The Origins of Responsibility

by Raffoul, Francois

• ISBN13: 9780253221735
• ISBN10: 0253221730
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-23
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

François Raffoul approaches the concept of responsibility in a manner that is distinct from its traditional interpretation as accountability of the willful subject. Exploring responsibility in the works of Nietzsche, Sartre, Levinas, Heidegger, and Derrida, Raffoul identifies decisive moments in the development of the concept, retrieves its origins, and explores new reflections on it. For Raffoul, responsibility is less about a sovereign subject establishing a sphere of power and control, than about exposure to an event that does not come from us and yet calls to us. These original and thoughtful investigations of the post-metaphysical senses of responsibility chart new directions for ethics in the continental tradition.

Author Biography

Fran+ºois Raffoul is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana State University. He is author of Heidegger and the Subject and editor of several works on Lacan and Heidegger. He is translator (with Andrew Mitchell) of Martin Heidegger's Four Seminars (IUP, 2003).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction the Origins of Responsibility	p. 1
Aristotle: Responsibility as Voluntariness	p. 39
Kant: Responsibility as Spontaneity of the Subject	p. 58
Nietzsche's Deconstruction of Accountability	p. 80
Satre: Hyperbolic Responsibility	p. 121
Levinas's Reversal of Responsibility	p. 163
Heidegger's Originary Ethics	p. 220
Heidegger: The Ontological Origins of Responsibility	p. 242
Derrida: The Impossible Origins of Responsibility	p. 282
Conclusion The Future of Responsibility	p. 300
Notes	p. 305
Index	p. 331
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