Levinas's rhetorical demand

the unending obligation of communication ethics

Ronald C. Arnett

Southern Illinois University Press

2017

Abstract

Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy explicates a human obligation and responsibility to and for the Other that is an unending and imperfect commitment. In Levinas’s Rhetorical Demand: The Unending Obligation of Communication Ethics, Ronald C. Arnett underscores the profundity of Levinas’s insights for communication ethics. Arnett outlines communication ethics as a primordial call of responsibility central to Levinas’s writing and mission, analyzing it through a Levinasian lens with examination of social artifacts ranging from the Heidegger-Cassirer debate to Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World story concerning illicit possession of information. Levinas’s Rhetorical Demand offers an account of Levinas’s project and the pragmatic implications of attending to a call of responsibility to and for the Other. This book yields a rich and nuanced understanding of Levinas’s work, revealing the practical importance of his insights, and including a discussion of related theorists and thinkers.

Reviews

• Simon Thornton, "R. Arnett, Levinas's rhetorical demand" Phenomenological Reviews 4, 2018, pp. 16-16

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Levinas Emmanuel

Cassirer Ernst