Levinas Therapy as Discourse Ethics

Abstract

Emmanuel Levinas, who died in 1995, is viewed as one of the most significant Continental philosophers of our time. This chapter introduces the his ethical philosophy of and consider its implications for therapy as a discourse ethics, providing practice examples along the way. Levinas's unique contribution is the notion that first and foremost we are ethical beings. This ethics first philosophy was to some extent a personal response to the horrors of the Second World War and the holocaust. Yet, for Levinas, the ethical is overridden not just by physical violence but by a Western philosophy of being, which effaces persons by reducing them to concepts like reason or intentionality. (The author notes that Peter Rober and Tom Strong served as conversational partners in the construction of this chapter.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)