Abstract:
This programmatic essay explores some of the challenges that a seemingly quintessential
European or Continental philosopher such as Levinas faces when his thought on alterity and on
the responsibility we bear towards the Other, is brought face-to-face with other (non-Western)
ways of thinking alterity and especially difference(s). Given the fact that Levinas‟s entire oeuvre
is dedicated to exposing the violent reductionism at work in Western philosophy, a colonizing
tradition par excellence that establishes its self-certainty by way of usurping anything and
everything that is other-than-itself, such an encounter seems critical. Yet, Levinas and his
thinking seem to be burdened with a number of inherent biases that severely compromise any possibility of dialogue. These include the fact that Levinas‟s notion of an abstract Alterity does
not account for differences; his undeniable Eurocentric bias and racist prejudice; and finally, the
irreconcilability of ethics and politics in this thinking. This essay attempts to address these
indictments head on an attempt to prepare the ground for future research that will endeavour to
stage an actual encounter between Levinas and his non-Western counterparts.
