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Author Achtenberg, Deborah, 1951- author.

Title Essential vulnerabilities : Plato and Levinas on relations to the Other / Deborah Achtenberg
Published Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2014

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Description 1 online resource
Series Rereading ancient philosophy
Rereading ancient philosophy.
Contents Violence -- Freedom -- Creation -- Knowledge -- Time and the self -- Violence, freedom, creation, knowledge -- Glory and shine -- Conclusion
Summary "In Essential Vulnerabilities, Deborah Achtenberg contests Emmanuel Levinas's idea that Plato is a philosopher of freedom for whom thought is a return to the self. Instead, Plato, like Levinas, is a philosopher of the other. Nonetheless, Achtenberg argues, Plato and Levinas are different. Though they share the view that human beings are essentially vulnerable and essentially in relation to others, they conceive human vulnerability and responsiveness differently. For Plato, when we see beautiful others, we are overwhelmed by the beauty of what is, by the vision of eternal form. For Levinas, we are disrupted by the newness, foreignness, or singularity of the other. The other, for him, is new or foreign, not eternal. The other is unknowable singularity. By showing these similarities and differences, Achtenberg resituates Plato in relation to Levinas and opens up two contrasting ways that self is essentially in relation to others."--Page 4 of cover
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes This work is licensed by Knowledge Unlatched under a Creative Commons license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
Print version record
Subject Lévinas, Emmanuel.
Plato.
SUBJECT Lévinas, Emmanuel fast
Plato fast
Subject Self (Philosophy)
Other (Philosophy)
Other minds (Theory of knowledge)
PHILOSOPHY -- Ethics & Moral Philosophy.
Other minds (Theory of knowledge)
Other (Philosophy)
Self (Philosophy)
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780810167827
0810167824