Abstract
In this chapter I introduce the ethical philosophy of Levinas and consider its implications for therapy as a discourse ethics, providing practice examples along the way. Emmanuel Levinas who died in 1995 is one of the most significant Continental philosophers of our time (Critchley and Bernasconi, 2002). Like French contemporary (1999) his thinking has influenced diverse fields of poststructuralist study including more recently psychology and therapy (Kunz, 1998; Gantt and Williams, 2002). Levinas’s unique contribution is the notion that first and foremost we are ethical beings. This ethics first philosophy was to some extent a personal response to the horrors of the Second World War and the holocaust. As (1995) says: “To overcome the ethical is the beginning of all violence. To acknowledge this is very important after the events of 1933 to 1945” (p. 58).
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Larner, G., Rober, P., Strong, T. (2004). Levinas Therapy as Discourse Ethics. In: Strong, T., Paré, D. (eds) Furthering Talk. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8975-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8975-8_2
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