home > TRiO and USP Programs > McNair > symposium > 2005 presentations > Nanda Golden

Nanda Golden
Philosophy

Ted Toadvine, Mentor

Levinas, Sartre, and the Other

In their works, both Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre explicitly thematize “the Other.” This study attempts to draw out their accounts, put them in dialogue, and use both to forge a stronger understanding than either could provide alone. To hone the question of what the Other is for Sartre and Levinas, the author focuses on sections of two texts: Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Levinas's Totality and Infinity. The author finds that Sartre's Other is centered around the look, and the destinction between Other-as-subject and Other-as-object. Levinas's Other is focused on his concepts of the face, infinity, and ethics. Comparing the two works reveals that, though different, neither accounts for empathetic interactions between self and other.