Shame, de-subjectivation and passivity – on the metaphysics of the Self in Levinas and Agamben

Abstract

This article provides a relation between the problem of shame in both Levinas and Agamben, focusing, for the most part, in the development of Levinas' metaphysics and its relation to the emotional tonality of shame in three works: "On Escape", "Time and the Other" and "Otherwise than Being". In stressing the unique take that Levinas has on metaphysics, I try to point at the tension between Jewish and Greek thought in Levinas, and his option for a radical notion of a situated understanding of the "ethical". Hence my interest in contrasting Levinas and Agamben, as Agamben's appropriation of Levinas' lexicon in his "Remnants of Aushwitz" places the subject in a political, and material, position which is ultimately uncompatible with Levinas' situational and metaphysical take on the self.