Redeeming the elemental: Levinas on nature
by Robert Switzer
Interdisciplinary Environmental Review (IER), Vol. 4, No. 2, 2002

Abstract: Can we find in nature what Levinas has called ''the face of the Other?'' While acknowledging that Levinas himself resists such a move, I argue here that his thought can ground environmental ethics. The fundamental traits demanded by Levinas's account can be found, specifically, in the challenging strangeness of the natural world, and also in its mortality and susceptibility, as increasingly brought to light by human techno-power. Nature's ethical demand is uncovered via a re-examination of what Levinas calls ''the elemental'', here reclaimed as a milieu out of which the natural world arises as ''mattering', as demanding our responsibility and deserving of our care.

Online publication date: Mon, 13-May-2013

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