Phenomenology of the Other. Paul Ricœur and Emmanuel Lévinas’ attitude towards the ontology of Totality

The aim of this paper is to present Ricœur’s and Lé vinas’s approach to the concept of selfhood (French soi) as a response to the dispute over subjectivity which was initiated by the critics of modern tradition of the absolutization of Cartesian cogito. The debate on the notion of selfhood has not been closed yet. The author analyses two diff erent approaches to the problem. One appeals to the Hegelian dialectic, adjusting it to the formula “oneself as another” (discounting that part of the dialectical movement in which Hegel jumps to a vision of absolute knowledge). The other refers to the category of substitution. Both Ricœur and Lé vinas point to the Platonic opposition of the notions of “the Same” and “the Other.” Ricœur’s initial claim breaks with the established language of ontology. Moving beyond the circle of sameness-identity towards the dialectic of sameness- and selfhood-identity entails the transformation of the notion of otherness: it is no longer an antonym of “same,” but it is a kind of otherness that is constitutive of selfhood.The aim of this paper is to present Ricœur’s and Lé vinas’s approach to the concept of selfhood (French soi) as a response to the dispute over subjectivity which was initiated by the critics of modern tradition of the absolutization of Cartesian cogito. The debate on the notion of selfhood has not been closed yet. The author analyses two diff erent approaches to the problem. One appeals to the Hegelian dialectic, adjusting it to the formula “oneself as another” (discounting that part of the dialectical movement in which Hegel jumps to a vision of absolute knowledge). The other refers to the category of substitution. Both Ricœur and Lé vinas point to the Platonic opposition of the notions of “the Same” and “the Other.” Ricœur’s initial claim breaks with the established language of ontology. Moving beyond the circle of sameness-identity towards the dialectic of sameness- and selfhood-identity entails the transformation of the notion of otherness: it is no longer an antonym of “same,” but it is a kind of otherness that is constitutive of selfhood