Community of singularities : the possibility of being-with in the work of Heidegger, LĂ©vinas and Derrida
The aim of this study is to attempt a re-conceptualisation of ethics and politics away from the well-rehearsed structure of singularity versus community, particularity or individuality versus universality, as well as from the inadequate dyadic positioning of these sets of terms. Dominant scholarship on LĂ©vinas's and Derrida's work has generally been divided into those who see Derrida's work as continuing the LĂ©vinasian legacy, and thus having little to offer to the political, and those who would like to divorce the trajectory of deconstruction from the LĂ©vinasian heritage, and thus reveal it as being inherently political. The above split in opinion is largely based on a divergence in the interpretation of LĂ©vinas's own writings as essentially about ethics, and therefore as either having little to offer to our thinking of the political, or as undergoing something like a âsplit', with the focus coming to rest more clearly on politics through the figure of the third, in later writings. My contribution to this impasse is to foreground a recent, though much overlooked notion within Jacques Derrida's work as an alternative to thinking being-with: that of community of singularities. I also suggest the notions
Popescu, Maria Alexandra
B2430.D48 Derrida ; Jacques ; B2430.L48 LĂ©vinas ; Emmanuel  ; B3279.H45 Heidegger ; Martin ; 1889-1976 ; BJ Ethics
Community of singularities : the possibility of being-with in the work of Heidegger, LĂ©vinas and Derrida. The aim of this study is to attempt a re-conceptualisation of ethics and politics away from the well-rehearsed structure of singularity versus community, particularity or individuality versus universality, as well as from the inadequate dyadic positioning of these sets of terms. Dominant scholarship on LĂ©vinas's and Derrida's work has generally been divided into those who see Derrida's work as continuing the LĂ©vinasian legacy, and thus having little to offer to the political, and those who would like to divorce the trajectory of deconstruction from the LĂ©vinasian heritage, and thus reveal it as being inherently political. The above split in opinion is largely based on a divergence in the interpretation of LĂ©vinas's own writings as essentially about ethics, and therefore as either having little to offer to our thinking of the political, or as undergoing something like a âsplit', with the focus coming to rest more clearly on politics through the figure of the third, in later writings. My contribution to this impasse is to foreground a recent, though much overlooked notion within Jacques Derrida's work as an alternative to thinking being-with: that of community of singularities. I also suggest the notions
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