Proximity in E. Levinas

Abstract

In this paper the author discusses proximity in the work of E. Levinas. For the Lithuanian author, proximity is identified with subjectivity, or the very identity of the subject. Proximity does not have a “spatial” connotation, near or far; nor is it limited to a “face-to-face” presence with the other; it encompasses the “third” that transcends time and space. For Levinas, proximity does not occur in an imaginary, fictitious being, but in a historical being, situated in time and in a context or circumstance, in a being of flesh and blood. Proximity is given in a being “assigned” to the other before any choice or decision; it is an order, a mandate that only the subject is responsible for and cannot reject without endangering his own identity. Proximity is described by Levinas as a disorder, an obsession, an overturning of our psyche that breaks our selfish lethargy that prevented us from taking responsibility for the other, who frees us from our ethical isolation. It is the other (neighbour), from the vulnerability of his or her face, who makes us human. For Levinas, the term proximity is equivalent to subjectivity, responsibility, transcendence, otherness.