Levinas and meontology

Abstract

Bu tez Levinasçı felsefenin varolmayanın bilimi olan meontoloji ile ilişkisini radikal bir başkalık etiği yönünde açıklamayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda Levinas'ın dışsallık ile dışkınlık üzerinden geliştirdiği

This thesis aims to explain the relation of Levinasian philosophy with meontology which is the science of non-being in terms of a radical philosophy of alterity. In accordance with this purpose, the project of the phenomenology of sociality, which Levinas developed by exteriority and excendence, with the burdens of absolute theological intentions was problematised. Regarding this problematisation, it is questioned that whether this Levinasian meontology is a meontotheology or not. The thesis is composed of three sections. The philosophy of Levinas is elaborated in the terms of Ontology, of Phenomenology and of Meontology, respectively. The section of Ontology involves objections of Levinas regarding the concepts such as being, unity, totality, State, objectivity, freedom which dominated Western Philosophy. In the light of these objections, the primary concepts of Levinas which are face, conscience, language, exteriority, subjectivity, religion are elaborated. The section of Phenomenology discusses the relation of Levinas with phenomenological method, which inspires the philosophy of Levinas in the way of searching concrete, in the context of Husserl and Heidegger. Husserlian philosophy with regard to the concepts of noesis-noema, intentionality, infinite, representation, body, happiness, satisfaction, joy of life; Heideggerian philosophy with regard to Dasein, affectivity, disclosure, hotness, being-towards-death, mineness are positioned critically. By virtue of these critiques, the body precedes and conditions representation (Husserl) and the other person is not a matter of howness but a matter of whoness (Heidegger). The section of Meontology is opened to two directions. First direction analyses the hypothasis of existent within existence and its dual structure of the self. Human being has to be oneself and to have oneself at the same time. It has to show effort to close the gap between being self and (shadow) having self. This endless pursuit of human being has no adventure, it cannot survive of lagging behind itself, stopping in this adventure. Existent becomes abandoned and forsaken within its never-ending tasks; it experiences being fatigue, indolent and weary as primordial events. This abandonment and forsakenness only and only ends with the spirituality and transcendence which is opened in the face of the Other. Second direction focused on meontology of such kind of spirituality in terms of Levinasian ethics of alterity. The concepts related with me ontology are saying, being unsaid, a null site, diachrony, heteronomy, substitution, expiation, sacred and goodness. These concepts put speaking, helping, looking to/after the Other, responsibility and disinterestedness as towards-God into the core of philosophical discourse.Keywords: Levinas, infinity, face, intentionality, Other, ontology, phenomenology, meontology, Descartes, Husserl, Heidegger, conscience, saying, diachrony, heteronomy, substitution, goodness, disinterestedness, God.