Émmanuel Lévinas (Research Methodology)

This dissertation sets out to explore the theoretical and methodological feasibility of an autoethnography situated within a theoretical framework that draws on my personal philosophical background. In doing so, the study raises some novel questions about the theoretical underpinnings of autoethnography.
The dissertation addresses a number of competing issues: Firstly, because autoethnography is a relatively new qualitative research methodology, it remains somewhat unrefined, and alongside its potential benefits lie numerous conceptual problems and limitations. These issues differ depending on the paradigmatic position of each individual researcher and the theoretical framework s/he uses to shape his/her research. Full awareness of one’s subjective philosophical position thus allows at least its acknowledgement, if not even a justification for its place and role in shaping the methodology. Secondly, the potential of my subjective philosophical position, comprised by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and the philosophies and practices of Aikido and Zen, as an underpinning philosophy and theoretical framework for autoethnography is practically un- or underexplored in the existing literature around autoethnography. However, due to an overlap of core topics, it seems as though their combination might be beneficial to improve the strength and theoretical foundation of (my) autoethnography. Consequently, testing whether autoethnography is compatible with my philosophical background is a necessary precursor to any more detailed empirical work.

The dissertation acts as a preparatory study for a future autoethnography of my personal physiotherapy practice, in which the approach emerging from the present dissertation would be applied. In this sense, the present study bears some resemblance to the reliability and validity studies common to quantitative research, but instead takes as its focus the possible methodological and philosophical compatibility of autoethnography with the philosophies and practices of Aikido, Zazen and Levinas.

To examine this question I have identified a number of key factors that are relevant to develop a theoretical framework for my autoethnography and these form the main structural features of the dissertation. Chapters include the basic philosophical, ontological and epistemological underpinnings, data and the methods of its processing, trustworthiness and ethical considerations for autoethnographic research. In each chapter I have compared and contrasted existing autoethnographic approaches with thinking inherent in my personal philosophical background. Through this process of contrasting and comparing a theoretical framework has emerged that partially builds on and infers from existing approaches, but also adds and changes some aspects in an entirely novel way.

In the dissertation I have shown that it may indeed be theoretically and methodologically possible to combine autoethnography with my personal philosophical background, and that approach may offer a strong enough foundation for its application in a future autoethnography of my physiotherapy practice. However, the present study was a strongly theoretical exploration and some problems and question remain that will have to be revisited and redeveloped throughout its actual, practical application.

Résumé

Quand il se positionne face à Kierkegaard, Levinas a le réflexe de placer la pensée de l’auteur danois dans un idéalisme abstrait. Ce réflexe le conduit à croire que le Moi existentiel, égoïste, se détache de l’autre dans la violence et se trouve impuissant à revenir sur lui-même. Cet article veut montrer que, nonobstant cette critique, les deux auteurs, attentifs aux limites du langage, partagent de nombreux points en commun, tant et si bien qu’ils sont peut-être les deux plus grands représentants d’une éthique de la proximité que tente d’échapper au langage totalisant de la métaphysique.

his book situates Levinas in the pantheon of modern Jewish thinkers, discussing a number of themes that frequently occur in Jewish thought. The author presents Levinas’s oeuvre, which comprises two parts - his Jewish, “confessional” writings and his philosophical, “professional” writings - as a unity. The question of the exact relationship between these two types of writings is a lively discussion in present day scholarship. How does Levinas perceive the relationship between revelation and philosophy, the biblical address and the logos, the Saying and the said, faith and reason? There is a long oppositional tradition which contrasts Athens with Jerusalem, yet Levinas does not take part in such an antithetical tradition. Without reconciling or harmonizing, he belongs to the philosophical tradition as well as to the Jewish tradition. This double allegiance explains the presence of philosophical terms and themes in his Jewish thought and the presence of Jewish words and ideas in his metaphysics.
Levinas is presented by the author as a frequent traveler between Athens and Jerusalem and as a great translator from “Hebrew” to “Greek.” However, the relationship between “Hebrew” and “Greek” in Levinas’s writings is not one of prototext and phenotext or of subtext and text, but rather one of a primordial inspirational word and the conceptual discourse. In an inclusive reading, Meir shows that the acquaintance with Levinas’s Jewish writings is helpful in understanding his subtle philosophical analyses and a necessary condition for the understanding of the whole Levinas

In this paper an ethical approach to educational methodology is discussed in relation to the philosophies of Emanuel Levinas and Robert Cox. Cox’s anti-essentialist understanding of historical materialism and Levinas’ metaphysical idealism are applied to an analysis of the (self)-reflective methods required today in Higher Education in the UK, such as Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Personal Development Planning (PDP). The paper identifies a post-Kantian paradigm of the subject–object dichotomy as a cause of the ontological constraints which pervade critical pedagogy, and instead it proposes a pre-ontological ethics of the relationship with the other which questions self-centred strategies of reflection.
Keywords: critical pedagogy; self-reflection; complicity; ethics; ontology;
materialist historicism; Problem-Based Learning (PBL); Personal Development
Planning (PDP)

This work explores the importance anti-capitalist protest in the contemporary international system. In doing so, I address some of the practical, philosophical and ethical considerations of academic depictions of protest through examples in Toronto, Canada and Seoul, South ...