Spacing ethics: Levinas with the ethical tradition

This work explores the relationship between the ethical aspect of the philosophy of Emannuel Levinas and the Western tradition of political ethics, through an examination of three major themes--Time, Desire and Law--that traditionally have been the stepping stones for the development of discourses on political ethics. We read his texts with other texts which function as spaces of alterity that disturb and solicit the original and expose other meanings. Insofar as ethics is defined by the idea that the human being is always already a \u27being-with,\u27 and insofar as the Other is privileged by the ethical discourse that is developed by Levinas, then our \u27With\u27 insertions firstly, assume the position of Otherness and, secondly, establish a priority through which Levinas\u27 discourse achieves a polysemy of essence(s). We show how the notions of Time, Desire and Law are closely interconnected by the central theme of an ethical discourse, and how Levinas marks/demarks the concept of political ethics, as it is traditionally developed by Western philosophy. By following these three major shibboleths we trace the deconstructive effort of Levinas to dismantle Western philosophy\u27s traditional conceptualization of ethics. Our discussion points not to the failure of Levinas\u27 toil but rather to the aporetic structure of his itinerary and to the ethical significance of this aporia