Thinking from the Margins: The Victims of History in Levinas and Metz

Abstract

The model of meaning that has prevailed in philosophy and theology is the Plotinian model of the unity of the One. Historically, this model of thinking ends up displacing the particular and establishing an essentially historicist, teleological model. Against this framing, this thesis claims that the suffering of the victims of history challenges thinking and obliges philosophy to respond. Grappling with the marginalization of the marginal in Western thinking, this research sets up a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy and Johann Baptist Metz’s political theology in order to learn from their thoughts on the suffering of the victims. In responding to suffering philosophy and theology can meet beyond idealism and dogmatism. The essential question of this research is how to give meaning to the concrete suffering of humanity in order to redeem history from the concept of an evolutionary progress which limits the possibility of hearing the cries of the victims of history. This approach will lead us to evaluate both thinkers in relation to the categories of reason, time, and theodicy.