Volume 15, 2021
Levinas in Dialogue
Brigitta Keintzel

Pages 175-202
https://doi.org/10.5840/levinas2022101021
Dialogue as the ¡°Dialectic of the Soul¡± or the ¡°Root of Ethics¡±? Hegel¡¯s Legacy and Levinas¡¯s Veto
Neither according to Hegel nor according to Levinas is it possible to define the person independently of collectivity. For both, dialogues play a strategic role in the orientation towards the collective. For Hegel, the ¡°good conscience¡± is significant because it is a reference for describing the assumptions, and the results of a dialogue. I describe these implications in my first section. In the second section, I present Levinas¡¯s objections to the ¡°good conscience.¡± Instead of a ¡°good conscience,¡± for Levinas, conscience is an instance that does not confirm the subject but accuses it. In the third section, I explore Levinas¡¯s understanding of dialogue. In his view, dialogue resists a ¡°priority of knowledge¡± and has an antecedence that points to the common origin of language and ethics. In my conclusion, I describe the resulting intersections and breaks and how a dialogue between Hegel and Levinas can be established against this background.