Keywords
altérité
violence politique
éthique
Franz Fanon
Emmanuel Levinas Enmity
Alterity
Political violence
Ethics
Franz Fanon
Emmanuel Levinas
How to Cite
Abstract
Under what conditions do some individuals acquire a face, a legible and visible face, and others do not? This article focuses on a specific question: whether the historical specificities of a given ontological order ―such as colonialism― can prevent the possibility of such an encounter, i. e. when the other is reified, ontologically diminished and stripped of her humanity. The author proposes to confront this problem by instituting a dialogue between the philosophy of Franz Fanon and that of Emmanuel Levinas.
Firstly, the article explains the difficulty that Fanon's thought poses to Levinassian ethics; then, it attempts to show how Levinassian ethics could function within (or beyond) the framework of Fanon's negative ontology. Thirdly, a critique of certain aspects of Levinas’ philosophy of otherness leads us to question the problem of the third and of the enemy, in order to reflect on the limits of the ethical response to Fanon's strictly political problem: the inevitability of cruelty and political violence.
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