Alteridade e reconhecimento: pensando a comunidade plural a partir de Levinas

Abstract

Justice, when inspired by ethics, poses the problem of altruistic recognition as a guarantee of pratical responses to alterity in the plural community. This is the thesis defended in this work. In order to argue it starts from a paradox that manifests itself in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: the ethical sense that, according to Levinas, marks the origino f what is significant for human reality, can never be fixed by na ontology (a Sayd) and, however , this same meaning calls for the task of transposing it to the scope of the interhuman Community in the form of concrete ethical actions. The ethical sense irreducible to any ontological totality inevitably opens the search for justice within society; that is, it is necessary to provide a concrete response to otherness beyond the Face that Faces the self. This answer, is provided by the so called altruistic recognition. This recognition, unlike that issued by Hegel and Honneth, has the following characteristics: asymetry and non-reciprocity between the parties. Hegel and Honneth each found three spheres for symmetrical and reciprocal recognition. Hegel called them the Family, Civil Society and the State. Honneth preferred to call them Love, Law and Solidarity. However, ultil naw, among the interpreters of Levinas, including the philosopher himself, the forms of altruistic recognition heve not been explicitly exposed. This thesis seeks to fill this gap, presenting innovation and pionnering spirit, since it brings as a response to the proposed paradox the description of the three stages of altruistic recognition, namely: Abnegation, Friendship and Law. The first is understood as the act of giving oneself to the Other, being engaged in practical actions that respond to the appeal of otherness. The second, when referring to the multiplicity of subjects, is based on sociality and pluralismo, not as the reproduction of individual subjects around something common, but as the realization of the relationship between Friendship and the Good, after all, that is one of the forms of manifestation of this in the community, leading to reflection on justice. The third requires the entry of the third party into the face-t-face relationship and, then, is divided into two phases. The first phase requests the opening of the norm to welcome the appeal of alterity, thus, balancing the appeal of the Other and the third. The second phase – more demanding than the previous one – is based on the response and responsibility towards otherness, before the incidence of the norm, with the law being moved only by ethical principles.