossroads I, ed. U. Beitter (New York:
Peter Lang Publishers, 1999), “Rescue and the Face to Face: Ethics and
the Holocaust” in New Europe at the Crossroads II, ed. U. Beitter (New
York:Peter Lang Publishers, 2001), and “Literature and Evil” in Ethics
and Literature, ed. Dorothee Gelhard (Berlin: Galda and Wilch, 2002). I
wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, the Director,
Department for the Righteous, for permission to quote from the mate-
rial at the Archives at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Without Dr. Paldiel’s
assistance and encouragement, a crucial chapter of this book could not
have been written. I also wish to thank the director of the Husserl
Archives in Louvain, Professor Rudolph Bernet, for extending me the
hospitality of the Archives and granting me permission to quote from
the Nachlass. Finally, grateful acknowledgment is due to the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a grant sup-
porting the research that made this volume possible.
ix