Onto-theology and the incrimination of ontology in Levinas and Derrida

Abstract

My aim in this article is to analyse the incrimination of ontology and ontological manifestations in reason, articulated speech and social order and argue that such an incrimination, which is characteristic of traditional philosophy, can be explained as a phenomenon of onto-theology. Then I demonstrate that the ideas of Levinas - and to some degree the Derridean response to them - suffer from residues of onto-theology to the extent that they preserve and promote the assumption that ontology is essentially violent. I claim that the Levinasian priority of ethics over ontology and the Derridean treatment of the opposition ‘ethics vs ontology’ rest on an epochal understanding of being. Such an understanding arrests time and echoes old religious doctrines that traditional philosophy preserved in a secular form and handed down to contemporary philosophical thinking. By charging Levinasian and Derridean ideas with onto-theology, I unveil what I consider to be one of the last dogmas of Occidental thought, i.e. the assumption that self-interest and violence are somehow endemic in the human condition. I suggest that we overcome this assumption, if we truly wish to view the I-Thou relation Other-wise. © 2005, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.